■「過剰な刺激」がもたらす危険

　カリフォルニア工科大学生物学部の下條信輔教授は著書の「サブリミナル・インパクト」（ちくま新書）で、「（現代は）情動脳、社会脳を含む神経系全体の活性化を目指す大きな潮流の時代」と指摘している。リアル、バーチャルを問わず、人間の神経系を揺さぶるような過剰な刺激で働きかけ、それをマーケティングなどに活用する動きが進んでいるという意味だ。

　これはゲームだけを指すわけではないが、刺激の増大と加速は最終的には「破断点」にたどり着く危険があると著者は警告する。同じような議論はゲーム機がブームになった80年代以降、何度か起きている。しかし、ゲームがクラウド型のサービスに移行しつつある現在、ユーザー行動の分析はより容易になり、サービスのバリエーションも過去にないほど広がろうとしている。

　２月26日に発売予定の「ニンテンドー３ＤＳ」や近く発表になるとみられる「プレイステーション・ポータブル」の新型機も、どのような形であれ、インターネットを利用した「ソーシャル機能」が目玉の１つになるはずだ。企業が痛みポイントを探る重要性はさらに増し、この流れは止められない。

　しかし、こうした現象が社会に浸透することには、拭いきれない不安がある。ソーシャルゲームを遊びながら、ある種の「薄気味悪さ」を感じるユーザーは筆者一人ではないのではないか。

December 20, 2010

Looking Ahead: 5 Predictions for Social Media in 2011

To follow our recap of 2010, here are five major trends to put on the radar for next year. Of course, this is a short list, and anything but complete, so please add your own predictions in the comments.

 

Weber Shandwick to Become a Fully ‘Inline’ Agency

As ‘digital’ has quickly become a priority for our clients, we expect to see Weber Shandwick thoroughly embody its Inline strategy to communication. This integration of social media has been pervasive in our daily work and quickly adopted across our business. We hope that WSDD can be a guide in the coming year, as our practice matures to exemplify the digital savvy needed in this fast-evolving space.

 

Brands to Make BIG Spends Online

To many, it’s been shocking to see the continual spend on traditional forms of marketing, especially as other figures clearly deem it less effective in a world dominated by internet users. According to Morgan Stanley analyst Marry Meeker, the online ad market is poised to grow by $50 billion as advertisers shift their money from offline to online. In short, we predict that most companies will soon recognize the value of reaching their audiences faster (and for less), while investing in social media as a vehicle.

 

Tablets (and smartphones) Spark Ubiquitous Social Computing

As 2010 was the year of the iPad, the coming year will undoubtedly see a host of competitive tablet devices hit the market. There will have been 15.7 million tablets sold worldwide in 2010 (the iPad representing roughly 85%) and that number is expected to more than double in 2011. News consumption has begun a major shift to mobile, as News Corp and others plan for iPad-only publications. We expect to see the tablet device transcend its ‘techie’ audience and become instrumental in everything from healthcare to finance. Finally, with iPhone and Android surging and mobile internet poised to pass desktop, location-based services are likely to become more narrowly focused and attract users seeking specific and tangible value for their check-ins.

 

More Group Buying and Social Commerce

This year, we witnessed the explosion of group buying and a more social form of e-commerce. It’s likely this trend will only gain speed in 2011, with a strong possibility for seamless shopping on social networks like Facebook. Startups like Payvment, and Alvenda are poised to help companies open up shop on these platforms, while Delta, Levis and 1800 Flowers have already begun the process. With its Credits system taking shape and a massive deal with Zynga, can Facebook turn its 500 million users into customers?

 

Mobile & Social Gaming Take More Ad Dollars

As noted above, marketers are posed for large spends in digital and mobile advertising. As both mobile and social gaming continue to thrive, one can expect the $50 billion ad opportunity to apply here too. One out of five Americans are playing social games now, and the growth isn’t stopping. Zynga’s CityVille recently exploded to more than 47.9 million monthly users after just 18 days. Game developers are honing their skills with new mechanics and promotional tactics that will soon allow for exciting (and engaging) opportunities for advertising, including “on-game ads” from companies like Social Vibe and in-game integrations with brands as part of the game itself.

