PAY PER VOTER – Unusual Politics – could performance based media overturn polling of current leaders?

PAY PER VOTER – Unusual Politics – could performance based media overturn polling of current leaders?

Will Paying for Voter Action Rather than Gross Media Spending Be the New Measuring Stick for Political Campaigns?

 

Pay Per Voter Action

With less than 20 days left until the gubernatorial election, tens of millions of political campaign dollars will be spent in last minute media purchases. The hope is to sway voter favor to the political candidate of choice by flooding the market with the most media. Ironically, over 65-80% of political spending is ineffective and will not reach most voters or drive polling results, as a consensus among top brand managers. Political campaigns are now embracing pay per voter action also referred to as pay per performance marketing as an effective means to reach and engage registered voters, prior to their campaign dollars running out. According to McKinsey Research, “Multi-channel marketing can increase effective consumer reach by 200-400%”.

Given the growing trend in tracking voter actions in relation to a campaign’s media spend, Adreka announced today the launch of their Pay for Voter Action Platform. “This is the first pay for performance media platform designed for the political space,” says project manager Alicia Armstrong. Adreka measures voter engagement by tracking voter actions directly related to a campaign’s traditional and social media interactions which include phone calls of donors and volunteers. Moreover, Adreka’s platform also engages online influencers (those having a large online following), from Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and localized political blogs. The goal is to create voter action that is predictable and measurable in our clients favor, says John Cataldi, Media ROI Evangelist for Adreka Advertising. 

Adreka’s, Pay Per Action Political Platform works by 1) understanding what is really important to the majority of the voting populous through social analytics; 2) creating and syndicating relevant media across TV, Radio, Internet, Social Media, and Mobile Media; and 3) measuring what media channels are effectively affecting voter options. The end result is a political media campaign that only allocates media spending on the media that sways polls into the candidate’s favor. As an added benefit, many voters responding to Adreka’s political adverts can be legally tracked and marketed to via their mobile device and social media network.  Depending on the campaign, costs can run from $10-$250 per voter action. “I have seen Adreka in action; this type of political and media convergence is a game changer for any election”, says leading political consultant, Gabe Winslow.

Not understanding how the media conversions can be directly correlated to voter response is prevalent even in campaign watchdog groups. Ross Johnson, Chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission of California stated, “More campaign spending means greater influence. To believe otherwise, is to presume that candidates for public office live in a cave”. According to Cataldi, “If political campaigns were compared to corporations with similar media spends; the end result would be the destruction of most top brands. Ross Johnson is correct in that more spend equates to more media, but an effective spend can outperform an opposing campaign by a factor of 10x. I believe that the future of not only political, but all media spending will be measured on performance and end result, anything less is a waste of dollars and time.”

 

About Adreka, Inc.
Adreka provides the leading media monitoring and engagement platform for marketing, communications and customer support professionals. The company's new digital listing technologies allows the monitoring of all forms of social media, mobile, and traditional media, with a heavy emphasis on analytics, predictability, and media effectiveness. Visit www.Adreka.com, call 678-804-7144, or email sales@adreka.com for more information.

About John Cataldi

An avid technophile, serial entrepreneur, and media spokesperson, John Cataldi is the CEO of Adreka, an open media exchange to allow agencies and advertisers to target, create, syndicate, and track their traditional and interactive advertising. Visit www.JohnCataldi.com for more information.

Rekindling the past,  I raised $1,000,000 using just Social Media

Rekindling the past, I raised $1,000,000 using just Social Media

Raising 1 million dollars social media

Post mortem of “dot com bomb”, I raised almost $1,000,000 using Social Media With a staff of 2, we spent our days and nights on bulletin boards, dating sites, directories, and even ICQ (old school chat). The end result, we received investment dollars as close as Atlanta and as far away as the Netherlands. It was an experience that I will never forget, and will hopefully attempt to repeat, just not in my living room, and at a larger dollar amount. 

