Focus Groups in vogue again, thanks to Super Bowl

I feel so vindicated.  Which almost makes up for yesterday’s Packer-less Super Bowl.

After last year’s event, I announced the Top E-Holes of the Super Bowl.  Most of the winners, especially the Grand Super Bowl E-Hole — Groupon — had declined to conduct Focus Groups to pre-test their commercials.  My rant was about just that; the utter folly and pure arrogance of taking such a huge chance with their brand.  Given Groupon’s $377 million in funding, why hadn’t they spent the mere $20,000  to do a couple of groups? Simply as brand insurance, if you will.  Like duh. Ask the customer?

I would have been happy to take on a juicy new Groupon project, and of course always delighted to visit Chicago when the snow flies and black ice proliferates.

Oh what a difference a little joking about Tibet makes.  After the Groupon social media firestorm, this year smart marketers returned to their tried-and-true market research toolkit.  The Wall Street Journal reports that companies such as Hyundai to Bridgestone to Chevy conducted Focus Groups in advance of the broadcast. Now that viewers are tapping into Twitter and Facebook in mind-blasting numbers (Madonna’s performance during the halftime show saw an average of 8000 tweets per second), checking in with your customers in advance makes even more  sense.

Still, it’s always something. Yesterday’s reigning hashtags #Clint Eastwood and #Halftime in America were today’s brouhaha, both for questions about the star’s politics, and for the commercial’s mysterious removal and return.  IMHO, the spot and Clint were genius — kudos to the creatives at Wieden + Kennedy who pulled off this new classic.  Extra kudos for the concept of Visual Viralizing:  Share the video from the Chrysler YouTube channel and see how far across the country your Tweets and reshares reach. Brilliant.

Entrepreneur Magazine: Five to Follow on Twitter

Thanks to MomCentral’s entrepreneur-extraordinaire, Stacy DeBroff, for including me in this Entrepreneur Magazine article

May 6, 2011 by Kara Ohngren |

Five to Follow on Twitter for Marketing to Moms Stacy DeBroff knows what moms want. As a best-selling author of four parenting books and founder and CEO of Boston-based Moms Central Consulting, she specializes in viral marketing to moms. Since 2006, Mom Central has partnered with hundreds of leading brands including Mattel, Johnson & Johnson and Kraft, to build relationships with moms using social media and off-line events like brand-hosted Mom Blogger and Influencer parties. Often dubbed a “parenting guru,” DeBroff works on behalf of her clients to create passionate brand advocates.

Twitter is an important piece of DeBroff’s overall branding strategy. That’s where she connects with more than 23,000 followers and offers a steady stream of useful parenting-related news and product info @MomCentral.

Here’s her list of the top five Twitter feeds to follow for entrepreneurs looking for insights on how reach the mommy market.

@BethHarte
Followers: 22,549
Tweets: 34,485
Beth Harte is a marketing pro and public speaker from Philadelphia who offers consulting to the “customer-centric organization.” She also pens the blog The Harte of Marketing. With a slant toward women and moms, she regularly tweets her expert opinion on a range of marketing campaigns, as well as links to useful marketing articles from across the web.
Sample Tweet: @cgornpr It’s repulsive because it’s terrible marketing and PR. Why would you send that to a mom for HER mom?! Wrong demographic.

@GuruofNew
Followers: 2,420
Tweets: 10,350
Sarah Browne is a San Francisco-based social media strategist and author of the popular blog focused in part on marketing to women and moms, Guru of New. She primarily tweets about emerging social media trends as they relate to women. Check out her @repliesfor other great mom-related tweeters to follow.
Sample Tweet: Somebody just made my Friday. That would be @MomCentralChat of course. Can’t wait for the next trend report. Nose to grindstone @thopeross!

@Idilgh
Followers: 643
Tweets: 544
New York-based PR expert Idil Cakim specializes in implementing word of mouth marketing by identifying influential moms online. Her Twitter feed is full of useful stats about mom buyers and general social media news.
Sample Tweet: Babycenter and the 2011 Mobile Mom Report – Technorati Women http://bit.ly/i2L09r

@ConversationAge
Followers: 24,991
Tweets: 23,730
As a New York-based brand strategist and public speaker, Valeria Maltoni focuses on integrated marketing, customer insights and brand advocacy. The author of the popular marketing blog Conversation Agent primarily tweets inspirational nuggets geared toward marketing to niche groups — like moms.
Sample Tweet: So I see a lot of posts telling people to make stuff happen. Are you helping or just talking? Support is a key ingredient in #influence

@M2Moms
Followers: 556
Tweets: 206
This is the official Twitter feed of M2Moms, an annual marketing to moms conference held in Chicago. Followers are treated to a flood of relevant tweets about mom buying trends and news.
Sample Tweet: Kellogg’s “Share Your Breakfast” campaign resonates with moms because it hits on 4 key Mom points http://ow.ly/4fUxm

So NOT an E-Hole. @RedCross Rogue Tweet does good.

