For example, by definition I am a mommy blogger, but don’t you dare call me one. The category irks me. Or maybe the stereotype irks me. Most mommy bloggers I know don’t blog “just” about being mommies, and they certainly don’t blog about coupons or cleaning products. They blog about things like relationships, half-marathons and poetry, like I do (though I sometimes take weeks off between posts despite knowing better through my day job).

Do not refer to me as “soccer mom” or “hockey mom,” either, though my sons play both sports. You should also avoid “SAHM” (though I was one for a while) and “working mom” (duh, isn’t every mother? The President says so, anyway). Yes, what they say about people who assume is true, and mom stereotypes are old-school. I don’t drive a minivan or a humungous SUV. I don’t buy diapers, lunchmeat or fruit roll-ups. I don’t organize bake sales (who would dare to these days?) or hide in the bathroom for alone-time.

Age demographics are equally loaded. It makes me cranky that so-called “digital natives,” who are younger than I am, get all the attention. My Klout score qualifies me for exclusive lounge access in an airport terminal and extra matches in a Klout-based dating service, and I am the mayor of two restaurants in my urban neighborhood. (I offer these examples very tongue-in-cheek. They are the goofy part of my “social” life. I’ll never be at the VIP international terminal, and the mention of living downtown contradicts my argument about being different: I’m actually part of the trend of people leaving suburbs and heading for the city.)

So while I can’t text as efficiently as a digital native (how do they do that?), my mobile, social and media habits are closer to theirs than to my own Gen X. I don’t have a DVR, watch primetime TV or receive print newspaper delivery. I watch all my favorite shows online, and I get my news from the Web, very often via Twitter or my Facebook newsfeed.

In addition, in terms of age, I come somewhere between Demi and Ashton (though I am certainly not what came between them). Technically, I am closer in age to him, but feel a much deeper affinity with her. Is it a chick thing? No, it’s an “ex” thing. We’ve both recently changed our Twitter handles to expunge our married names (she was @mrskutcher but is now @justdemi).

Do gender assumptions otherwise pan out? Nope. I relate more to the edgy, stereotypically-male personas of J&P Cycles and Old Spice (I am a customer of neither) than I do jcpenney (where I am a customer).

I bet your profile, like mine, includes contradictions that baffle marketers who rely solely on demographic data. I contain multitudes, wrote Whitman. So what’s a marketer to do?

How about this? Get to know me as a person, not a stereotype. That’s the beauty of modern social marketing. With the right approach – a game, a loyalty program, a contest/promotion or a location-based offer  – brands can earn my active (and often enthusiastic) participation in personalizing their marketing. It may be a little more complicated and require a little more creativity, but I’m totally worth it. My mom told me so.

Diapers.com made its first appearance on the Big Movers This Week with a successful giveaway of… what else?… diapers! The brand posted to Facebook, promoting the sweepstakes and earning its highest level of engagement in more than two months. And it’s worth noting that this update, from a Friday, earned more than double the engagement of similar updates posted the subsequent Tuesday and Sunday — consistent with our research indicating that Sundays are the slowest days for retail brand pages!

Newegg.com also promoted a contest to score big. By utilizing Timeline’s pinning feature, the brand highlighted a new sweepstakes and asked fans to “click like” to win the prize package… And fans really liked it! More than 22,000 fans interacted with the post!

PetSmart also used a “like this” post to connect with likers — a photo post (captioned “Puppies are miracles with paws. Like this if you agree”) resulted in thousands of likes and shares. As a frequent leading performer on the RSJI, it’s not surprising that this spike catapulted PetSmart to the top of the Index with a score of 342 — the highest of the week!

Another newcomer to the Big Movers This Week, Blue Nile, joined the ranks of Bulgari and PetSmart by applying the tried-and-true tactic of photo posting. By sharing a cutely-captioned pic of a diamond ring, Blue Nile got lots of fans “like”-ing!

With new brands joining the Big Movers every week, wouldn’t you like to see yours on the top? Contact us for a free social media assessment, and we’ll help get you there!