Being a little older now, and a veteran within the social space, with over 16 years of internet media, with 6 of those years engaged in social media, I have a new vision, revenues, and an operating organization that I plan to take to the next level. Moreover, the archaic nature of yesteryear’s socialscape has greatly changed, as have the proliferation of more affluent users and ways to communicate. With that said I just completed my private placement (legal documentation to raise capital), filed my corporate taxes, and I am about to charge to the world of angel capital.

The project will perfect the art of automated social listening, consumer individualistic engagement, and social mobilization, on an unprecedented scale.

The practical applications such a technology are endless from putting butts in seats at a baseball game, generating political activism, real time polling, and even fund raising. 

Considering that my corporate strategy involves the identification, create engagement, and socially mobilize consumers, targeting angel investors should be easy.. or at least I will keep telling myself that until I believe it to be true… LOL. 

I will add a social funding widget to my blog, so you and I can keep track of my progress over the next 90 days. So raising a few million dollars in angel capital, doubling last years revenues, and doing it on a shoe string budget… yea, it sounds like an idea that could only come together on a Friday as I stare into the devilish eyes of Q4. 

Happy Friday, John 

Why was TuCows Out to Pasture during their Networks Massive, Mal-ware attack?

Could a Stock Buyback of 2.9 million shares be a factor in TuCow’s Slow Response?

TuCows (NYSE AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) , out in the pasture?!  With possibly 6M consumers affected my Malware spread through popular web portals, ground zero for the Malware attacks came from a known vulnerability in OpenX’s Ad server. Among the affected carriers, TuCows, Pirate Bay, ESarcasm And AfterDawn among the effected carriers. According to Web security vendor Dasient, an estimated 1.6M ads may have been served daily. According to Adreka social analytics, appearances of social reports, earmarking the malware attack may have started as early as the over the past 96 hours, and may have begun it’s proliferation as easily as midnight, 11th of September 2010.

CyberInsecure reported that the malicious code was being loaded from external domains registered to an address in Russia and was targeted the Microsoft Windows Help Center vulnerability patched earlier this year, the successful exploitation led to a variant of the Bredolab trojan being installed on the victim’s computer. This threat is known a distribution platform for rogue antivirus programs.

TuCows general manager, Andy Walker, confirmed for ParetoLogic that the incident was the result of hackers compromising the OpenX server used by the company to deliver ads. “We detected the intrusion, patched the vulnerability in OpenX and resolved the issue quickly,” the company representative noted. According to Adreka’s Social Monitoring, the OpenX vulnerability issue was known as early as May, 2010, as reported by dozens of active OpenX communities, programmers, and malware boards.

Moreover, less than 12 hours ago, my attempts to access the TuCow’s main site and affiliate pages resulted in AVG halting my systems infection. So exactly why was the largest software company in North America, out to pasture when their systems, webmasters, and millions of consumers were being affected by a massive malware attack?

Granted it a cow’s top speed, is 5.5 mph, so TuCow’s should get there in ½ the time? – LOL

As a question, NOT AS AN ACQUISITATION, could the deadline for TuCow’s slow response come in the wake of the company trying to push their existing investor base to sell 2.9 million shares back to the company in a Dutch auction, what expires on September 17th 2010? According to their own financial release, dated September 9th 2010, TuCow’s  intends to commence a modified “Dutch auction” tender offer to repurchase up to 2,900,000 shares of common stock, representing approximately 5.1% of Tucows’ outstanding shares. The tender offer is expected to commence on Friday, September 17, 2010 and to expire, unless extended, at 5:00 P.M., New York City Time, on Tuesday, October 19, 2010. Tucows also announced that it has terminated its normal course issuer bid commenced in February 2010 pursuant to which Tucows has repurchased 3,409,300 shares of common stock.

As a past investment banker and now current media evangelist, you have to ask the question, unless their technology team was completely out to pasture, could long term financial gain been the catalyst for a Cow Speed Response, in relation for all other systems effected?

Tucows Ad Malware Mishap, May Affect Million of Computers, and Shake Consumer Trust!