As an open networker with lots of social media connections, I get asked several social media-related questions from different people globally on any given day.  Recently, I have been frequently asked about how to start a social media consulting business and develop initial clients.  I am happy to mentor a new generation of social media-savvy business consultants, and I plan to be blogging about this more in the future, as I believe the subject can aid not only social media consultants, but also educate any consultant, entrepreneur, or small business owner on how to better utilize social media to launch and develop new business.  Social media truly levels the playing field for any business owner or entrepreneur.

Starting any new business is a risk, and while I find many people might have the expertise in any given field, they might not have the sales skills nor even the social media marketing skills to develop a social media consulting business and build up a company.  Yes, I have met social media consultants who they themselves are not good social media marketing practitioners.  I will not comment on what types of social media consulting projects these individuals might be appropriate for, as every professional brings a unique skill set and plethora of experiences to the table, but I will say that going forward if you cannot display your own social media marketing expertise with your own brand, it will be very difficult to establish the credibility that is necessary to develop business.  This is because, although I have done social media consulting on customer service-related projects in the past, the majority of inquiries I get are related to social media marketing consulting.

Assuming that you are qualified for the job and are committing enough time and resources to make your social media consulting business a success, here are the 6 most important steps in how to start social media consulting:

1) Credibility

This is a no brainer.  Without credibility, no one will hire you.  How to establish credibility as a social media consultant is a whole separate conversation, but you need to think hard and imagine, if you were on the other side of the table, why they would trust you with their business.

2) Experience

Combined with credibility, you need to show the experience that you have which equates to why you can make money off of others.  If you don’t have any social media experience you can’t expect to get any business.  Start with your own brand, and then lend a helping hand by offering pro bono work to others in your family and/or network that you can assist and build a track record from.  There are also a lot of non-profit organizations who would appreciate your social media contributions.

3) Online Branding

Social media marketing is all about getting found online, so you obviously need to have proper online branding that permeates your own website as well as your social media properties so that there is a sense of trust in your company.  You obviously need to work hard to also establish credibility and show off your experience here.

4) Contribute Your Own Content

Anybody can go onto Twitter and ReTweet everyone else’s content.  But what is your opinion on utilizing social media for business?  If you aren’t contributing your own unique and insightful content, why would someone who finds you in social media want to visit your website and find out more about you?  How would they be confident that you can apply your expertise to their particular situation?

5) Make Connections, Both Online AND Offline

People buy from people they know as well as recommendations from trusted friends via word-of-mouth.  While social media is relatively new, the same old rules of business apply.  You need to work hard to engage with others on social media channels to build out the reach of your network, but don’t forget to take those relationships offline and expand upon them.  Chances are your first deals are going to come locally, so I would concentrate on local networking before being too ambitious and thinking nationally or even globally.

6) Learn from Your Customer

Pretty soon, assuming that you have followed the above steps, you will undoubtedly meet someone who might be interested in your services.  Well, what exactly are your services?  It’s time not to spy on the sites of other social media strategy consultants for ideas, but to take a tally of what you have done pro bono for those in your network.  It’s also time to learn from your customer and understand their pain and needs and provide solutions that solves their problems.  If you haven’t read it yet, it’s time to pick up a copy of the classic book Solution Selling for an education that most sales professionals go through early in their career.

My background is in business-to-business (B2B) sales and business development, so developing business is natural for me, but I realize that many consultants are not experienced sales people themselves.  I have personally been able to successfully develop business through a combination of the above things, and I believe it can be a successful formula for you as well.  I am also not trying to make my answer seem “zen-like” or abstract, but I do believe that it requires a lot of hard work of combining the above, not to mention creativity with some additional luck regarding the timing of conversations and opportunities.  There are a lot more specific things that I can point out, but I will leave them for future blog posts and webinars on the subject.