Ah. It does the heart good to write about good for a change. Especially after a month overflowing with E-Holes.

Earlier this week, an American Red Cross social media specialist named Gloria Huang accidentally sent out a Tweet via the official Red Cross Twitter account about drinking Dogfish beer and “gettngslizzerd”. Now this mis-tweet has happily resulted in a flurry of donations, supposedly from fellow beer fans, including @Dogfishbeer.

Huang was tweeting from a handy Twitter tool called HootSuite and though perhaps not yet ‘slizzerd’, she sent her tweet out into the Twitterverse via her employer’s profile instead of her own. Guru’s Note: Dogfish or not, if you’re managing many accounts on HootSuite or other social media tools, going-rogue tweet is not that unusual. (@HooteSuite also made a lovely donation to @RedCross.)

Enter Red Cross social media director Wendy Harman, who chose to respond quickly and with good humor. Rather than relying on the organization’s serious institutional voice, she tweeted:

“We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.”

Utterly genius. Instead of calling in the big PR dogs, she simply chose to put @RedCross’ human face forward. Wendy also tapped into one of the Ten Commandments of Social Media. Commandment #8: Never be boring.

And even better, another hero joined the bandwagon –Dogfish Head Brewery , which encouraged donations to the Red Cross with the hashtag #gettngslizzerd. Tweets are still going strong this morning:

To add your donation to the Red Cross, click here.

Have an E-Hole to report? Want to become an official E-Hole Spotter? Send an email to: hello@guruofnew.com with E-HOLE in the subject field.

What would happen if we all took 24 hours offline . . . together?

When it comes to digital media, is it possible to have too much of a good thing? How easy is it for you to go off the grid? You will soon find out should you be brave enough to participate in the upcoming worldwide event called The Big TurnOff. The aim of BigTurnOff is to collectively take twenty four hours off from digital media as a social experiment in order to evaluate the role of and our relationship with technology in our lives.

When the organizers learned about my digital detox –thanks to CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen for her trendsetting coverage of my experience –they approached me for my take on the Big Turnoff. Here’s the recent interview:

On The Grid Guru of New Social media strategist and Guru of New, Sarah Browne, took 40 days off from social media in observance of Lent last year and also recently spent some time offline in Alaska. She was kind enough to take the time to share with us about her experiences with social media abstinence and about her life on the bleeding edge of technology. Here’s what we learned…

BigTurnOff.org: When did you first begin using social media?

Sarah Browne: Actually I crack up when I hear all the pundits act as if social media was just invented. Anybody remember eworld’s Town Square? Compuserve? Prodigy? America Online’s Million-Chatters-A-Day? And of course, BBS, MOO/MUD. I was one of the first AOL Greenhouse Partners, way back in the dino-days of 600 baud, circa 1995. One of the first things we learned from Steve Case, Ted Leonsis, Eileen Bramlet & Company was the value of ‘community.’ Our chat rooms, message boards and content were all powered by our members — some of whom were paid in free (overhead) accounts. Our sites were all about Community, Connection and Conversation. We just didn’t have the cool tools or tech available today. We used to dream of bandwidth.

BTO: What led you to become a social media strategist and expert of the new?

SB: I’ve been an ‘expert of the new’ for (sheesh, dare I say this?) decades. Early on, when I was at Ogilvy & Mather, I was the only one who ever asked — begged — to be put on pitches and new products. Everyone else was hugely concerned with filling up their portfolios — and new products have a long launch time . . . and pitches (see the recent Mad Men) can go poof in moments. But I loved the thrill of starting from scratch, the pulsebeat of innovation and I loved hanging out in corporate labs and research facilities. Ingredients, formulas, technologies turn me on. So for me, social media, in which ‘now is the new wow’ is merely the latest 24/7 focus group laboratory. I never set out to become a Social Media Strategist — I simply sniffed out the next new thing (as always) and applied it when clients asked me to.

BTO: With regards to technology, as the duration of time in product life cycles from bleeding edge to obsolete decreases ever more rapidly, do you find it increasingly challenging to stay abreast of what’s “new”?

SB: Absolutely. We recently snuck away to Glacier Bay, Alaska to go sea kayaking and clap away marauding bears. Connections were iffy and besides, I wanted to go off the grid. I was astounded by how ‘behind’ I was after only a few days. And my 2010 Radar Report, which was produced in January was “old” by February.