Digital Social Listening Detects a Global Attack of One of the Webs Largest Software Sites!

Reports began coming in September 14th that TuCow’s (AMEX: TCX) may have been affected via Ad Malware from blog sphere reports as detected by Adreka, Inc, using social digital listing tools. Tucows (originally an acronym for The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software, a name which has long since been dropped) has been is one of the few companies that survived the destruction of the dot bombs, only to now fall victim to a new enemy, 3rd party malware, which their systems are, at this moment, currently distributing, possibly either undetected or not being discussed by their management given their publicly traded status. At this hour, the company has not made any statements, shutdown their Ad Servers, or hosting network.

Compounding the danger,  TwoCows is perhaps best known for its popular website directory of shareware, freeware, and demo software packages available to download. A system of mirror sites is maintained to allow the traffic to the site to be distributed among several worldwide server locations. The 3rdparty Malware may have effected it’s an extensive reseller network, which services over ten million domain names, millions of mailboxes for a network of over 10,000 web hosts, ISPs (Internet Service Providers), and other resellers around the world. It can only be speculated that in the past 48 hours, TuCows, may have inadvertently infected millions of computers of Windows visitors to their software, email, and associated websites though a vendibility exploited via a 3rd party advert being served across TuCow’s entire network. The exploit will download and run a malicious file, a variant of the Bredolab Trojan. Upon execution it will unpack its code and try to connect to various remote addresses through the HTTP protocol for downloading and executing other Trojans, which results in a pop up frenzy of advertisements then usually fake antivirus or antispyware scanners (like PC Antispyware 2010). This potentially leads to a second problem of potential credit card fraud.

This is not the first time we see a high-traffic website being used to distribute malware. The bad guys always go for Achilles’ heel, and what looks like an innocuous advert can trigger a wave of nasties. This is why for networks big and small, third-party advertisements must be verified carefully, otherwise this is the kind of things that can happen. Though the lack of response, admittance, or lack of actions on behalf of TuCow’s is very unsettling. As of this evening TuCow’s systems still remain affected with the Malware spreading, and TuCow’s traffic base is exponentially decreasing as virus scanners and web browsers begins to alert web traffic of the potential danager.  As a publicly traded company, news travels from the social sphere, to consumers, to Wall Street fast than most think.

Twitter’s Tweet 2 Txt, Great Concept… Just Poorly Implemented

Damn You Twitter SMS for Getting My Hopes Up!

I was experimenting with twitter’s tweet to mobile platform, and what started out as a great user experience, quickly turned into a reenactment of Laurel and Hardy famous 1927, Who’s on First. Like ICQ, Apple, Friendster, YouTube, and even Google, started with a simple user experience and heavy beta testing prior to releasing their “non-beta” version of their products.

In a world so socially connected, incredibly impatient, and highly competitive, there is rarely a second change for those that perform poorly of a better alternative. Luckily for twitter, very few companies are in the position to compete well, with the exception of the notables in the social space, Facebook, Google Buzz, etc.

So, this was my great Tweet to Short Message Service (SMS) experience…..

Me (John Cataldi): I texted “JohnCataldi to 40404”

Twitter: Johncataldi Welcome to Twitter! Reply with SIGNUP to begin. Already on Twitter? Reply with your USERNAME. (Std msg rates apply. Reply with HELP for more)

Me: SignUp

Twitter: Great! You just need a username. This is how you’ll be known on Twitter. Reply w/ the username you want to use. (max 15 characters, no spaces, like Tweetie113)

Me: Johncataldi

Twitter: Johncataldi is taken ( Is it yours? Reply w/ ITS MINE How about Johncataldi1? Reply w/ YES if that works, or a different username you want to use.

Me: It’s mine

(This is where my personal Twitter/ SMS train wreck was about to begin…. my Iphone, Iscrewed the text by auto correcting the spelling, and added the ‘s to “it’s”, instead if “Its”)

Twitter: It’s mine is taken ( Is it yours? Reply w/ ITS MINE How about Mine327? Reply w/ YES if that works, or a different username you want to use.