Would love your feedback on if there is anything else that other experienced and successful social media consultants can add to help everyone out in how to start a social media consulting business.  On the other hand, if you are an aspiring social media consultant, does this give you more confidence to pursue your passion?

A look back at the history of social media can help us better move forward as it continues to rapidly evolve.

There are social media solutions for almost every need. These are exciting times for the advertising industry.  I enjoy every day of exploring the potential of social media to advance ad agency new business and share what I’m learning with you.

Social media, in an incredibly short period of time, has become mainstream. Millions of people connect through social media channels daily.  To better understand where it is going, it is important to review its brief past.

Webdesigner Depot, has created an excellent summary of the  history of social media. Changes occur almost on a daily basis but this look back can help you put rising popularity of social media into context.  The following are the major topics covered in this resourceful article, that highlight’s social media’s history along with summaries of the various platforms that continue to evolve:

• Precursors to Social Media: Usernets, BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems), IRC, ICQ, and Instant Messaging
• Early Social Networks: Dating Sites, Forums, Six Degrees (the first modern social network) and Live Journal
• Major Advances in Social Networking: Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook
• Other Major Social Networks: Multiply (family friendly social network), Orkut (Google’s social network), Kontain (allowing users to follow each other through photos, videos, and music, rather than just simple status updates)
• Niche Social Networks: Ning, Media Sharing, Photobucket. Flickr, YouTube, Revver
• Social News and Bookmarking: Delicious, Digg, Reddit
• Real Time Updates: Twitter, Posterous, Tumblr,
• Lifestreaming and Lifecasting: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, FriendFeed, WP Lifestream

Click the following link to read the article, pass it along to your clients: The History and Evolution of Social Media

Businesses both big and small are flocking to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Foursquare. The fact is that a presence on these platforms not only allows companies to engage in conversations with consumers, but also serves as an outlet to drive sales through deals and coupons.

And while major brands like Starbucks, Virgin, and Levi’s have been participating in the social web for some time now, the rate of adoption among small businesses is increasing too. According to a recent University of Maryland study, social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year. But as these businesses look to Facebook and Twitter to connect with customers, many are finding that some strategies work and some do not produce results. We’ll be exploring these questions at a panel on Social Media and Businesses at our Social Currency CrunchUp on July 30. We’ve found some local and national businesses using social media effectively, ranging from Levi’s to a creme brulee cart, whose case studies are below.  Some of these businesses will be sharing their experiences at the CrunchUp (You can buy tickets to the CrunchUp here).

The Creme Brulee Man: Food from street carts have become a foodie favorite for San Franciscans. Food carts travel from neighborhood to neighborhood, offering their delicacies to a range of local foodies. But without a set location, how do these carts let consumers know where they will be? Well, through Twitter of course. Curtis Kimball, the man behind the enormously popular Creme Brulee Cart in San Francisco, has quickly amassed over 12,000 followers in a little over a year. He knows that most of his business comes from people who follow him on Twitter because Twitter is the only way you can find the cart’s location for the day, says Kimball, a former construction worker turned creme brulee expert. “It gives people a valid reason to follow me,” he says.

The other use of Twitter for Kimball is to tell people what flavor of creme brulee he is serving in a given day. And Kimball says that Twitter gives him the ability to develop a personal relationship with his followers and others. He says he tries to engage his followers by asking for suggestions of what type of custard to serve or where he should park his cart, and he always tries to keep things humorous.

Kimball says he has no marketing budget and Twitter has been a great way to amass fans. He doesn’t have as much of a presence on Facebook, and he’s not sure the model is as efficient as Twitter. “Twitter can absorb more than Facebook with very little effort,” Kimball adds. Yelp has also been a valuable source of referrals for the entrepreneur. The cart has 224 reviews and is rated with 4 and a half stars.

Joie De Vivre: Joie De Vivre, a company that operates 33 luxury hotels in California is using a variety of social media platforms to drive sales and marketing for its properties. Central to the hotel group’s strategy is disseminating deals and coupons to followers and fans on Facebook and Twitter. Every Tuesday, Joie De Vivre’s Twitter account will Tweet an exclusive deal to its nearly 10,000 followers. Followers have only hours to book the steeply discounted room rate. For example, this past Tuesday, it offered $79 rooms at the group’s Galleria Park Hotel in San Francisco in November and December. The company also operates similar deals for its 5,000-plus Facebook fans on Fridays.

