Jittery marketing pioneers at big brands have chugged antacids, taken up yoga and updated their resumes as they await proof that their early forays into big-budget social media programs will be successful.

Quite frankly, it’s hard to hide from data-rich digital platforms like Facebook, which are increasingly hard wired into CRM databases or, scarier yet, the cash register. And the C-suite has made it clear they want to move the needle and marketing executives are at the very tipping point of success.

When the authors of a Harvard Business Review case study reported in March that they had proven a small chain of Texas dessert cafes was experiencing a business spike because of its consumer outreach on Facebook, marketers smartly took note.

In the piece, One Café Chain’s Facebook Experiment, Utpal M. Dholakia and Emily Durham revealed that fans of Houston-based Dessert Gallery visited the restaurants 20% more than non-fans, spending the highest share of their dining-out dollars there.  The finding: the long-term financial payoff of building a fan base far exceeded Dessert Café’s investment cost.

A month earlier, a similar eats-for-likes campaign had been launched by the Colorado-based bakery and quick service restaurant chain, Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc (disclosure: Einstein Bros Bagels is a client of my company).  Because Einstein Bros Bagels is publicly traded – under the apt NASDAQ ticker symbol BAGL – the company is required to share details of its financial performance each quarter with investors, so it’s not difficult to see the shmear on the wall.

A Bloomberg television interview on Feb. 8 disclosed Einstein’s inaugural campaign to distribute a coupon for a free bagel and cream cheese to every one of the brand’s Facebook fans. eMarketer’s social media analyst Debra Aho Williamson interviewed the company’s chief concept officer, James O’Reilly, who stated:

“The conversion rate we’re seeing in the Facebook-printed coupons is far greater than what we see in our regular printed coupons — well more than double our normal redemption rates,” O’Reilly said.

When the Bloomberg interview took place, Einstein was celebrating growth of its Facebook fan base from less than 4,000 to more than 300,000.  Based on the success of subsequent free bagel campaigns, through an application developed by Context Optional and promotion on Facebook, the fan base had grown to 600,000 by May.

How has Einstein’s business fared during the unprecedented bagel giveaway?  CEO Jeff O’Neill announced on May 6 that first quarter system-wide, same-store sales grew for the first time in five quarters.

“For the quarter, product innovation and creative promotions drove improvement in system-wide comparable sales and transactions, and we were pleased that consumers responded positively to our check building efforts despite intensifying competition in the breakfast daypart. We also improved our gross margins through our supply chain initiatives, and realized efficiencies in our manufacturing and store-level operations, which together facilitated 25.9% growth in adjusted net income for the period.”

On the quarterly Einstein Bros. analyst conference call, also on May 6, the enthusiasm that O’Reilly exhibited during the Bloomberg interview had not waned.

“Finally, on the advertising front, we placed a portion of our planned increased advertising investment in March and, just a few days ago, began our second national promotion on Facebook, which has already generated incredible buzz.  It provides a free bagel and cream cheese coupon to customers who choose to become a fan of Einstein Bros. on Facebook providing a significant base of customers we can market to directly and efficiently.  We already have more than a half a million fans on the Facebook network and expect this new effort to create even greater customer trial.”

In the same conference call, O’Reilly detailed the company’s multi-pronged strategy to bolster profits at the same time it was redeeming a large number of free bagel coupons.

“To counteract the check impact of our free bagel promotions, we implemented some check-building efforts, including the launch of two new, limited-time-only premium espresso drinks,” he said.

Based on its success using Facebook to boost Einstein’s fan base, brand awareness, in-store traffic, sales and profits — along with the company’s operational improvements and menu innovations — management told investors to expect an extension of this program in the months ahead.

“Looking forward, I know I speak for our entire team in saying we have the right strategies for delivering continued improvement in our comparable-stores sales performance throughout 2010 and will keep executing on what we already view as successful initiatives that are moving our business forward,” said O’Reilly.

