This INCREDIBLE campaign from Network Solutions features Cloris Leachman and is posted on YouTube with supporting outposts on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and probably elsewhere — and it’s unfolding as we speak and I am SO TOTALLY CAPTIVATED that it has pulled me out of my 6-month-long blog-posting block (see GrayMatter Mea Culpa below) and it has me writing the biggest run on sentence ever and I don’t care.

This is social media marketing on SuperBowl Sunday at its best — in real time — and I’m excited. More excited than I’ve been in months about social media (again, see GrayMatter Mea Culpa below). My advance apologies to the Packers and the Steelers, but Cloris has my vote for SuperBowl MVP already.

Enjoy the game and the campaign as it unfolds.

To get up to speed, check out the Network Solutions Go Granny blog post about the campaign and watch the Go Granny YouTube video.

(Click here if the video is not appearing below in your feed reader.)

Here’s the Twitter page for @Go_Granny featuring @Cloris_Leachman and hashtagging under #gogranny.

Here’s the Flickr page.

Here’s the Facebook page.

As of this posting, the Go Granny YouTube video has had 14,772 views, 4,948 Network Solutions Facebook fans/likes, 369 views to the Go Granny Flickr photoset and 366 @Go_Granny Twitter followers…can’t wait to check back on the numbers after the game.

Social segue…

GrayMatter Mea Culpa

So my month off (from blogging) last August turned into almost six. It happens.

Via The Circus Academy, UK

Got caught up in an office move, the back-to-school gauntlet and an all-around new routine that still doesn’t feel quite…well, routine.

This unintentional extended break presented a good opportunity to revisit the intentions of this blog, its audience and my personal objectives.

The net-net? Time is a challenge to us all. Some days you win, some days you lose. I can’t make promises about posting consistency, but I can promise that whenever I post, I’ll do my best to make sure it’s valuable and relevant to what this blog promises in the masthead, which is still the type of content that interests me most as a marketer.

So, to no one and everyone in particular, please accept my most sincere mea culpa on the blogging consistency fail. And thanks to Network Solutions for the long lost motivation to type something here.

Related articles

• Network Solutions Launches Go Granny Video Campaign as Prelude to Super Bowl (networksolutions.com)
• Super Bowl Digital Campaign Bypasses the Ad (mediabistro.com)
• Super Bowl Mockumercial With Cloris Leachman and LIsa Stone (adpulp.com)
• Network Solutions takes on Go Daddy with a more mature spokesmodel (techvibes.com)
• Watch Out Danica Patrick! Network Solutions has Hottie Cloris Leachman and Her “Sisters” (revenews.com)

Joan Schramm, who is an executive, career, business and personal coach at Momentum Coaching, has leveraged the power and reach of multiple social media tools to “achieve momentum” for her business.

In this “Social Gets Local” post, Joan shares her social media approaches, ideas and successes as both a business owner and a skilled social marketer.

Q: How has social media impacted the way you market your business?
A: My blog readership has tripled. By leveraging the power of blogging, I am able to earn more traffic and generate more requests for information.

Q: What social media tool do you use the most?
A: Tweetdeck for Twitter – it is a great tool for posting and for search, as well as for keeping track of important Tweets. I also use Friendfeed to further boost my exposure.

Q: How much time each day do you spend using social media?
A: I spend about 15 – 20 minutes a day on Facebook and on Twitter (@JoanSchramm) I’m in and out all day: 10-15 minutes in the morning; 10 minutes in the afternoon and 10 minutes in the evening.

Q: Do you consider your time on Twitter “time well spent?”
A: Absolutely. It keeps me up to date with what other people in the field are doing, and allows me to effectively communicate with a large number of interested people.

Q: What percentage of your new clients come from social media?
A: About 75 – 80% of my new clients come from social networking – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (in that order). The others come from regular networking, which is often an out-shoot of the social networking, so it’s all related. My outreach is more focused and I have started hosting a bi-monthly radio show on BlogTalkRadio. I’m also putting together a teleclass on social networking for job search.

Q: How are you gauging “ROI?”
A: I use search and monitoring tools (Google alerts and Twitter search) to gauge the Word Of Mouth (WOM) of my name/brand/business. Right now, I view the addition of new clients, as well as boosts in WOM as my primary measuring sticks for ROI.

