Some people watch the Super Bowl for the game; others watch it for the commercials. In fact, the commercials are one of the biggest draws of the Super Bowl, especially for the non-sports fanatics of the world. The hype surrounding the 10 second teaser of the Ferris Bueller inspired Honda commercial has been phenomenal. TV-goers immediately took to Twitter to dissect, speculate and rate the clip. It spread like wildfire over the Internet and through social media networks.

Realizing how social media has changed the way fans enjoy the game, Mullen, Radian6 and Boston.com are sponsoring Brand Bowl 2012, a social media event that will analyze the Twitter commentary and rate the most popular and disastrous Super Bowl commercials. The virtual event at BrandBowl2012.com will feature an up-to-the-minute stream of tweets about Super Bowl commercials to determine which brands are the most and least effective. The brands will be ranked based on volume (who has the most/least chatter) and sentiment (who has the most/least positive and negative comments).

Were you always picked last in dodgeball, baseball or soccer? Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to be recruited to play in the Brand Bowl. The power to rank commercials you liked best, or least, is in the palm of your hand – or really, fingertips!

For those of you who plan to tweet your opinions about this year’s Super Bowl commercials, include the hashtag #brandbowl or reference a specific commercial in your tweet. The tweets will be streamed live on Boston.com during the game.

Brands are beginning to realize the influence the armchair advertising critics of the world have in the social media realm. The savviest brands are recognizing the power of social media and are releasing their commercials before the Super Bowl to build buzz online, and are orchestrating large-scale social media campaigns to maximize the impact of their multi-million dollar investments.

Will you be participating in Brand Bowl 2012?

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Technorati Tags: Advertising, Boston.com, Brand Bowl, brands, commercials, Giants, Patriots, Super Bowl, Twitter

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It’s a new year, which means our content pipelines and social media strategies are in full swing. Because it’s a new year, we’re also looking for inspiration. And if you are too, it might inspire you to try something you’ve never done in social media before. The two we like right now are Twitterchat and social media monitoring tools.

Twitterchats, Tweetathons, T-chats, Tweetups, whatever you want to call them, require a 100% team effort. If done right, they can greatly increase web traffic, improve organizational transparency, increase your Twitter followers, and build up or improve your community. It may be hard to convince your client this is a great thing for visibility, but all evidence points to success.

Since I’ve wanted to organize a Twitterchat for months now, I went searching for the best way to go about the task. I found a step-by-step blog from The Blue Key Campaign, which spent a week promoting and organizing its first one. The first step, of course, is that you need an established community. If there’s no one there to participate, where will your responses come from?

I mentioned before that this effort requires input and time from every team member. In our agency case, we’d need the PR team plus our clients, in order to answer questions in the format they arrive, whether it’s Twitter @reply, DM, or email. My hope is that once everyone gets on board, we’ll see results for our clients and as an agency. If you’re looking for a way to start a Twitterchat, check out Blue Key Campaign’s steps. They are as detailed as they come!

Have you ever tried a Twitterchat? What were the results? What would you do differently next time?

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Technorati Tags: community, PR, Social Media, Twitter chats

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PRobecast 140: In this episode of PRobecast, Topazers Justin Martell, Josh DeStefano, and Caitlin Smith join me in talking about the sugar industry trying to pull a fast one, being a memorable public speaker, and our Facebook predictions for 2012.

Sugar Industry In a PR Stretch: Corn Refiners Association Leverages Accusations Against Refined Sugar Industry for Pitching New Study To Create False Scientific Controversy About High Fructose Corn Syrup – The Refined Sugar Industry and the Corn Refiners Association are in yet another heated debate about whose product is better. This time, the refined sugar industry is trying to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes by publishing a survey with several limitations, and did not produce conclusive results. The survey was completed as a backlash against the CRA, which asked the FDA to print “corn sugar” instead of “high fructose corn syrup” on nutrition labels. Now there are lawsuits and complaints being made everywhere you look in the nutrition and food industry, and all that’s being accomplished is misconception. The two industries are not paying attention to their stakeholders, which are, obviously, consumers. Sugar products are in nearly everything we eat, so shouldn’t their focus be on making people healthier and encouraging moderation?

Make Every Word Count – 4 steps to becoming a memorable speaker - Patricia Fripp, a speech coach and trainer, published an opinion piece on the BullDog Reporter on how to make your speech intelligent, memorable, and audience-focused. Her four key points were organization, analysis, edit, and specify. Explicit language is a key way to sound like an expert, and it’s often forgotten in our events. Language is an important tool, often overlooked. As PR people, it’s our job to make sure our clients attend and speak at the right conferences, and we often write the proposals. 2012 should focus on speech which will invite discussion, generate leads, and eventually close deals.

Lastly in PRobecast, we’ll pick technology trends we’d like to see happen for 2012. Our discussion centered on Facebook ads versus fan pages, and which are more efficient.

Now it’s time for the PRobecast PR Power Ranking – which is when we go around the room and pick the story that we think ranks the highest PR-wise – meaning any aspects of PR could be the reasoning behind the pick. Is it the story itself, good data that was used, what’s getting the most pickup, was it a good PR move the company made, etc.

We chose Patricia Fripp’s article on being a memorable speaker. In PR, all too often we forget those important communications skills we learned. It’s time to make 2012 the year to bring back speaking properly while catering to your audience. Pick up your AP style book!

Who do you think should have won? Do you agree with us?

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