It was my first trip to Austin so, naturally I wanted to explore how such a culturally alive gem of a city thrives in a state long identified for its conservative values.

After sharing beers with dozens of hip designers, filmmakers, artists, software developers and social media pros at a tweet-up last night, I caught a glimpse of the Texas State Capitol. That’s when when I vowed to do more than just attend SXSW while in town.

So I went to the daily newspaper’s website, Statesman.com, to familiarize myself with the area.  The top local story was about a murder suspect being sentenced to death.  That’s when I entered the term “lethal injection” into the site’s search box to see if recent legal challenges surrounding that form of execution had been resolved.

The search results weren’t what I expected.  In one of the stranger examples of poor ad word management, Amazon popped up at the top of the paid search rankings offering “low prices on Lethal injection.”   It’s probably great news for Texas which, like every other state, has a large budget gap to close.

Let me be the first to suggest Texas outsource its lethal injection program to Amazon.  They’ll even throw in free shipping.

Every industry has its own vocabulary.

“ANFO” was lingo I learned in my first PR agency job, writing a monthly column called “Shot Rock” for Pit & Quarry magazine.  My account was a commercial explosives business that had been spun off from DuPont, and ammonium nitrate was a mainstay for blasters.

At UPI, articles we promised to write for newspapers were called “skedders,” because they were scheduled ahead of time.

PR Newswire loved to refer to its clients’  heifers.  It was newsroom lingo for “HFR — Hold for Call.”  Nothing to do with cows.

So when I took on my first operating role since leaving PRN, I expected that I’d have to learn a new vernacular.  Context Optional, where I’m vice president, strategic accounts, has developed many of the most popular branded applications on Facebook. Clients include Clinique, Target, OpenTable, Microsoft and the U.S. Census Bureau.

I’m no newbie to Facebook. But it isn’t until you look beyond your “wall,” “news feed” and “live feed” that you realize how damn confusing the platform can be for anyone — let alone a brand — trying to harness the power of the medium as a way to attract and engage fans.

Facebook does have a sales team to work with deep-pocketed consumer brands.  Often, though, CMOs want to do more than advertise to create a tighter bond with online consumers.

That thirst for engaging content has created a nice business for the select few who understand the always-changing technical underpinnings of Facebook and the rules concerning user privacy and best practices.

The fact that Context Optional has earned the coveted “Facebook preferred developer” label is just a starting point.  It’s my job to bring my new colleagues’ API-driven creativity to those marketing and PR pros charged with attracting and retaining fans and followers, and to do it in a manner that achieves business goals and is culturally acceptable on Facebook.

So I’m learning about the differences between canvas applications and apps that live on tabs.  I’m diving into Facebook “boxes” and trying to understand why they are about to be discontinued.  And just when I was starting to forget about the investor relations profession’s nightmare transition to the financial reporting language XBRL, I am told that Facebook code is written in FBML.

Luckily, the fans of Einstein Bros Bagels don’t have to worry about any of that to get a coupon for a free bagel and schmear.  All they have to do is click on the “free bagel” tab.  My new employer has handled the back end integration with Facebook to make this special offer work.  My guess is that the fan base will soon be well north of today’s 22,000.

The 548,000 fans of Chanel were awarded this week with the option to download screensavers that display the time with two vividly recreated J12 timepieces.  Budget-wary teens were given a fun set of viral “Stop Me From Spending” tools.  Still other soon-to-launch apps are aimed at Valentine’s Day, the Vancouver Winter Olympics and even a mobile phone texting competition.

Needless to say, I am having a ball working with brands to creatively earn the right to have a relationship with consumers on the Facebook platform and beyond.  Just forgive me if I don’t yet know the difference between a poke and a nudge.

-0-

(Note:  I remain an active board member at dna13.)

“Take a penny leave a penny” is a welcome sign at cash registers.