Q: Can you describe one of your “social media successes?”
A: During the holidays, I ran a “10 Days of Holiday Giving” campaign in which I donated (to charity) $1.00 for every comment made on my blog. I got a lot of good feedback on that idea. I also have a Twitter account for a non-profit I volunteer with – Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue League (MAGDRL). The response has been incredible, and MAGDRL was named one of the top 26 charities on Twitter by Mashable.

Q: Do you encourage your sales force to use social media? How or in what ways?
A: Our marketing efforts include our blog, newsletter and social media marketing. I use Google Reader every day to monitor my Top 10 list of blogs – which are great sources for sharing information.

Q: What would you say to other local business owners about social media?
A: Get ahead of the curve NOW. You are missing opportunities! Social media is NOT for kids – it’s for innovative marketers.

Q: What question do you have about social media that you’d like to ask your local business community?
A: Why aren’t more of you involved in social networking? I see a lot of skepticism and misunderstanding about its role in business, and I wonder why that is.

Click here if you’d like to be a part of Social Gets Local, a FREE local directory supporting businesses located in Baltimore, Washington DC and Annapolis that are using social media effectively.

Not literally. Figuratively, of course.

The fact is, I don’t get out much during the week. Monday through Friday is a tumbler of parenting, working full time, managing two businesses, running a household and maintaining our zoo of domesticated animals.

So when I do venture out, I have incredibly high expectations.

Repeatedly, Ignite Baltimore has delivered, as has Ignite DC. And I’m counting on nothing less than total satisfaction from Ignite Annapolis (now in early planning stages).

The palpable energy at these events lights me up every time.

Haven’t been to an Ignite event? Let me quickly tell you what it is: a cross between a stage performance, networking event, block party, lecture series, improv show and a local mixer. More specifically, it’s a collection of 15 or so people from any given city, each allotted 5 minutes on stage with 20 slides behind them that are automatically rotated every 15 seconds, ready or not.

Who are the speakers?

Every man and every woman. Artists, technologists, thinkers, entrepreneurs, employees, personalities, professionals, unprofessionals and students, to name a few – and all of them brave enough to stand up in front of the Baltimore-DC-Annapolis-Etc. communities and share something.

Ignite events (started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis) are the most valuable organized events I’ve ever attended, professionally speaking. I’ve been to three and walked away from each equally energized and entertained by people who weren’t trying to sell me anything, but just had something cool to share.

It’s NOT all about social media – it IS all about your local community.

While the local Twitter population came out in force, there were plenty of non-twitterers amidst the presenters and spectators at the Ignite events I’ve attended. It’s amazing to have the chance to see what other people in the community are doing as opposed to hearing what someone is pitching, proposing, or otherwise “pushing.” These events are absolutely about sharing interests and ideas. They also avoid the awkwardness that can occur at more traditional “forced networking” events (you know, the ones that start with “Hello My Name Is…” badges and end with a pocketful of business cards that you’re unlikely to follow up on).

For example, I was fascinated at Ignite Baltimore #3 last week to learn about “The Archimedes Palimpsest,” now on loan at The Walters Art Museum, from Curator of Manuscripts, Will Noel. The guy and the topic that ignites him were fascinating. And Matt Castner, a blogger and recent college grad made “the case for being a generalist” with a polished, practiced and perfect delivery that also included one of the best impromptu and spontaneous laughs of the night. Jim Kucher, Melody Hildebrandt and Peter Corbett dazzled in their ideasharing about capitalism, the bailout-free web and crappy web apps (respectively), Amanda Schwarz has me rethinking my relationship with tea (black, green, oolong and herbal!), Debra Rubino encouraged me to do more eavesdropping, and Anne Draddy forever changed the way I’ll look at the tree canopy in downtown Baltimore.

It was a pot-luck of information and entertainment.

And it was an absolute delight to be exposed to such bright and interesting people in such a unique and lively format. Even the most “offbeat” presentation of the night was interesting in its, well, “offbeatness.”

Tickets are free. And you can do as much or as little actual socializing as you want.

To learn more about the Ignite event in your area, visit ignite.oreilly.com or wikipedia. Find out if your city has one and by all means give attendance some serious consideration. DEFINITELY worth your time, IMHO.