Twitter: Hi, @Mine. Reply w/ your password to register this phone to your Twitter account. (Password is case sensitive! Phone may capitalize the 1st letter)

Me: Ahhhhhhhh no

Twitter: Oops! That password is not correct, try again. Reply w/ your password. Forgot your password? Go to twitter.com to recover it.

Me: No not mine… JohnCataldi

Twitter: Oops! That password is not correct, try again. Reply w/ your password. Forgot your password? Go to twitter.com to recover it.

Me: JohnCataldi

Twitter: Oops! That password is not correct, try again. Reply w/ your password. Forgot your password? Go to twitter.com to recover it.

Me: JohnCataldi

Me: JohnCataldi

Twitter: (And then the Twitter Whale Grew Silent, never to txt me again)

In a perfect world the application would have worked flawlessly! However in my world, I am guilty of texting while driving, during on a conference, with sticky thumbs from my latte, in the midst of changing lanes, and pondering if I can reach my notebook in the back seat. So I am sure, a tiny bit of the error may have been with me….. BUT, “The Twitter”… LOL, should have given me a reset button… a newbie mobile mistake… which bring me to John’s 10 rules of mobile development.

John’s 10 Rules for Mobile Marketing and Application Development

1) Most phone platforms have specific testing tools included in the (System Developer’s Kits), which makes it easy to install, run, and TEST your applications.

2) Always test your application on top carriers and mobile platforms. Does that mean you have to go out and by a crap ton of phones on multiple carriers, No! You can use mobile emulators to get you 99% of the way there, though I would highly suggest heavy beta testing using the android, iphone, and blackberry devices. The auto text correcting MAY cause a large % or your users to curse your name, but this would have been missed by an emulator.

3) AVOID ANY SYSTEM RESPONSES THAT IS MORE THAN ONE WORD <<<OR>>> THAT TRIGGERS MY FREAKEN AUTO-SPELLER TO ADD IN AN APOSTROPHE!

4) Never go over 160 characters, at least not in 2010. First, if you have more to say, use the phone…. Hmmm, I don’t know…AS A PHONE! Secondly, some phones can do extended text but this is achieved by stringing 3 normal messages together giving you a total of 480 charcters, what you may not know is that the recipients carrier (your customer) and your mobile gateway (your mobile service provider) will charge both of you as if they were 3 messages, which is good for AT&T, bad for anyone not on a unlimited texting plan. Moreover, If you push your client over their mobile limit, your customer could be charges $0.20 per text message, which may not seem like much… but it adds up quick.

5) Everyone needs a “GET OUT OF APPLICATION HELL CARD”, so as part of the system auto-response, I would have said…

Twitter: Oops! That password not correct, try again. Reply w/your password. Forgot your password? Go to twitter.com to recover it. Reply w/RESTART to restart the session”

As exampled above, we are still at the standard SMS is 160 characters, and it gives your consumer the coveted out.

6) Don’t do MMS (multimedia messages), as a mass marketing tool, at least not yet. Yes, MMS is cute, and I love getting them… ok, not really, but I love sending them by the tens of thousands, so no MMS’s please, but unlike SMS, there is no standard for MMS cross carrier, which means that a majority of your MMS messages may not be delivered, cut off, distorted, or sent to the user as a downloadable link. This means if they do not have a smart phone, with web browsing capabilities, they may have to wait until they get home to download via the carrier’s website. But if you’re set on MMSing the masses, do it by carrier, and in this case, purchase a phone from each carrier for testing.

7) Always make it EASY to opt-out of the database. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION KGB.com, once I opt-out of your database your dead to me, there is no reason to be a clingy, creepy, text stalking, ex-girl friend.

8 ) NEVER, EVER SELL YOUR DATABASE! I don’t care what your terms of conditions say, your consumer will always agree with them, because they NEVER read them. Anyway with that said, the mobile phone is sacred, if you upset your consumer and they find out it’s you, it does not take a rocket scientist to know regardless if your legally right, you’re going to kill your brand name and most likely your revenues from your consumer base virally spreading your bad reputation via their mobile device. Moreover, it’s going to harm those that do mobile marketing illegitimately.