Sadly, I’ve seen far fewer of these spare change jars as retailers would rather weigh my pockets down with 97 cents of change rather than giving up 3 cents that could go toward rent, workers, utility bills and suppliers.  The recession has clearly made even once-generous businesses of all sizes into penny pinchers.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to see this week’s innovative corporate social responsibility campaign from Pepsi.

In the first test of the philanthropic power of the GPS-based social network Foursquare, Pepsi is pledging 4 cents to the not-for-profit Camp Interactive for each point earned by Foursquare users.  The campaign encourages more iPhone , Blackberry and Android  users to “check in” with Foursquare all around town, all day, knowing that the pennies will add up.

What does Foursquare get out of the deal?  Thanks to a good cause and a deep-pocketed sponsor, Foursquare will experience a supercharged rate of entries to its database from users who log in their favorite hip bars, restaurants, coffee shops, health clubs and other venues.  In fact, I just added the New York Public Library’s new Grand Central branch to Foursquare (that’s 4 cents more, Camp Interactive).

Harnessing the excitement of consumer technology will continue to set innovative brands apart in 2010.  A few years ago another Pepsi brand, Dorito’s, was among the first to stage a YouTube-based contest for the funniest amateur ad, to be aired on the Superbowl.  Since the advent of inexpensive mini camcorders, like Cisco’s Flip and Kodak’s Zi series, it’s become affordable even for charities in third-world countries to create engaging content for global audiences.  (Nokia sponsored a contest around the crowd-sourced translation of those videos for the charity PlanUSA.org)

It took just one visit to the website of Camp Interactive, the Bronx-based youth program that mixes technology with outdoors activities, to see  another creative CSR linkage to another Fortune 500, Chase.

Unlike Pepsi’s decision to spend 4 cents at a time, Chase made its budget clear at the outset: $5 million.  Through a very smart Facebook application, the bank is using crowd-sourcing in a very different way.  Facebook users are rallying support for their favorite charities, and Chase will divvy up its $5 million based on that input.

The San Francisco-based social media agency Context Optional worked with Chase and is also behind super projects that highlight socially responsible programs for Toyota Prius, Target and ToysRUS.

As print and broadcast spending slows, CMOs appear to be channeling more resource into their community-giving outreach via social media.  Working with the New Jersey firm S3, coffee and tea maker GoodEarth is pledging 50% of its profits to charity through the end of February. The larger, Nasdaq-listed  Green Mountain Coffee, which uses the platform JustMeans for its responsibility program, is extremely active and global, making loans to hurricane-ravaged growers in Mexico and sponsoring river cleanup efforts closer to home.

With mass media atrophying and consumers refusing to be swayed by spin, it will become increasingly critical for organizations of all kinds — small and large businesses, associations, NGOs, political candidates, celebrities, etc. –  to demonstrate their commitment to doing good.  Professional communicators tuned into best practices will be far more likely to win new business, promotions and a seat at the table in this new paradigm.

Riders of elevators in New York City office buildings know what topics are trending on Twitter even before they fire up their computers each morning.

As legions of office workers scurry to their desks, the data they’re seeing on the Captivate elevator ad network is the same information driving editorial and sales decisions at a new consumer-driven online news network with a familiar name.

AOL is relaunching in December as an marketing-supported provider of original content in dozens of consumer and business markets. Unlike news products from Google and Yahoo, AOL is not simply aggregating articles from other news sites.

CEO Tim Armstrong plans to direct his growing team of employees and freelancers to write copy and create multimedia content based on what topics are drawing the largest amount of consumer attention at any given time. To hell with long tail, this play aims clearly at the head of the beast.

If executed well, Armstrong’s model will be appealing to brands that want their people, products and ideas to be included in relevant online content in real-time. The payback comes when the brands sponsoring timely articles and multimedia packages see better performance than current online advertising. The blowback, however, could happen if a brand’s desire to use the platform as an advertorial vehicle is not tempered effectively.

Advertorials and contextual adverising are not new business concepts. But uneasiness about polluting editorial content with paid information has kept them from scaling, beyond CNBC’s “Business of Innovation“ sponsored profile on IBM and a few similar efforts.