In less than a year, Joie De Vivre has booked over 1,000 room nights through these types of deals—rooms that otherwise would have stayed empty.  The company has also started a partnership with coupons site Mobile Spinach to offer coupons for the group’s restaurants. And the company has partnered with Foursquare to offer deals for check-ins at its various restaurants. In terms of flash sales, Joir De Vivre has done a number of deals with travel sites like Gilt’s Jetsetter as well as RueLaLa, and Nadeau says these deals have done moderately well.

The company’s marketing VP Ann Nadeau tells me that because of the economy the hotel industry’s marketing budgets have shrunk, and social media efforts have proved to be a great way to both drive sales and build loyalty. The company’s social media efforts are not solely deal based. This summer, Joie De Vivre encouraged consumers to enter its Road Trippin’ California contest, which asked people to submit videos on YouTube that share why they love California. Three winners, out of 270 videos that were submitted, were selected to win all-expense California road trips with stays in the company’s hotels.

In terms of using social media for customer service, Nadeau says that each property hotel manager is responsible for monitoring conversations and reviews on Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp.

Stone Korean Kitchen: Co-founded last November by chef Terry Lin, and LinkedIn employees Robby Kwok and Dan Yoo, Stone Korean Kitchen aims to bring modern Korean cuisine to the Financial District in San Francisco. Yoo tells me that as soon as the restaurant launched, he started a presence on social media sites, including Twitter, Yelp, and Facebook. But the challenge of many small businesses with social media is driving traffic to the right social media channel rather than splitting it between various sites. Yoo says that interconnecting content between the various profiles has helped gain Twitter followers and Facebook fans. Currently the restaurant’s Twitter profile has 65 followers and its Facebook page has 107 fans.  Many of these are repeat customers.  For a small restaurant, it doesn’t take that many loyal customers to keep the kitchen busy.

Yoo says that he consistently Tweets links to comments and reviews on the Facebook page. Of course, Yoo also stresses the importance of managing Yelp reviews and responding to customer complaints on social media platforms.

But what really tipped the scales for Yoo was Groupon (disclosure: my husband works for Groupon).  Yoo says that restaurant saw significant traction in both sales and traffic to its Yelp sites and Facebook page when the restaurant signed up for a Groupon deal in April. Stone Korean Kitchen sold 2600 groupons in one day, and saw a packed house for two months for both lunch and dinner. Now Yoo says that they see around 5 to 10 Groupons per day instead of 30 or 40 but the restaurant is still seeing a good number of repeat customers from the Groupon deal, says Yoo.

One effect of the Groupon deal, besides increased sales, was that there were a flux of Yelp reviews. It took the company six months to accumulate 80 reviews on Yelp and after the deal, the restaurant accumulated 90 reviews within three months. Yoo also says that he’s seen a steady increase in Foursquare check-ins following the Groupon deal.

Of course, since Yoo and Kwok are both LinkedIn employees (chef Lin manages the restaurant on a day-to-day basis), they put their heads together to figure out how they could use the professional social network to drive sales. With the ad targeting capabilities on LinkedIn, the restaurant started serving ads that target lawyers and bankers in the San Francisco area, as both industries are centralized in the financial district. They’ve noticed an increase in foot traffic and corporate catering requests as a result.  In the future, Yoo says that the restaurant is working on a promotion with Foursquare. And he is in talks with Twitter on featuring a deal on the social network’s new Earlybird venture.

Dr. Irena Vaksman, Dentist: Social media and dentistry don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but one San Francisco dentist has forged an impressive social media campaign to raise awareness of her recently launched practice. She has a Twitter profile, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel and an website. Dr. Vaksman’s husband, lawyer Robert Vaksman, has been the strategist behind her social media efforts. Robert says that his wife is confronted with the challenge of practicing in a building that houses hundreds of other dentists that have more established practices. He says that it’s a no brainer to be looking at as many social channels as possible for marketing efforts.