9) Have at least 5 people read your test message before you send it out. Depending on age, gender, and a few other factors, your message could get a giggle at your expense.

“OMG, M8 u 1, a drwing 2mro 4, 4 tix 2 Ldy Gaga, b 10th 2 call…..”

Did someone go to the wiki SMS short code directory and attempt to text SMSease? The scary thing is that this message was actually sent to over 3,500 listeners!

10) Lastly, less is more. There is no need to text your customer base 3x a day, not only will they get upset, but your message loses its effectiveness and sincerity.

There are many other things that can be done to grow your mobile database exponentially, but we’ll leave that for another day. If you liked the article, please feel free to comment, use, and share the knowledge.

All the best, John

Apple IPhone 4.1 OS May Cause Mass Data Loss… Oops they did it again

Apple IPhone 4.1 OS May Cause Mass Data Loss… Oops they did it again

First, before your yell at me for being hater of Apple, I own a MAC and an Iphone (several of them), but I just can’t take once more instance of my IPhone turning into an IBrick!

According to Apple’s website, the iOS 4.1 Software Update brings Game Center, new iTunes features, high dynamic range photography, and more to iPhone, what they don’t tell you is that it could also lead to the loss of your contacts!

Apple known for user intuitiveness has lost ground once again with its latest 4.1 OS upgrade of the Iphone / Ipad, which in many instances has overwritten / deleted the contact files of the iphone.

Moreover, it has been reported that then syncing the phone to your Mac or PC, will then overwrite your back up. Over one thousand consumer iPhone rants were found in the socialscape throughout North America, which the number of instances seems to be building momentum since the release date.

When Apple was asked to comment on the matter, they stated that “there does exist the possibility that if you don’t upgrade from your computer all your contacts are located could be lost!” Moreover, the Apple spokesperson began reflecting on how many times she lost data on the coveted Apple device. Geeze, do you think that should be a BIG RED FREAKEN WARNING SOMEPLACE!

My advice, WAIT BEFORE ANY MAJOR APPLE UPGRADE, until 4.1.1 comes out. Apple is aware of the oppsy, but in their attempts to gain ground prior to the Christmas season in the battle of the cell phones, they are throwing consumers under the bus, for the potential gain of mass profit. As a result, several active IPhone influencers & social evangelists are switching sides. Good for Google, bad for Apple, especially in this latest issue goes mainstream.

What happened to the Apple we once knew that created outstanding products without cutting corners?

Please leave a comment, subscribe, and syndicate – Cheers, John

PS – My blog is under construction… so please pardon this ugly mess… but I really wanted to get this out!

CRAP…. Did I forget to market my own corporate event?

My B2B marketing event was barely saved by social media….  but I did learn a few things concerning last minute B2B social mobilization

Last night I hosted the “Atlanta Marketing Executives Forum” at the W Hotel. As a novel twist to a normally closed presentation, and to test the value of my own social network, I decided to only advertise the event electronically via Social Media. Ok, the truth be told, I had the wrong date in my head, I did not get physical invitations out in time, nor did we have time to run an outbound telemarketing campaign, and physically advertise within any traditional publication like the Atlanta Business Chronicle , etc.,  to insure butts in seats, so in essence I was screwed, not to mention the thoughts in my head of how to explain last minute equipment purchases, travel expenses, and 50 pounds of catered food  to be found in the company refrigerator the next day, but you did not hear that from me.

So with 96 hours to do, and NO RSVPs, I was a little stressed, plus I already had a lot on my plate, so I embraced a rapid plan tap into my social network. So within a limited period of time, we placed event notices on over 20 different social networks, Tweeted to over 2,500 B2B friends, and emailed 8,000+ market makers and brand managers.  I was actually amazed at what I discovered.