For decades in the news business, PR people and marketers have done the best they could to anticipate when topics will flare up in the media. At United Press International, where I cut my journalistic teeth, and later at PR Newswire, legendary features editor Fred Ferguson’s annual calendar (PDF) of “special sections” guided us to gather content just ahead of events and holidays.

Likewise, publishers prepare editorial calendars to make sure there’s ample bridal content to surround the inevitable bridal advertising that characterizes wedding-planning season, or Mother’s Day stories for late April. 

That long-lead material will be easy for Armstrong’s team to produce, with or without the sophisticated web-consumption algorithms and freelancer assignment site that are the secret sauce for the new AOL.

But it’s much harder to quickly build out credible, sponsored content around timely topics that could not be easily forecasted.

When Kanye West dissed Taylor Swift during the MTV Video Music Awards, it meant a glut of searches about the teenage crossover star and the rapper who loves Beyoncé. Social media chatter about the episode hockey-sticked first, followed quickly by entertainment news sites and mainstream broadcast and print media.

Some “breaking news” can be pre-packaged. There’s going to be two feet of snow in Buffalo any day now, so why not hit up Goodyear for a sidebar on snow tires?  Likewise, food poisoning outbreaks are happening like clockwork these days, so Seattle attorney Bill Marler has developed a formula for getting his name into the hands of media and victims’ families within hours.

If AOL can systemetize and monetize this “PounceNow” approach to marketing, it will become a welcome source of income for writers, photographers and videographers displaced in the old media Armageddon.  They’d welcome hearing the familiar AOL voice over their computer speakers saying, “You’ve Been Hired.”

Don’t let the mustard-colored sports coat fool you.  Tom Kunz is one hip CEO.

As head of Cenury 21 Real Estate LLC, Kunz is in an industry that’s being disintermediated by the Internet      and ravaged by the recession.  Yet I have never met a more positive, open-minded and technology-friendly executive.

What does he do right:

• He’s not afraid to experiment. Century 21 pulled its TV advertising budget and spent the cash to bolster its presence online. Kunz says brand recognition for the franchise was already in the high 90s, so there was no reason to spend millions on 30- and 60-second image spots.  The company is contemplating a switch back to TV, but it would be a web-based format where Century 21 branding was visible at all times on the screen.

• He understands the time-sensitive nature of news. When Congress extended incentives aimed at first-time homebuyers, Kunz dropped what he was doing to record a 2 minute presentation on a tiny, inexpensive Flip video camera. His comments were up on Century 21’s YouTube channel within minutes.  As of today, the video had been watched nearly 1,700 times.
• He takes counsel from Matt Gentile, Century’s 21’s director of corporate and brand communications. In an interview with PR Week’s Eric Iacono, during the Next conference, Kunz talked about making media outreach in local markets a priority.  By incorporating interviews with local print and broadcast media into trips, and inviting local Century 21 franchisees to participate, the organization lands extended coverage rather than the short soundbites afforded by national media.
• He doesn’t hoard good information. While many CEOs would stay silent about marketing strategies, Kunz is a walking dictionary definition for transparency, even sharing his age (61) with the crowd.  As for naysayers, he advises them to watch the AT&T  “Lost Dog” YouTube spot to explain power of social media.

I also liked Tom’s ability to be self-effacing in a manner that seemed genuine:  “I’m a gadget freak,” he told those attending the Next event at the Waldorf Astoria. “It doesn’t mean I know how to use them all, but I buy them all.”

Tom was kind enough to do a short interview with me following his appearance at Next. Please excuse my camera work, as his head is halfway out of the frame for portions of the video.  Yet another reason I never worked in TV.

By Alice Fong,

Business Editor, The Ticker

On Oct. 15, four leaders in the public relations industry spoke in a panel dubbed “The Changing Dynamics of Public Relations” at Baruch College. The event was streamed live and Twitter comments were projected in real time.