While the practice is still young, the Vaksmans say that they are starting to see patients and potential patients begin to communicate with them on the Facebook page, which has 70 fans. Vaksman will publish her Yelp reviews from patients on the site as well as YouTube videos containing educational content about dental procedures. Twitter is still a fairly new forum for the practice says Robert, and he’s still trying to determine the best way to engage with potential customers on the network.

Last October, Dr. Vaksman signed up for a Groupon deal in San Francisco, and received 320 new patients because of the deal, which was for a patient exam and x-ray. The Vaksmans say that the deal propelled the five month old business in the right direction and boosted its patient base significantly. Robert is also looking into partnering with Facebook campaign startup Wildfire to set up a promotional sweepstakes for the practice’s Facebook page.

Levi’s: Now more than ever, retail brands are engaging consumers on social networks to offer deals, allow users to socialize around purchases, and more. Levi’s Jeans was one of the brands that was first to use Facebook as a tool for sales and marketing initiatives and has launched a number of compelling campaigns using Facebook.

As one of Facebook’s initial partners using the social network’s new Like functionality, Levi’s allows Facebook users to like products on Levi’s online store and its Facebook page (which has nearly 500,000 likes) and share their favorite items with their friends. Within the first week, Levi’s got more than 4,000 likes, says Inside Facebook.

The jeans giant also promoted a major campaign in conjunction with SXSW this year, partnering with music publication The Fader to promote a music event at the festival. The company worked with brand marketing platform Involver to incorporate music and video into their page, with the hopes of driving music fans to buy jeans from the Levi’s brand. Most recently, Levi’s has begun to promote retail offerings with geo-targeted event advertisements on Facebook.

In terms of Twitter, Levi’s recently enlisted a “Levi’s Guy,” 23-year-old USC graduate Gareth, to engage consumers on the microblogging platform. He has over 6,000 followers and is responsible for responding to and engaging in conversations about the Levi’s brand on Twitter. The company is currently in the process of trying to find a Levi’s Girl, which will serve as a female foil to Gareth.

Levi’s director of digital marketing, Megan O’Connor, told us that the engagement with both Twitter and Facebook is about creating and informing brand ambassadors that will help drive sales through their own actions and word of mouth.

Starbucks: Most experts will agree that Starbucks has one of the best social media strategies out there.  Now that it is giving away free WiFi, it is even more of a magnet for roving laptop warriors.  And with 10 million Facebook fans, Starbucks is now close to surpassing the Facebook fan base of Lady Gaga. The company has held a number of promotions on its page to drive engagement. For example, Starbucks held a promotion for free pastries on its Facebook page, allowing customers to access a coupon that would give them a free pastry with a purchase of a coffee drink. Advertising on the social network has also helped to drive traffic to Starbucks’ page.

In terms of Twitter, Starbucks has also been incredibly active on the microblogging network, amassing nearly one million followers. Not only does the company’s Twitter stream serve as an engagement tool with customers who are talking about the brand on Twitter, but it is also used as a way to spread news from Starbucks. Starbucks has also participated in Twitter’s promoted Tweets program, which allows advertisers to buy sponsored links on Twitter.

The combination of geolocation and social networks is also a huge avenue for Starbucks and the company was one of the first major brands to broker a deal with popular location-based social network Foursquare. In March, Starbucks started offering Foursquare mayors of retail stores special ‘Barista’ badges that would come with discounts on drinks and food. Starbucks also partnered recently with mobile social network Brightkite to give members special discounts on drinks.

“Likes,” views and followers were all the rage in 2010. Despite the social media community emphasizing engagement instead of reach, media agencies quickly learned that engagement doesn’t scale easily, making it difficult to sell. Enter Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. As consumer use of social media spiked, the leading social networks retooled their advertising products to satisfy the newfound demand from brands. Instead of fizzling out like the popular online communities of yesteryear, they are driving toward profitability after several years of trying to figure out what they wanted to be when they grew up.