MeetUp converted by far as the best physical medium for mobilizing 12 attendees into a physical space. However, the qualifications of over 80% in attendance were suspect as potential clients of the agency, though I think we found a new employee.  This medium also cost the most, given hard costs such as people, equipment, catering, room rental, etc.

My linked-In network of over 1,000 executives, delivered 1 person, which I thought would convert the best, yielded the best qualified lead, which actually drove an hour to attend the event.

My 1,957 Twitter friends, in conjunction with live conference streaming via UStream, yielded 21 live viewers that were engaged for 1 hour, moreover 10 viewers remained online listening to our side rants post conference, including a VP of MGM, a brand manger from Toyota, and one of my board members. There were also 9 questions that came to me through twitter concerning the subjects in the presentation.

Facebook was by far the largest disappointment, given that their event marketing got a lot of clicks, but 0 conversions.

Anyway the best lesson learned from last minute event marketing:

1)      Though social media turned lemons into bitter-sweet lemonade, NEVER wait until the last minute to plan an event. It makes you look cheap, ill prepared, and rushed.

2)      Social media plays its best role, when used in conjunction with other mediums to fill your venue.

3)      Always broadcast the physical venue WITH a link to either download the presentation, or use GotoMeeting or like service, so people can follow along from the comfort of their own home, office, country, etc. J

4)      Always give your virtual views a way to interact. May it be Twitter, SMS, IMs, Chat, emails, or even a multitude of options.

5)      And as a golden rule, ALWAYS FOLLOW UP. Even if there were not a qualified lead, they did show up. In the world that is now socialized, you never know who they know, so never burn a bridge. Everyone who gives you their time deserves to be treated as a VIP, or at the very least, a thank you card.

I promise I will never to that again…. This year… LOL, Cheers, John

Airline Social Strategy – Marketing to the Irate Traveler

Airline Social Strategy – Marketing to the Irate Traveler

Socially Catering Airline Passengers and Brand Loyalty in the World of Social and Mobile Media

Lost Airline Brand Loyalty

Missed Connection, Missed Opportunity to Positively Socially Connect with Airline Brand

Can this really be happening to you?! After you waited 45 minutes on the tarmac, just to be moved to another plane that did not have enough flight crew, which caused a you to have an overnight stay in a in a connecting city that you had no desire to stay in, without luggage, and no cell phone charger. To make matters worse, you now have to wait in line behind the other 80 people that missed their connection, with only two customer service agents that have no authority to do anything other than give you a card to call customer service (that happened to have closed 15 minutes prior to you calling). This makes you have to rearrange your other flight plans for the week, because you now have to re-schedule tomorrow’s $500,000+ client presentation (with one power bar left on my phone) which you will now have to fly to them as opposed to them meeting them at your office.  This has probably put you in a very bad place… at least in mind and temperament. Ok, I could be projecting my most recent airline encounter.

Yet, I know I am not alone. With over 2 billion airline flights worldwide each year, it is estimated that 15-25% of flights are delayed, with 2.5% of airline flights canceled (Source AirlineComplaints.org & NY Daily Journal). In travel requiring multiple connections, an additional 2-6% of airline passenger flights are missed do to carrier connection delays in which the first carrier was late on arrival causing the air traveler to miss their connecting flight (U.S. Department of Transportation).  Additionally, flights missed outside of the airports ability to control, 7% of consumer missed flights is self inflicted by the consumer not giving themselves enough time to arrive to the airport to handle all the eccentricities’ of travelling in a post 911 world.

For the airlines marketing brand, ironically, and to the airlines dismay, fault, in today’s socially interconnected world of Facebook, YouTube, UStream and the 250+ other social networking communities, is 90% of the time blamed on the airline (Adreka Social Analysis – Airline Industry). In 2010, within the social sphere, over 2.8 million blog entries depicting a strong dislike or bad airline experience has been reported since January of 2009 (Adreka Social Analytics). Given that the average social account averages 130 friends / syndicated connections, the net influence of an airlines brand name is potentially muddied in the eyes of 364 million future customers.

