I just watched Iain Tait, global interactive creative director at Wieden Kennedy discussed the role of software and storytelling at the modern ad agency. He gave this talk at CAT London in 2010. Iain shared the challenges of advertising due to the advent of social media and technology. After watching his presentation, I concluded that:

1. Video games are the ultimate example of a creative product where storytelling and software complement each other to bring an awesome user experience. Iain suggested that creatives and advertisers should spend time playing the best video games to see how immersive and emotional they are. I agree with him.
2. You need an integrated team who has an idea of what the others are capable to do. The creative people must be aware of the production process to be able to take full advantages of it when they are writing their scripts. I believe that great ideas can be born by exchanging ideas between people with different skills. I would go further and tell you to quickly implement these ideas and to test it on the market. You must be ready to iterate as you learn from the results.
3. Your idea must stand the test of time. Campaigns live longer than the TV ads. In the digital world, you must be able to stand by your stories, maintain them and let them grow on their own over time.
4. A Mastermind – With Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, You Tube, blogs, Linked In, etc…,  you need to hire people who truly understand how these different components fit together. You need an architect for your campaigns. Everyone talks about it but not many fully grasp the intricacy and how they should interact. You need to know when and why you should use and monitor every piece of the puzzle. It is key to maximize the execution of your campaigns.
5. Results count – Half of the idea is the participation and the interaction. At the end of the day, if people did not participate, your idea fail. I would add that you must be sure that the failure was not due to an inadequate or uninteresting execution.
6. The right software enables you to response quickly – This must be a part of your campaign, not an after-thought. Software partially explains the success of the Old Spice campaign because it gave them time to response quickly and to create an incredible momentum to the campaign.
7. Be passionate about your work – We are living in an exciting time where we are still defining what is possible.

My last words of advise would be to:

• Care about what you do;
• Try to do your best every step of the way;
• Do not be afraid to experiment and to do things differently if it brings something to your users or improve the process.

I invite you to watch the video. It is 20 minutes well spent.

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Even though my husband and I are very active on social media, we always take steps to preserve our private life. Having said that, they are some happy moments that we wish to share online. One was my pregnancy. I made no secret that I was pregnant on my blog, Facebook or Twitter. We discovered later that our son had a heart defect that might require surgery. In fact, he had an open heart surgery a few days after birth. The question became “How will we handle that publicly”. I opted for a wait and see position during my pregnancy.

We shared the news of my son’s birth since people wanted to know. The news was so popular that I became the #1 trend on Twitter for Montreal. As more comments refer to my role as a new mom, my husband and I discussed how we would handle these comments. We decided that we could not hide the fact that our son would stay at the hospital for a few weeks. Therefore, we made a small announcement to our friends on Facebook. What we didn’t expect was the amazing response we got from our Facebook friends day after day. We both feel that the support of our Facebook friends helped us during these difficult times. Having people inquiring every day about the progress of our son comforted us and gave us strength. During his 24-day stay at the hospital, we made an habit to give a brief report on his condition. Our comments left out the details. As I said, we like to keep our life private. People told me how graciously we handled the entire situation. I am proud of that.

Facebook also allowed us to inform everyone without losing time. We welcomed the time-saving aspect since we did not have a lot of time on our hands. For all these reasons, we are glad that we made this announcement. Detractors of social media and the Internet often comment that it is impersonal. I can vouch that it can be very personal.

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I received many event invitations each week and I am amazed by how the PR professionals fail to use new technology. I will review what are the most common mistakes and how to easily solve them.

The typical media event invitation is received by email. The event details, including the RSVP email, is nicely published on an image file. I understand the need of presenting a design invitation but why not also type the RSVP email and show it inside the email message. It often happens that the RSVP email is not the sender email. The blogger needs to remember the email and type it to respond. Not very user friendly.

Then, you need to add the event to our calendar. Again, you have to remember the venue name, address and time to type it to our calendar. On top of not making typing errors, you must set a reminder alert. Frankly, it’s a cumbersome process that any of the Add to Calendar tools out there would streamline.

My question to PR professionals is “Why make it so difficult for bloggers to attend a media event?” when you hope to get press coverage from them.

The Easy Solution

I recommend to PR professionals that they continue to send media event invite through email with a nicely designed invite but that they add a link to handle the RSVP process. And do it via an online invitation management system like Eventbrite. It will make the entire process easier for you and your guests.