On the flip side, as consumers incorporate social media more into their daily lives, alternatives to the “big three” in the form of niche and location-based social networks have increased in appeal. Advertisers willing to experiment with media campaigns on these networks will have a distinct advantage moving forward as consumers become desensitized to text, display and even rich media ads. Whether they choose to go big or small, the social web equips advertisers with significantly more consumer data points than ever before to improve the targeting and relevance of online advertising.

Below are six predictions for digital advertising in 2011.

.

---

1. Local Advertising Becomes Relevant Again With Location

---

Location-based advertising will continue to grow in 2011 as Facebook expands the technology with its location platform, Places. In addition to Facebook, many other players in the checkin space, including Foursquare, Yelp, Shopkick, and last but not least, Google, will condition shoppers to expect a deal or coupon for alerting friends of their whereabouts. Relevance will distinguish these services from each other as the two biggest players, Facebook and Google, have the most powerful social graph data to customize deals for consumers. Don’t count Groupon out, though. It more than makes up for its comparative lack of technology with brand equity and scale, as its massive sales force will remain dominant in 2011 by further monetizing local commerce beyond the recently launched self-service platform.

---

2. Silicon Valley Will Be the Next Madison Avenue

---

The coolest job in advertising used to be working for an agency in New York City or Chicago, but these days the dream jobs are at Facebook and Twitter. Not unlike Mail.ru Group (formerly Digital Sky Technologies) attracting top bankers from Goldman Sachs, as Facebook and Twitter start generating more revenue, advertising and marketing talent will start heading West to cash in.

---

3. Influencers Will Be the Celebrities of the Social Web

---

Consumers are constantly scouring the social web to decide where to eat, shop and stay; so it comes as no surprise that brands are desperately analyzing Twitter, blog posts and reviews to understand not only who has the largest audience, but how much influence individuals have. YouTube’s Partner Program is being joined by new services such as Klout to create an official layer of social credibility.

Klout scores are being used by The Palms Hotel in Vegas to gauge discounts for hotel guests, including through the “Klout Klub,” which “will allow high-ranking influencers to experience Palms’ impressive set of amenities in hopes that these influencers will want to communicate their positive experience to their followers.” Creating thoughtful ways to leverage your influencers is the thing to focus on. People have always said it’s cheaper to keep and please the customers you have, than acquire new ones.

---

4. Small Will Be the New Big for Social Networks

---

Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s unwavering belief that an open and connected social web is best for society, early adopters are starting to experiment with new platforms designed to communicate and share media with smaller audiences. Path has shown us the potential of limiting our social networks to 50 people. Fast Society is a new iPhone communication service that allows the user to create small groups to text with on the fly, and the groups last for three days. Facebook also realizes some of us may prefer communicating with smaller networks. Facebook’s new Groups feature allows us to segment our friends into personal, professional and interest-based communities, and openly engage in conversations not meant for our mother or colleagues to hear. Watch for more of these smaller, closed networks to launch in 2011 as people seek deeper connections online.

---

5. Brands Will Become More Like Media Companies

---

Social media has empowered brands to break their own news instead of relying on advertising or PR to disseminate their message. As brands become increasingly comfortable with social media on the whole, more budget and attention will be focused on high quality content created specifically for the social web. We will see more Facebook Pages like Skittles that appear to employ comedy writers to keep the content fresh. It would seem that “a brand’s best bet in social media is randomness.”

---

6. Facebook “Likes” Will Be Important for Your Brand

---

While it’s still unclear exactly how much a Facebook “Like” is worth to a brand, the following video sums up why Facebook is so important.

Brands will be tripling down on Facebook advertising in 2011, and the process for acquiring Facebook “Likes” has evolved to accommodate this increase in demand. Instead of doing A/B testing between two photos to see which generates more Facebook “Likes,” the savvier brands and agencies are leveraging technology that can simultaneously deploy 10,000+ ad variations to yield the lowest CPA (cost per acquisition) of those “Likes.”