So what can the airlines do in the way of brand strategy to take the sting out of the consumer’s temperament and still maintain the bottom line?

The Reactive Airline Marketing Response

  1. The frontline of an airlines brand defense is to know your customer!  Give real time support, anywhere! Most customers just want access to quick information, to questions like where’s my gate, and is my flight on time. If a problem arises, over 90%+ of customers want to vent yell at someone. We want to feel that we are heard and understood. Given empathy and understanding is a majority of the battle. Peer to Peer (P2P) communication via teleconference is the easiest way to deploy massive, centralized, and real-time customer support over the footprint of X major airlines, servicing on average X hubs domestically, Y worldwide.
  2. Create a positive outcome, syndicated brand strategy –  Problems will always arise, you’re your organization handles crisis as it occurs will define your brand socially. Whether it be voice, video, or an online chat, record and socialized the consumers end result – they are already going to talk about it on their facebook page, beat them to the punch and turn a consumer question, or resolved issue into a marketing opportunity.

The Proactive Airline Marketing Response

  1. Monitor and engage all social media. There are over 500K new blogs posts daily, with approximately 5% being travel related, allows ample opportunity for an airline to measure, monitor, engage and positively re-enforce brand daily.
  2. Create Tools and Mediums to better foster proactive communication. P2P in customer service kiosks, Iphone / Ipad apps, 24/7 customer service lines, allow the customer to be engaged early, prior to their issue being turned into a negative experience and shared with prospective future customers through socialization.
  3. Provide automated or real person follow up dependent upon the severity of the situation. Reaching out to your customers, post a rectified bad customer experience, adds an additional layer of we care.

Airlines that implement a portion of the strategy points above will have in essence an unfair competitive advantage over those that ignore the socialization of their consumers negative travel experiences. Not to mention, it any of the above airline brand strategy steps would have turned my negative experience into a positive story about an airline that had a unified brand and loyalty program. Because of my negative airline experience, I was able to create a real world case study with a simple solution that I will potentially save the airlines tens of millions of dollars in brand loyalty loss, and provide consumers everywhere with a better travel experience. I believe I just proved capitalism and karma can co-exist!

Happy travels to where ever your final destination may take you – John Cataldi – The Real Mad Man

Social Media Absolves Michael Jackson’s Controversial Life

Positive Online Popularity Grows for the King of Pop by 3000%

Singer-Songwriter, choreographer, producer, businessman and philanthropist, Michael Jackson was undoubtedly the “King of Pop”, with the height of his popularity spanning over 3 generations, and through social media, a fourth generation is now re-discovering this now resting entertainment giant.

Jackson’s mega-stardom that began from childhood was over shadowed by decades of mounting controversy that started in the 1980s. His flamboyant lifestyle, radical changes in physical appearance, allegations of sexual misconduct, questionable mental state, drug abuse, and deteriorating financial condition pushed Jackson into a self-imposed seclusion from the media.

From June 25th to July 11th 2009, upon the announcement Jackson’s death, a virtual “perfect storm” of social media may have forever changed the perception, attitude, and behavior of the masses. Within 48 hours of his death, social media proliferation through blogs, videos, friend feeds, online mainstream news, and discussion forums increased over its daily average by 3,000%, with a majority of the following from 16-26 years of age, according to John Cataldi, CEO of Adreka Advertising. On the day of his memorial service, global web traffic spiked 19% above normal usage, as reported by Akamai, with 30% of all social media postings on popular social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Friend Feeds contained keywords, “Michael Jackson”. Through social mobilization, flash mobs take to the streets in Stockholm, 300+ strong, dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”, with other cities expected to follow this viral dance party worldwide, according to Bounce.NU. To date, there are over 80 million social postings with mention of Michael Jackson, in which an estimated 20% are newly created entries in relation to Jackson’s passing.