An exclusive $50 Facebook coupon had loyal New York & Co. likers taking to the brand’s wall to express love and appreciation, more than doubling New York & Co.’s RSJI score — from 49 to 101!

The Pampered Chef spent a significant amount of time atop the RSJI this week, with its largest spike coming from a cause-related social promotion on Earth Day. The brand offered to donate one sustainably-made bamboo spoon to a food bank for every “like” the status updates received. More than 18,000 Pampered Chef fans liked the statuses promoting the campaign… now that’s a lot of spoon donations!

The passionate liker base of Musician’s Friend got riled up by a status saying, “This one will be interesting… The most overrated guitar player of all time is ____.” The combination of the fill-in-the-blank status and fans defending their favorite musicians kept the post active for nearly a week!

Rounding out the Big Movers This Week was Bulgari, which shared photos of stars showing off their Bulgari accessories in a Facebook album that has amassed more than 14,000 likes so far. But Bulgari wasn’t the only brand that increased fan engagement with photos — DSW stayed at the top of the RSJI rankings by sharing a wide range of photos — from newborn babies showing their shoe love to DSW employees sharing their style to store grand openings and in-store events!

Who will top the RSJI next week? Stay tuned to find out!

With 1,114 entries and 183,227 votes cast, the response from fans was overwhelming. And the types of teams ran the gamut: husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, grandfathers and grandsons and long-time hunting and fishing buddies all made the case that they were the Ultimate Outdoor Team.

In the end, there could be only one winning team. Ruth and Louis Cusack received enough votes to make the top ten and were then selected as the winners by a panel of judges that included members of Cabela’s Pro-Staff. Next year, they’ll be hunting in New Zealand, and the trip will be filmed for an episode of Cabela’s Ultimate Outdoor TV.

Just looking at the top ten finalists you can see the passion for the outdoors that Cabela’s customers have. They love to share their interests, stories and adventures — big and small. Social promotions like this one give them great reasons to do just that.

Both Zales and Newegg.com used simple and effective “like-this-status” posts to amp up their Facebook interactions. When the jeweler asked fans to “Click ‘like’ if you love bold and stunning diamond earrings!” more than 22,000 fans responded! And Newegg took advantage of Timeline’s pinning feature to promote a giveaway and used a “like-this-status” update to build promotion among 11,000 likers and counting!

For a second consecutive week, Hobbytron.com ran a Facebook promotion to earn a big spike on this week’s RSJI, but unlike Newegg, its promotion went against the social network’s guidelines. By sharing a photograph of a container holding thousands of BB pellets and challenging likers to guess the magic number of BBs for a prize, HobbyTron effectively engaged fans but broke the rules!

Microsoft utilized several strategies – from making the most of Facebook’s Timeline features to promoting the brand’s Pinterest page via Facebook – to round out the RSJI’s Big Movers This Week. The brand applied Timeline’s new highlighting feature to draw extra attention to two posts: a video promoting Microsoft’s Bing Translator app and a Pinterest contest for Mother’s Day. On the same day, the brand shared a sketch promoting Halo 4 from Conan, hoping to excite fans of both the video game franchise and the talk show host.

And an unexpected brand made an appearance on the Big Movers This Week. By alerting its fans that Halloween was “only 199″ days away, Spirit Halloween received a flurry of enthusiastic comments and likes.

Who will top the Index next week? Be sure to watch your brand daily to find out!

Kevin Hart is arguably the most successful touring comedian today, but he’s hardly a mainstream presence. He credits HIS success to the same thing he says drove the film’s blockbuster opening weekend… social media.

They couldn’t afford the huge studio marketing push that tentpole franchises like Transformers would get, so Kevin (and other cast members) leveraged the cast’s combined 20 million Twitter followers (and Kevin’s 5.1 million Facebook “likers”) to drive word of mouth.

The results speak for themselves:

C’mon. How can you not love that? As soon as I realized I was letting out the same sniffle that is usually reserved for heartwarming movies (and onion-chopping), it got me thinking. These kinds of commercials are truly my favorite. The ones that tell a story. That touch upon emotions or events relatable to nearly everyone. And the ones that relegate the product or brand at hand to merely a supporting role instead of in-your-face hero.