The industry leaders described how the public relations industry has changed, and the course it will take moving forward.

The conference was hosted by Baruch MarkLab, a resource center that connects Baruch students and marketing industry professionals.

The panel discussion was webcast live and open to Twitter comments and live feedback from the audience.

Dave Armon, former president of PR Newswire, a provider of information distribution services, moderated the panel.

The panelists reflected on the change that the public relations industry is currently undergoing.

“Change is tough for everybody,” said Jeff Gluck, a leader in external communications for the General Business division of IBM, “The industry is going through tremendous change right now.”

He cited the recent sale of BusinessWeek magazine to Bloomberg LP.

Gluck remembered receiving public relations information through the mail. Now the public relations industry has moved to the web.

“Digital communications is name of the game,” said Don Middleberg, founder and CEO of Middleberg Communications, “my clients would rather be in BusinessWeek.com than in BusinessWeek.”

Yet mainstream media still has “an extraordinary amount of influence in catalyzing the conversation,” said Peter Himler, founder and principal of the New York media consulting firm Flatiron Communications LLC.

A provocative business story in mainstream media reverberates in the public.

This news in mainstream media is seemingly magnified through Twitter. Twitter functions in a similar way to PR Newswire or Business Wire for companies.

It allows knowledgeable individuals to disseminate information to interested parties.

“Now, it’s not about mass; it’s about niche,” said Middleberg. “Employees can become ambassadors and take that load off of the internal communications department,” said Himler.

This is a change from how information in the public relations business used to flow. “PR people played an integral role between the newsmaker and the news reporter,” said Himler, “it was always top down.” Public relations would work with their clients to make sure that they advanced their media agenda.

Now the content on blogs and Twitter feeds bypass the media filter.

“All of a sudden, the newsmaker has a voice in what ends up in editorial domain,” said Himler, “People’s media consumption habits have changed…it’s no longer top down.”

However, the goals of companies have not changed. “Every company, every institution still wants its brand in the media,” said Himler, “only the means to that end have changed.”

Technology, such as Google news alerts, now enables public relations companies to follow what people were saying about their clients. Bill Southard, founder and CEO of Southard Communications, is active in trying to understand what is going on with the company’s clients.

“We’ll do ongoing competitive analysis for our clients,” he said.

Public relations started in the early 1900s with “press agents,” paid individuals who tried to influence journalists for various interests. This sparked the rivalry between public relations people and journalists.

Middleberg suggested that the public relations industry is a great business.

“It’s a great opportunity to come in and be a sharp, smart strategist right now,” said Middleberg.

To succeed in public relations, Gluck suggested hard work and preparedness.
“Be selective about whom you follow, and read tweets that interest you,” said Middleberg. He looked for academic leadership and intellectual curiosity.

“Think about your resume and what’s going to ‘pop’ there,” said Himler. “Go out and play with these [web] tools, then put them on your resume,” said Himler.

Personal branding is also very important in the business. “You can’t stand too many bad stories that are your doing,” said Gluck. Students should aim for “a brand of integrity, a brand that stands for something,” said Middleberg.

Middleberg offers an internship to Baruch students at his firm, Middleberg Communications, on what he calls “McDonald’s wages.”

The panelists cited paid or unpaid internships as a way for interested students to get a foot through the public relations door.

The media execs attending lunch at the Paley Center for Media Tuesday seemed relieved that they could take a break from watching their P&L’s get jackhammered by scrappy new entrants with tiny cost structures.

Not that the topic of conversation at this week’s schmoozefest, “The Great Digital Debate: Free vs. Paid Content,” was much of a diversion.

The biggest guffaws came when media futurist Shelly Palmer likened the media industry’s focus on free-versus-paid content to worrying about what song the band was playing aboard the Titanic.

The CEO of National Public Radio, Vivian Schiller, sounded a shrill warning for news organizations who might be tempted to begin charging for their content on the Internet.