According to Adreka’s social media analysis, the impact of social media in relation to the public perception of Michael Jackson’s life, increased in positive sentiment, with most negative aspects of past controversy showing up less than 20% in general search, and 12% in comments left in from friend feeds to forums. In parallel, upon monitoring social media’s affect on e-commerce, iTunes is reporting that 19 out of 100 top songs, and 13 out of top 100 albums download is Michael Jackson. Additionally, popular shopping engines, such as eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist, shows that Michael Jackson albums, books, and collectibles are seeing a dramatic increase, upwards of 115% due to the influential social media postings.

In the words of Michael, “While some have made deliberate attempts to hurt me, I take it in stride because I have a loving family, a strong faith and wonderful friends and fans who have, and continue, to support me.” Yet, seemly overnight, from the news of his death, an emotional outcry shown by MJ Fans and propagated by social networks, has possibly given this mega-entertainer what he could not achieve in life – absolution. Absolution from media criticism, rumors, innuendos, and financial troubles. Moreover, in his death, though tragic, has spawned a rebirth of the mega-star’s music, popularity, and reputation for generations to come.

Twittiquette – From Class to Trash, Avoid being a Twitter Whore

Twittiquette, most get it, some don’t, this post may not save your life, but potentially your reputation. This is my personal RANT on Twitter Twittiquette, or the lack there of. Personally, first, I like to Tweet. For those less familiar with the medium, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as Tweets. As a social media tool, Twitter adds additional depth to social suspect of interest, whether that be an individual, group, celebrity, sports team, political candidate, etc.

Recently, I heard Twitter dubbed as the “SMS” of the Internet. Just then it all became clear, SOME Twitterers treat their Tweets as if it was a personal journal of communication between friends, though what most fail to consider is unlike SMS which can selectively send to an individual or select group, Twitter is a broadcast medium. Based upon your user name, subject criteria, and freshness of tweets, you may attract the wrong type of follower.


Thus the Twitter Rant on the Subject of Twittiquette:


Twittiquette Rule #1: THINK SAFETY: Always put your safety first. NEVER give out personal information. June 24th 2009, Man tweeted that he was going on vacation, gave dates of his departure, even syndicated his post to his Face Book page, good post, right?! Well is may have been, but in the end his home got robbed, which was a likely result of Twitter’s ability to reach hundreds of thousands of people, by making his post searchable to everyone, including the thief.


Twittiquette Rule #2: DON’T TWEET ACTIVITIES YOU DON’T WANT TO TELL YOUR MOM: What goes on the Internet, stays on the Internet, especially when you may be syndicating your message to the dozens of search bots that will help add your posts in the form of search queries to leading search engines and social networks. Case in point, when I am looking to hire new talent or research a potential business relationship, I use social media as a research tool. For twitter, doing an advanced twitter search is easy http://search.twitter.com/advanced . A few weeks ago I was interviewing new candidate for a sales position. The young man that posted, “omg it was only 10 thirtay and im already drunk!!”, did not get the job.


Twittiquette Rule #3: I DON’T CARE IF YOUR BOWELS ARE REGULAR: Please be interesting, NOONE Cares that you clogged a toilet from your big dinner last night, and we certainly do not need a picture or GPS location of the offending download to the porcelain receptacle. Yes, share yourself, write about the interesting things that shape your life, random thoughts that make your laugh, the places your go , the people you meet, but for god sake, sometimes there is REALLY NO NEED TO SHARE!


Twittiquette Rule #4: FRIEND COLLECTORS BE GONE: Your no TOM, you don’t need to be everyone friend just for the sake of saying you have 100,000 friends, Really stop it.


Twittiquette Rule #5: DON’T BE A TWEET WHORE: There is no need to dominate a conversation, in person or on Twitter. If you send more than 2-3 tweets out at a time, you will come off as obnoxious, and I don’t think that is the look you were going for.


Twittiquette Rule #6: LESS SELF PROMOTION MR MARKET GURU: Twitter is a good way to promote your business. I have made both relationships and real dollars though the responsible use of social media. Tweeting gobs of self plugging is just wrong….. in Twitter terms… bird poop.