Local to me? Check out:

• Ignite Baltimore (Next event on 10/22 at The Walters)
• Ignite DC
• Ignite Annapolis
• Ignite Philly
• Ignite Wilmington

You can follow Ignite events on Twitter, as well:

• @IgniteBaltimore
• @IgniteDC
• @IgniteAnnapolis
• @IgnitePhilly
• @IgniteWilm

Oftentimes these events are webcast live, in case the workload, laundry and litter box keep you housebound. Just check their respective websites for the deets.

Bottom line? Ignite events are good for anyone’s gray matter.

I appreciate inspiration wherever I find it – I bring the energy from Ignite events right back into my work, into my personal interests and into my creative pursuits. So I want to issue a formal thank you to Mike Subelsky and Patti Chan, Ignite Baltimore co-founders, for lighting things up for all of those attending the event on June 25.

I look forward to getting lit again…hope I’ve adequately communicated why I think you should, too!

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• Ignite YouTube Channel (Best of Ignites from around the world)

Melissa M. Gomez, Ph.D., is a jury consultant and owner of MMG Jury Consulting in Philadelphia. She tweets @mmgjury and blogs at The Legal Intelligencer. I want to thank her for taking the time to share her twitter experience and for not listening to her cousin.

Twhat?

About a month or so ago, I was sitting at my dining room table with my cousin (who, for his protection, will remain nameless) and he mentions something about this Twitter thing.  “I have heard of that. What is it?” I ask. His answer: “It is the ultimate tool for narcissists. Basically it is folks thinking that they need to share with the world when they drink their coffee, eat a ham sandwich and use the bathroom.”  Hmm. I don’t think I would be very interested in that.

Fast forward a week. I am chatting with my good friend and “social media stylist” (@usegraymatter). I need advice because I am going to be a regular contributor to The Legal Intelligencer blog, Pennsylvania’s local legal publication, and I had only written traditional (print) articles before. She brings up this Twitter thing again and I share my cousin’s perspective.

I tell her I am not sure how Twitter would be useful for a jury consultant like me. I get an earful.

In a few hours, I have a Twitter profile up and am searching around to see if there is anyone in the legal profession tweeping or tweeting or twipping or whatever they call it. I am not very hopeful. I know that none of my clients have ever set foot on twitter. They barely have time to check their email.

TwaHa!

What I find is something pretty incredible.  Folks in the profession are not only on there, but are really using Twitter as a professional tool. I see folks using Twitter as a platform to share ideas, articles, legal blogs and ask for referrals. Only the occasional ham sandwich rears its head. Pretty cool. So, I start to follow people. And they start to follow me back.

But what to tweet?

I am pretty sure no one is interested in the half-eaten granola bar sitting on my desk, so I start to tweet about what I would be interested in: good quotes, articles about courtroom psychology, blogs, things that jurors tweet about their jury duty experience. More people in the legal field follow. I follow more people.

Twa Moral of the Story…

So far, my take on using twitter professionally can be summed up in a comment I made on @lancegodard‘s  blog posting  “Aren’t you on Twitter yet?”

I think it is important to realize what social media may and may not be for legal marketers. For my business, I find that the point of marketing is to not only look at immediate gratification, but at the long term benefits.

Specifically, I am tapping into a whole new potential client base through Twitter-folks who may or may not need a jury consultant in the future, but who I know are going to be the future leaders in their industry — they are already setting themselves apart as the experts of their field through their blogs and such.

I realize that Twitter will likely not lead to immediate business, but it is getting my name out there in another form and with a new group of folks. That is never a negative for anyone as long as you put yourself out there in a meaningful way.

When I started my solo practice after years at a big litigation consulting firm, a good client advised me: “It doesn’t matter how you do it, just keep your name in front of people in a meaningful way. That way, if something comes along next week, next year or 10 years from now, your name will be the one to pop in their heads.”

I think Twitter is a great way to do that.

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• Can you copyright a bunch of tweets? (kottke.org)
• Legal Blog Watch
• TweetLaw – connect and tweet with legal professionals on twitter (twi5.com)
• Twitter search for legal profession (kevin.lexblog.com)
• Judge ‘Friends’ Lawyer During Case, Influenced By Defendant’s Website (techdirt.com)
• Cases Challenged Over ‘Tweeting’ Jurors (abcnews.go.com)
• When Jurors Tweet: Lawyers Conerned about Leaks (blippitt.com)
• Twitter transparency & tweet formulas (myventurepad.com)
• Trial by Tweet (calblogofappeal.com)
• Jurors’ Twitter posts worry trial lawyers (msnbc.msn.com)