I wonder if the brands that never do this fear that their product will get lost in the tale. To them, I’d say—make it really good, and it won’t. The only reason I know this commercial is from P&G is because it’s in the title and the last frame, and personally, that’s enough. I mentioned the brand name in the first line of this blog post, didn’t I? And because of the viral nature of genuinely moving ads such as this one, others will acknowledge it, too. In fact, I only first saw this commercial because a coworker posted on it on his Facebook wall (thanks, Mike!). As we know with any meme or viral object in the social sphere, once it catches on, it’s golden. We’ll forever refer to this ad as that “P&G Olympics one about moms,” don’t you think?

Another story-like commercial I’ll never forget is this Adidas one below, played during the 2006 World Cup—my favorite time of the year (every four years…). It spread like wildfire back then, I believe, because the story it told—a backyard pickup game featuring some of today’s greatest players—appealed so much to the audience. What soccer fan wouldn’t want to be those little boys? The brand, Adidas, was hardly the starring role, and no real benefits of buying the product were ever mentioned. But it garnered over 1.3 million views on YouTube, and today I still play that song (Jim Noir’s “Eanie Meany;” I Googled it back then).

You never forget a great movie. I think the same goes for commercials. Do you recall any other ads from the past that have moved you or told a story? Share them below!

The Netherlands-based carrier takes the crap shoot out of airline seating through “Meet and Seat,” allowing flyers to find their perfect seatmates based on access to social media profiles on Facebook and Linked In.  (The service is open to ticketed passengers on select KLM flights. If you find yourself flying on KLM from JFK or SFO, you can try it out. You must have a booked ticket to peruse who is on board and where they are seated, and potential seatmates must have opted in.)

Consider the possibilities. One could find and avoid entire swaths of demographics, perhaps avoiding those with mommy-like social characteristics, keeping the prospect of a crying baby at least one seat away. Or one might scan potential seatmates to select your preferred profile for a flight companion. My preference, oddly enough given I am a boomer-aged flyer, is always the young, hoodie-wearing, iPod- carrying traveler. Experience validates that this flyer is most likely to buckle-up, hoodie-up and zone out — eliminating any chance of elbow-sparring or even the slightest exchange of pleasantries. Am I onto something or does that defeat the purpose of “Meet and Seat”?

Of course, “Meet and Seat” could go horribly awry. Would a business flyer want to be “sold to” at 30,000 feet with no escape? Would a single, attractive traveler want to be hit on with little recourse? And there’s always the possibility that your selected seatmate has a social profile that is less than truthful. Of course, all these scenarios could – and do – take place with traditional seating, but actively requesting a seatmate may imply permission to seat, meet and socialize. KLM even suggests that social seating could extend beyond the flight with a shared cab, cup of coffee, etc.

“Meet and Seat” appears to be limited to the masses in Economy Class (unclear from KLM’s website description), protecting the most valued 1Ks and Business Class customers. If social seating becomes popular, I can envision the service quickly becoming a fee-base revenue stream along with checked bags, snack boxes and blankets – well, at least when the U.S. domestic carriers get hold of it.

Cynicism aside, kudos to KLM for continually thinking social. (The brand’s “KLM Surprise” campaign also uses social profiles bumped up against waiting passengers to bestow personal gifts on individuals who check into flights via Foursquare and tweet while they wait to board.) KLM bravely states on Facebook it seeks to “stop advertising and start spreading happiness.” Who could fault such a vision?

There’s always the possibility that “Meet and Seat” could negatively impact the customer experience and that these socially-armed flyers might denigrate KLM with impunity.  But here’s hoping innovative thinking keeps KLM’s social journey positive for KLM flyers – and the brand!

Marc Jacobs made its debut on the Big Movers This Week by posting a birthday greeting to its founder that generated thousands of fan likes, shares and comments. Another new Big Mover brand was the NBA Store. Photo posts of new athletic shoes from the Lebron James and Kobe Bryant collections initially received a lackluster fan response. However, a second posting proved much more engaging. The reason? We think it was the timing. The first post went out on a Saturday (not a strong day for retailers on Facebook), the second on a Thursday.