BTO: Do you ever feel overwhelmed with the barrage of available information and how do you manage it all?

SB: Yes, I often feel overwhelmed and I am not nearly as uber-engaged as many of my social media cohorts. I have learned that when I get to a certain point, I need to actually make myself shut down the computer and turn off the phone. I really hate Facebook because of what it’s become and really only like the friends/family part of it. I probably have Hidden 75% of my so-called Friends due to their E-Hole behavior. So one way to manage it all is: TURN IT OFF. The other way is to use management features on services like CoTweet, push only certain notifications to your cell and oh yeah, TURN IT OFF.

BTO: How do you keep up and help your clients stay up to date as well?

SB: I have my daily morning drill, which includes certain sites from local to global. Some info is pushed to me — New York Times, of course, and some I scurry after. There are a couple of trend sites I like, too, — I am a Spotter for Springwise, for example. And of course, Twitter, mon dieu! In 30 seconds, you know whether there’s been an earthquake in Chile or whether Justin Bieber is now shaving. I try to keep very current in certain categories because of fave clients and often will either email them or blog about their issues. Right now, I have a number of clients who have been in Name Generation mode — so I made sure they knew about the new .co domain that launched last week.

BTO: Can you share your single best and worst experiences from your perspective in being an early adopter?

SB: Microsoft Bob! Front Page! Microsoft has been a longtime client, which meant I’ve been a frequent beta tester for many of their products. It is still amazing to me how a company with such smart employees can come up with such turkeys. I love working with them because of their brainpower but I still have nightmares about Front Page extensions.

And my best experience as an early adopter? It’s near blasphemy to mention the much-maligned America Online. But digital anthropologists will remember that once upon a time, AOL was the rock star, replete with magazine covers, explosive growth and millions of addicted fans. The early America Online also had something all-too-few Internet darlings ever managed to achieve: a revenue-generating business model. I was there for a few of those shining years, soaking up the smarts from more Harvard MBA’s than show at a Crimson football game. There were so many firsts for the fledgling Internets. And so many firsts for those of us lucky enough to be there.

BTO: How do you feel that social media and technology are changing how we approach our lives (both positive and negative) especially with regards to human relationships, for example our definition of the word “friend”?

SB: I struggle with this question virtually every day. Actually, I’ve struggled with this concept since the dawn of the Interwebs. On one hand, my world is happily jam-packed with friends I never would have made in a completely analog world. On the other hand, the shallow, self-promotion-ness of it makes me crazy and sad. Did you read that New York Times article tying the decline of empathy with the rise of social media? Not sure I totally agree –but I love what the writer said about self-promotion replacing self-awareness. Scarily true.

BTO: What improvements would you make to sites like Facebook when it comes to striking a balance between “open and connected” and user privacy?

SB: I think it’s up to us to find that balance. Facebook is not going to change. Yes, they will make some concessions here and there but ultimately their bottom line is all about 500 million users and how to generate revenue from the teeming masses. Despite all of the Quit Facebook Days and kvetching, their numbers have exploded. But I have noticed some changes being made by (experienced) users themselves. Many are cutting back on authenticity and true self expression; spending less time; being more guarded. Newbies are still bombarding us with new goats from Farmville. It’s like Neopets for grown-ups. But I can’t really complain — I was a big fan of Facebook’s Pirate English. Arrrrlllll, matey!

BTO: Can you tell us a little about your experience with giving up social media for Lent (and perhaps your more recent detox)?

SB: Here’s why I decided to give up Facebook for Lent last year. My reason is a bit different from others who choose to do a digital detox. Most of them are simply and happily addicted to the service and concerned they’re spending too much time online (usually tracking new and old romances.) My problem was that virtually every time I logged on, I’d find myself enraged. The red-in-the face, migraine’s-coming kind. I was furious over the morphing of my cozy mash-up of friends and family into a nest of shamefully self-promoting E-Holes. Plus I knew that it was essentially my fault. This was one prediction the Guru of New got way wrong. I genuinely didn’t foresee that the massive blurring of business and personal would turn my Facebook page into a 24/7 ad for people I wouldn’t recognize at Safeway — many of whom wanted me to ‘uplevel’ my business, sign up for their teleseminar or ‘fan’ their whatchamacallit. Instead of being a daily digital scrapbook Facebook was transformed into Personal Brands R Us. I didn’t want to manufacture a perfect, pretend life for these pretend friends. And I was ticked at the people who enjoyed doing just that.