While acknowledging the difference between NPR’s charter, which prohibits charging for content, and commercial journalism, Schiller said pay walls demonstrated “elitistm” and threatened to alienate the very audiences with which media organizations should be engaging.

Steve Brill, the founder of American Lawyer and CourtTV, now runs Journalism Online. He dismissed criticism of his latest company’s business goal — to provide publishers with mechanisms through which they can charge for content.

Brill asserted that no news organizations have been able to survive on advertising alone, saying that publishers have always had to balance circulation revenue with advertising and other factors to arrive at the right mix.  One example he gave was the free magazines provided to passengers on the Delta Shuttle, on which hundreds of thousands of well-heeled business passenger have flown for years.  While readership could easily be puffed up through such giveaway programs, there was a price to pay on the subscription side of the business.

Commodity content — weather, lottery numbers and roughly 90% of the material most news organizations present on their web sites — would not be good candidates for subscriptions, cautioned Brill.  The other 10% could command a fee, and Brill claimed to have received 1,200 inquiries from “affiliates” eager to begin charging.

A video of the entire discussion was added today to the Paley Center website.

I don’t expect diversity in the New York supermarket business.  Rightly or wrongly, I have long associated chains like D’Agostino and Gristede’s as places managed by brawny Italian-American men.

In the public relations professions, the spotlight has been shining on the lack of adequate representation by non-male, non-white personnel for quite some time.  Similar criticism — and in some cases, litigation — has been lodged against the advertising and financial services industries.

But the world has changed since Don Draper types ruled on Madison Avenue, right?  Surely, the next generation of technology-driven marketing services would be led by people who more closely resemble those who live in our global communities where our clients sell their wares.

If the speakers and attendees at last week’s Inbound Marketing Summit in suburban Boston were an accurate sampling of who’s guiding us through the transformation from command-and-control “push” marketing to online and offline consumer “engagement” by brands, the answer is no.  The vast majority of those behind the books, speeches, opinions, videos and business models showcased at #IMS09 were  white males, mainly in their 30s and 40s.

One exception was Candace Fleming, CEO of the social media analytics platform Crimson Hexagon.  Another was Tina Hoang, whose Palo Alto, Calif., venture capital firm was trolling the event for companies to back.

While at PR Newswire,  where I worked from 1989 until recently, one of our overarching goals was building a healthy corporate culture and products that represented the needs of our communities.  Key to our success was attracting and retaining talent of all shapes, sizes, colors, orientations, religions and ethnicities.  The many postage stamp-sized images of my former PRN colleagues I see on Facebook each day confirms that we made plenty of progress.

Why is this important?

Census data from 2008 shows 54% of the U.S. population will be 54 percent minority groups — that is “everyone except non-Hispanic, single-race whites” — by the mid-21st century.  Professions that continue to rely on pale, male and stale people, practices and ideas are much more likely to be irrelevant.

One recent research paper on the topic, Elizabeth L. Toth’s  “Diversity and Public Relations Practice,” outlined the challenge for our profession.  Organizations like the Public Relations Society of America and the Institute for Public Relations have dedicated resources to address the issue.  But traditional PR agencies and corporate communications functions are morphing into new entities so quickly, it’s questionable how much impact the longtime industry standard bearers will have influencing the fledgling inbound marketing field.

There is  plenty of wildly successful marketing work being done in Africa, Asia, Europe and in the Americas using digital tools and creative  ideas from people who have never written a book or proclaimed themselves social media experts.  Events like the the trends-and-technologies Pop!Tech conference, in Camden, Maine, Oct. 21-24, have a broad roster of philanthropic doers who are glad to share their successes and failures with PR and marketing pros who want to learn new skills.

For people without thousands of dollars to spend on conferences like Pop!Tech and TED, last week’s Inbound Marketing Summit was well worth the time and investment.  I’d love to see next year’s event held in Indonesia, Argentina or Tunisia.  If not there, at least invite some of their digital marketing superstars to visit Boston.