A Facebook post from Spencer’s earned that brand’s highest engagement levels since February. Likers got in touch with their inner children by responding favorably to a post that read, “If you’ve never jumped from one couch to the other to avoid the lava, you’ve never had a childhood.” The post earned the brand over 2,000 shares and 17,000 likes! Staples rounded out the Big Movers This Week. Typically, the brand’s Facebook page leans toward the quiet side, but an external incentive prompted liker interaction. After a two-week dearth of liker posts, the wall erupted with loyal Staples customers and rewards members singing the praises of the office retailer. Likely, an email encouraging Facebook interaction prompted this loyal fan base into action.

Two brands just barely missed the Big Mover’s This Week. Zales received enthusiastic liker reactions when it shared a photo of “spectacular and glamorous” gifts for a “spectacular and glamorous” Supermom Mother’s Day promotion. And an RSJI newcomer, HobbyTron, earned a position at the top of the Index with a 1-day Facebook contest that challenged likers to guess how many BBs were in a container. The update earned more than 2,000 responses and 10 lucky fans won prizes—but even though it’s engaging, the contest is yet another illegal Facebook promotion!

Will your brand break into the Top Movers next week? Contact us to help you amplify your Facebook engagement!

The Huffington Post

• The Huffington Post. Started in 2005. Strictly online. (Technically, it’s a blog. The first ever to win a Pulitzer). Often mocked: Is it “real” journalism?
• The New York Times. Founded in 1851. Challenged by the online environment. Well-respected. Winner of more than 100 Pulitzer Prizes. The gold standard for journalism.

So it seems like The Huffington Post can’t possibly attend the same parties as The New York Times, right? Don’t be so sure.

Based on statistics valued in the modern media landscape, the very popular blog holds its own against the legend. HuffPo has roughly 1/4^th the Facebook fan base of the NYT (574K vs. 2.1 million), but take a look at the talking about stats captured today: 40K for the NYT compared with nearly twice that – 77K – for HuffPo. The NYT app on Facebook has 100K monthly users, a figure dwarfed by HuffPo, which has 1.5 million monthly users. And according to this article from The Economist, at the beginning of 2012 The Huffington Post approached 60 million unique visitors each month worldwide, several million ahead of The New York Times.

As validating as the Prize may be for The Huffington Post and modern media (which despite being able to compete for readers rarely receive accolades like traditional media do), the Prize also redeems social audiences. The Huffington Post’s award-winning piece, Beyond The Battlefield, challenges some stereotypes about social audiences and the kind of content they seek. For example:

• Online audiences only want fluff. / “Beyond The Battlefield” is not light reading. It’s hard to get through. Online audiences can stick with difficult subjects. They’re willing invest emotion.

• Readers don’t have an attention span on the web. / Each piece in the Battlefield series is a number of pages, and there are 10 parts. Readers will take time with content that is meaningful and memorable.

• Blog readers aren’t sophisticated, so it’s OK to slap together content. / As HuffPo Executive Editor Timothy L. O’Brien describes it, “Beyond the Battlefield” is a collaboration among a writer, a video producer, designers of info-graphics and interactive data, a photographer and an editor. And it matters that the author, David Wood, is a journalist with more than 40 years experience. Stringent standards and ethics for writing and reporting that are important for readers of traditional media are just as important to blog readers.

There’s room for improvement to the model, of course. In 2011, the publication faced writer strikes (Newspaper Guild Asks Writers to Boycott Huffington Post), and though some have been dropped, work remains in the online environment on how to structure arrangements between contributors and site owners when it comes to compensation and ownership.

But awarding a Pulitzer to a blog is a big deal. It encourages even more amazing content.

So it turns out blogging’s not just for kids, after all. It’s not just a hobby. It’s not just “for fun.” Blogging – and all other content development – can be serious business. It can be incredibly impactful. And with a whole new generation consuming its news primarily on-line, the question about legitimacy (does HuffPo deserve to sit alongside the NYT?) will likely go away entirely.