I used Eventbrite both as an event organizer and as an attendee. I like it in both scenarios. I will go as far as to say that there is absolutely no reasons not to use it since Eventbrite is FREE for free events. Practical features include:

• Create a branded event page to manage the RSVP and provide your event details
• Attendee management with contact information of the attendees. You can keep track of the number of attendees in real time.
• Add to my Calendar button. They support Outlook calendar, Google calendar, Yahoo! calendar and iCal
• Share buttons. Attendees can send an email to friends, tweet it, share it on LinkedIn, and like it on Facebook
• Automatically schedule a brief reminder email to be sent to your attendees 48 hours before an event
• Automatically generate customized name badge templates for all registered attendees.

If you are not tech savvy, do not worry. Eventbrite produced tutorial videos to get you started. Please make it easy for everyone to attend your event! Then, you can concentrate your efforts on organizing an event that bloggers would not want to miss.

+ Eventbrite

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I want to inform you that the blog of my new business, Media Sidekick, is up and running. I invite you to join me in the conversations.

The Media Sidekick blog will concentrate on social media marketing and what it means for lifestyle bloggers (design, living, food, hobbies, women and moms) and influencers. You will find there topics like, my popular blogging tips column. But we will also explore how consumers brands successfully utilize social media marketing today and bounce ideas on what’s next.

If you are a lifestyle blogger who, directly and indirectly, deals with consumer brands, it’s best to stay current on what is going with brands, PR and bloggers. I believe that bloggers should have a say in defining the best practices on social media marketing. For that important reason, I invite lifestyle bloggers, PR professionals and B2C marketers to share their views on those conversations.

For your information, On the Web with Kim Vallee is not dead. I plan to continue to write here on social media topics that would be appropriate for the Media Sidekick blog. As you can imagine, this will happen occasionally.

You can learn more about the mission of Media Sidekick and its blog here.

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Twitter is designed for connecting with people and sharing information. While most companies are still debating if they should do it or what they should be saying on Twitter; others are actively involved with the Twitter’s community. Being on Twitter enables the brand who listens and acts quickly to benefit from opportunities, to test on a small scale concepts or promotions, to pinpoint what people really care about and even, to tailor to a new niche.

For those and many more reasons, I believe that a consumer brand who assigns one or two individuals to cover their social media on a full time basis can accomplish a lot to raise the profile of their brand. If small businesses can find the time to be on Twitter, I see no excuse for larger brands to not find a way to finance it.

What about ROI?

Many business people argue about the ROI on being on Twitter. But let’s be honest here. Nobody can really calculate the ROI of a billboard on the highways. Still, brands buy them years after years at a premium price. Why not reallocate the money  of two billboard ad placements to social media for a year and then, see if how it impacts your brand’s reputation, your press coverage, your social media exposure, and yes, sales.

Brands who do it right

See how these companies in the hospitality embrace Twitter. They take initiatives. And some of the things they do are pretty cool! Look at what Roger Smith Hotel, an independent hotel in New York City, has accomplished. I read on Happy Hotelier that Chris Brogan talked on a 10-minute keynote speech he gave at Web 2.0 conference about how his affluent friends on Twitter suggested the Roger Smith Hotel when he asked for where to stay in New York City. Plus, you can hear his recommendation on a video (the Roger Smith Hotel story starts at about 2:22 minutes) on his blog and on You Tube. I could continue but Mashable wrote a convincing post about How Hospitality Companies are Using Social Media for Real Results. Go read it!

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WebTweet is a parallel conference to the 8th edition of WebCom Montreal. Both events will be held on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at the ICAO head office in Montreal. Last year, I was an official blogger for WebCom. This time, I am glad to participate as a panelist on a subject that is dear to my heart: Twitter for Women (Twitter au féminin). Note that the panel will be in French.

Reporter, blogger and animator Dominic Arpin will be our moderator. The panel is composed by Émilie Ogez, Tamy Emma Pepin, Kim Vallée , Cindy Laverdière. I hope to see you at 1:30 P.M. in room E04.

Other topics covered at webTweet will be Twitter & Politics, Twitter & Business, Twitter, nanolitterature & Cultural Institutions and finally, Twitter & Medias. Plus, the keynote speaker is Jeff Pulver who created the 140 Characters Conferences. It costs $95 to attend webTweet, which includes one meal and the closing cocktail. If you register to WebCom you have access to everything, including the webTweet.

+ WebCom Montreal

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I thought about writing a recap of my session but after reading the coverage on the blog of NVI, I will simply invite you to go read theirs. Thanks Wes Walls, you captured the main message and highlighted the key points I made during my presentation.