Getting the Advertising Partner Deal

---

Twitter hand-selected a few businesses that they’re using as advertising partners during the phase one rollout of Promoted Tweets. In speaking with Gale we learned that Virgin America was approached by Twitter (and not the other way around) to participate in the new program. She credits the company’s inflight WiFi, general Twitter savvy, presence at tech events, public discussions about using Twitter and their all-around social media savvy as the primary reasons why Twitter selected them for this partnership.

Gale speaks very highly of Twitter and the opportunities that the ad platform make available to Virgin America. She says, “We love their brand and we think it’s a good fit because they’re tech savvy.”

During the discussion it became apparent that one of Virgin America’s goals is to highlight their own tech savvy, something this deal certainly affords them. The company is already seeing 300 to 500 inflight tweets per day, with anywhere from 6% to 15% of travelers logged into inflight WiFi. Participating in the Promoted Tweets initiative is certainly a logical next step on the Twitter front for the company.

As for the financials, we don’t know what the advertising partners are paying for their Promoted Tweets; Twitter has mandated that none of the partner brands disclose those details just yet. We do know, however, that whatever the payout, Virgin America is happy with the early results from their first promoted tweets.

---

Tailored Conversations and Relevant Travel Deals

---

Gale spoke strongly about Virgin America’s position around Promoted Tweets being about better engagement. She doesn’t see the paid-for-tweets as advertisements, but instead as opportunities to enhance the communication that they’re having with customers and followers.

To that effect the company is purposely burying their Promoted Tweets in nearly impossible to find search listings. By opting to select highly specific keywords Virgina American can assure that they will only be seen by Twitter searchers looking for something very specific. Gale describes the follower relationship as something sacred and one the company has no intention to disrupt. She says, “people have to really want the promotion to find the tweet.”

In fact, the company’s three promoted tweets are almost impossible to find in ad form. I tried practically every related keyword search term I could think of and still couldn’t find them. Save for using the specific term associated with the promo, Virgina America’s sponsored tweets won’t appear in your search results. And that’s the point. The airline has no intention of spamming their audience.

Inquiring minds can satisfy their curiosity around Virgin America’s plans for Promoted by taking a look at the three the company is running today. Each of the tweets are meant to remain consistent with the regular conversations the company has on Twitter.

VXREDHOT: The company is using the “Red Hot” tweet to give away promo codes (50% off of travel itineraries of two guests) to the first 500 Twitter followers that participate. They launched the promotion at 1:30 ET today and as of 5:15 ET it had sold out entirely.

Red: “#nowplaying Tell us what you’re watching on RED at 35,000 feet! (#nowplaying Avatar at 35,000 feet).” This Red tweet is less about promotion and more about engagement. It’s designed to get passengers currently flying Virgin America to share what their watching on Virgin America’s Red entertainment system while in transit.

Best Geek Moments: This tweet (when live) will be another super specific call to action for passengers currently using Virgin America’s inflight WiFi. They’re using this promoted tweet to encourage customers to share their best geek moments via Twitpic while up in the air.

Despite Twitter users’ reticence towards ads, we have a hard time believing that any of these Promoted Tweets would anger searchers who discovered them. In fact the inflight calls to action are actually quite clever. A passenger at 35,000 feet in air could be pleasantly surprised to find that the airline actually cares about their experience, as it’s happening.

---

New Market, New Medium

---

Other than travel deals and tailored engagement initiatives, Virgin America believes that Twitter and the Promoted Tweets program could potentially replace existing traditional marketing and advertising initiatives. They plan to put that theory to the test next week when they announce and promote the launch of a new market (a new destination city that they will fly out of) entirely via Twitter.

Gale tells us that, “We believe in the power of Twitter, and the power of retweeting, communities and digital influencers.”

Clearly that’s the case as the company is forgoing their traditional online banner ads and newspaper ads for the new market launch in favor of Twitter. While we weren’t able to get specifics, we do know that some of the Promoted Tweets Virgin America uses next week will be to support the initiative, get the word out and offer discounted fares to and from the new city in question.