The Foil War #NCchevySXSW from jason keath on Vimeo.

Let’s look beyond the fact that I love soccer and the fact that I am filled with deep, deep anticipatory joy for this summer’s World Cup action. The juxtaposition in this Puma video of rough UK football hooligans singing some harmonizing a cappella is simply magnetic. It pulls you in from the first moment and holds you there until you beg them to show you their logo. Great stuff. I watched it a few times.

For those of you who hate soccer, move along, there is nothing for you here. You cannot be helped.

But, for a campaign that can get people to the internet pretty easily, their integrated social media, if you can call it that, reminds me more of any empty roll that needs to be replaced.

Yes they have two of their commercial’s characters on Twitter, and a Facebook page, and the poll itself with a nice map of results. But these small efforts are social for social’s sake with very little thought toward tying it all together. They even went out and interviewed folks on the street to add to their actor interviews and put all of it on Youtube, but check out the views on those videos. There is obviously nothing being done to promote them.

It smacks of a brand or agency that thinks social media is suppose to be cheap and easy. I see a multi-million dollar traditional ad campaign and a dollar store social media effort.

There is no effort to engage the consumers, whose attention they are buying with some major TV spots, in a long term way. I am sure the media buys will produce a short bump in sales and if that is all Cottonelle wants, then fine, good show.

But in 2010, pointing people to a micro-site that does not extend the relationship beyond the length of a media buy, is traditional advertising and less effective. The opportunity is to build a community, to engage the consumer in a way that creates a longer term relationship (meaning more money), to ask questions of consumers, to answer questions, to get the people they are pulling in with a clever, simple question, and convert them into spending more time with their brand. Consumers want dialogue.

It is a cute campaign Cottonelle, but perhaps you should consider building consumer relationships with a longer shelf life than say, I don’t know, a roll of toilet paper?

Jason Falls delivers a little Gary Vaynerchuk impersonation at Social Fresh Nashville, a social media conference for marketers.

A good portion of Social Fresh spoke to what social media can really do for business, including Jason’s talk on “Moving the Needle, Social Media for the Bottom Line”.

In the quick video above, taken at the Social Fresh photo opp zone, Jason recaps why the social media purists (dirty hippies and treehuggers) do not get that if social media is not making you money, it is just a hobby.

While I was in Florida preparing for Social Fresh Tampa on Feb 8th, I got the chance to meet and speak with Chris Arnold, Director of Communications for Chipotle Mexican Grill, and we discussed their slow, but deliberate, adoption of social media as a corporate controlled marketing channel.

From taking over a customer created 500,000 fan Facebook page to supporting consumer driven blogging, Chipotle is focused on staying true to their word or mouth and earned media roots while evolving their social media efforts.

Not everyone has the good fortune of a massive and committed fan base, like Chipotle. But for them, their decision to allow their social presence to happen organically is sound. It reminds me of Apple’s no social media policy and Ford’s no blogging decision. When a business generates online communities with their brand loyalty alone, they can definitely skip some steps.

Bridgestone will be attending Social Fresh Nashville, a one day social media conference for marketers, on Jan 11, 2010

One of my favorites of their Superbowl Commercials

I have been using Foursquare for months now in other cities. When it hit my hometown of Charlotte a couple weeks back, I was surprised how many people jumped on. I had 150 friend requests the day after Charlotte was opened.

UNC Charlotte, my alma mater, only took about a week to see the potential of Foursquare on their campus. Last week they became the first University in the country to offer promotions through Foursquare across their campus.

Foursquare Goes to College

I interviewed Brian Baute, IT Director for Business Services at UNC Charlotte, about what their goals are for using Foursquare campus wide.

According to Foursquare, the only other campuses using their promotions are Columbia, who has one promotion running for their campus movie theater, and Harvard who is developing something campus wide.

College students are an interesting niche for testing Foursquare. While they love their smart phones and Facebook, they are not in tune with much else in the social space.

However, Foursquare is similar to Facebook in the fact that it let’s you see up to the second information about your friends. Foursquare is simple in that respect. I can see college students, who are always looking for the next party, latching on to the “where is everybody at” aspect of Foursquare pretty easily.

I absolutely crave face to face time with people. I see offline relationships as the heart of marketing.

This is why I keep going to conferences despite the face that most conferences suck. I am in the heart of this world now since creating my own social media conference series, Social Fresh. Here are just a few of the things that encouraged me to find my own solution.

The Four Horsemen of the Conference Apocalypse

Too much hyperbole there?

1. No Networking – Many conferences just cram as much content in as possible and lose track of encouraging conversations. Provide physical space that encourages connecting. Provide time in the day that allows connecting. Create reason for people to connect.
2. Bad Speakers – Where to begin… Unreadable slides, reading from slides verbatim, simply boring, no examples, no case studies, and please, I do not need your life story as an intro. Cut to the meat.
3. Too Big – Don’t get me wrong, I love SXSW and Blogworld, and Web 2.0 for the shear scale of what they do. And they fill a need. But at some point, finding good content, relevant connections, and just navigating these events successfully takes too much effort.
4. Too Serious – Yes we are there to learn. No, I don’t need an all day happy hour. But, please lighten up a bit. Throw some spice into the recipe. People like getting away from their desks. Make the day a little more than just instruction. Make it an experience.

Complaints that don’t bother me so much

1. No Wifi – I get it, we all want to tweet about an event. It is worth complaining about, but let’s face it, there are plenty of venues and cities that just have crappy cell and wifi capabilities. Wifi does not make an event. And I can attend a great event with no wifi and get just as much out of it.
2. Bad Food – Again, I am not there for the food.
3. Too Expensive – It is business. Charge what you want. I either think it is worth it or I don’t. Conferences can be expensive endeavors. This value equation is completely different for each person.

Over the last year I have shifted from spending most of my professional time on social media consulting to spending most of my time working on Social Fresh. It is much more rewarding. But it is also not for everyone.

Social Fresh is simple. It is specifically for marketers that want to see the full potential of social media. We bring big brands and smart people in the social media space to a city near you. Big event content, small event networking and discussion.

We all know real world relationships are the goal of our networking. We talk to people a world away online. We form relationships with people all over the country on Twitter. But the real tangible benefit of these relationships, personal and business, happens offline.

It is important to not get stuck inside of social networks and the virtual interactions they make so easy. Take the conversation to email, call someone, meet them for coffee. When you go to conferences or visit other cities, look for people from your online networks there.

Experiences within social media are most engaging when they echo the real world. Audio, photos, video, etc. The ability to use Twitter and other social media to make easy introductions with all kinds of great people is truly valuable. But if it stops with an online introduction, you are missing out on the most rewarding parts of these relationships.

Social Media History Trivia

• October 9th, 1pm EST
• Follow @jakrose for questions
• Random draw from the first 5 correct answers wins a ticket for each question
• 4 Questions

4 Free Tickets to Social Media Business Forum (October 23rd – Durham, NC)