I worked hard over the last months at exploring how I could expand my brand. I decided to add a community site to my At Home in order to grow my traffic. I see the limitations of the blog and wish to provide more useful tools for my readers. Every blogger faces a more vivid competition not only from other bloggers but mostly from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. For all of us, it is getting harder to grow our traffic.

I showed best practices and must-have features from a series of niche community sites. I think that you should look at the heart of what you do, your strength, and the culture of your brand to determine what features and tools to implement.

If this interested you can download the slides.

+ PodCamp Toronto: Kim Vallee Talks Community

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You can start planning your agenda for PodCamp Toronto now that the schedule is out. The 2010 edition is huge. They have over 1,000 persons who registered to attend. In the tradition of the unconference, the presenters selected their time spot. I will be presenting this Saturday, February 20th, 2010.

+ First, at 11:15 a.m. at room RCC 361: At Work with Kim Vallee: The Why, What and How of Community Building

+ Then, at 2 p.m. at room RCC 204, I sit on the panel with the well-known Erica Ehm of Yummy Mummy Club where we will discuss The Business of Online Communities for Women. The panel will be moderated by Eden Spodek of Bargainista.

I will continue the self-promotion by inviting you to attend at 10:30 a.m. at room RCC 359, a session presented by my husband, Jerome Paradis. Jerome will share his vision of Semantic Commerce: Understanding what’s in store for the future of e-commerce.

+ PodCamp Toronto 2010 Schedule

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I hope you plan to come to PodCamp Toronto 2010. I already told you about my individual session. To pursuit further the discussion on niche communities, I will sit on a panel with the popular Erica Ehm of Yummy Mummy Club.  We will exchange on the business of online communities for women. A savvy girl on social media will moderate the talk. It is Eden Spodek who is the editor of Barganista.ca and the Digital Strategist at High Road Communications.

I hope to see you there. Discover the other sessions at PodCamp Toronto 2010. And do not forget to register if you wish to attend this free unconference.

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More and more brands ask you every day to become a fan of their Facebook page. As a blogger, we often get requests from brands that we never heard of. In light of this fact, I share here how I decide to become a fan or not of a brand on Facebook. I feel my social netetiquette guide could be useful to marketers who wish to pitch bloggers.

The first thing I suggest to any marketer is to know the blogger first. Chances are that if we never connected on social media and that I never talked about your brand on my blog, I do not know you. Second, know what are the values and the scope of interests of the bloggers you targeted. Third, read my editorial policy as it applies to all the content I produce.  [Update: If after that it still seems like a good fit, maybe you can inquire if I know your brand or if I tried your products/services before?] Four, do not insist.

My brand At Home with Kim Vallee is based on providing a curated experience for my readers. My profile on Facebook is an extension of my brand. Using kimvallee.com as the domain name excludes the idea of separating the two identities.

On Facebook each brand is subject to the same principles I apply when I write a post, that is I feature only things and stores that I like. For me, being a fan symbolizes that you like a lot. Therefore, I may even go a step further with fan pages. Plus, if I become a fan of everything it will lose its purpose. But more importantly, if I become a fan of everything that is pitched to me I would betray the trust that my fans, my readers, my Facebook friends and my Twitter followers put on me as a curator.

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A quick note to tell you that I will be giving a session at the next PodCamp Toronto that will happen on the weekend of February 20 and 21st, 2010.

I started working on adding a community site to the KimVallee.com brand. I analyzed many angles to make sure I get the right ingredients. My session will explore what you need to consider before building your own community site. I will tell you why, what, and how I will expand my blog with my upcoming community site.  I will deliver food for thought, practical tips and a toolkit. I would be honored if you put it on the agenda. The exact time and date will be revealed later.

+ Register to attend PodCamp Toronto 2010

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Bloggers continue to grow their influence. More and more traditional print media recognized how the blogosphere and social media forced them to evolve. As an avid magazine lover, I am happy that they embrace the Web.

We can co-exist and support each others. Margaret Russell pointed out in her January/February 2010 Editor’s page the contributions of bloggers in providing insights about what people like:

And design bloggers have stimulated an animated and powerful dialogue based largely on images published in magazines. They are our treasured partners, and the conversation they engender and sense of community they encourage benefit us all.

At the end of the day, we all enjoy more great design ideas. I encourage you to read her editorial article.

+ photo: Elle Decor

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