So being off Facebook for 40 days and nights was a relief. I turned my clients’ pages over to my project manager, tucked my Advil in the drawer and didn’t miss a moment of not ‘upleveling’ my business in any way. Somehow my company has survived the lack of teleseminars, podcasts, MLM and ‘wealth systems’ offered to me via Wall, Status Updates and News.

Off the Grid Guru of New

When we went to Alaska a few weeks ago, one of the best parts of our trip was staying off of Facebook. I do definitely miss seeing pictures of friends and family — and I will admit I love connecting with my sorority sisters and scattered relatives.

Twitter’s kind of a different story. There’s no pretense that someone is your Friend. It’s very cut-and-dried … Follow/Following. No strings attached. And while there are plenty of E-Holes on Twitter, it’s a very ships-passing-in-the-night relationship. I don’t need a detox from Twitter. I’m emotionally detached.

BTO: Do you feel that others could benefit from even a twenty four hour detox? If so, would you see any benefit in doing it together with a number of other people who would share in the experience?

SB: I think everybody who spends more than an hour a day using social media could benefit from a detox of some kind. I actually read books — like BIG ones — when I was in Alaska and offline. Of course, I learned about these particular books on Twitter! (Stieg Larsson) But I don’t know if there is any need to detox from our digital tools–checking bank balances; movie times; texting friends; etc. For me, it’s certain social media that’s the devil.

Please don’t ask me to share my 24 hour detox with my daughter, who practically cuddles her iPhone.

BTO: What do you think of The Big Turn Off as a worldwide event? …and/or as a local event held in ways that a smaller local community chooses on their own?

SB: Worldwide. The Big Turn Off needs to be a statement with a capital S. I remember the August when AOL crashed for 19 hours. Quelle freak-out. There can be smaller local events — like local Ted meet-ups during the big event.

BTO: Would you be willing to participate in either a local or worldwide Big Turn Off event?

SB: Absolutely — I’m in.

BTO: One last question… As Guru of the New, would you say we can officially declare Turning Off “The New New Thing”?

SB: Yes — Turning Off will be officially declared “The New New Thing” by the Guru of New on my blog, etc. I’m psyched!

BTO: Wow! That totally rocks. Thanks, Sarah!

Learn more about the Big Turnoff:
BigTurnOff.org
facebook.com/bigturnoff
twitter.com/BigTurnOff
myspace.com/bigturnoff

Twitter buys Tweetie just days before CHIRP.

It sounds like something left over from April Fool’s Day: Twitter Acquires Tweetie Just Days Before Chirp.

Mashable reports that Twitter has just announced that it has acquired Atebits, the company behind the popular Tweetie iPhone app and Mac desktop application. Twitter CEO Evan Williams explained the move in a blog post:

“We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve entered into an agreement with Atebits (aka Loren Brichter) to acquire Tweetie, a leading iPhone Twitter client. Tweetie will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and made free (currently $2.99) in the iTunes AppStore in the coming weeks. Loren will become a key member of our mobile team that is already having huge impact with device makers and service providers around the world.”

Twitter also specifically mentions that an official Twitter iPad app is indeed coming: “Developers, services, and publishers will be able to leverage the Twitter iPhone and iPad applications to create additional innovative tools and integrations for users,” Williams said in the announcement.

The scuttlebutt now centers on what’s ahead at this week’s sold-out CHIRP, The Official Twitter Developer Conference, held in San Francisco on April 14 and 15. Given the recent ‘rough patches’ that have sprouted between Twitter and its developers, the meet-up is well-timed. The word from the Twitter blog:

We want to get together with some of you and celebrate the chutzpah that goes into so many of the apps built on the Twitter platform with our first ever official Twitter conference especially for developers called Chirp. The word Tweet is a noun defined as the chirp of a small or young bird. The Twitter ecosystem is still very young so naming this conference Chirp felt right. For more info, click here.

How Many Followers Did You Lose in Twitter’s Great Spam Purge?

If you’ve been noticing your Twitter follower count plummeting, don’t despair. They weren’t real tweeps anyway. It’s simply Twitter cracking down on random bots — including those pesky pornbots — and spam accounts that auto-follow people.

Twitter calls it ‘correcting’ follower and following counts. We call it the Great Twitter Spam Purge of 2009, because we like to make up mnemonic devices and clever names. If we could add a kitten logo, we would. In the meantime, from the Twitter blog comes this explanation:

For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We’re soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages.

However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system.

The Purge is all the buzz on Twitter, with most tweeters waxing philosophical.

ResaMichelle: Twitter did a spam purge.. consequently, we all lost a lot of followers. I think it’s worth the loss…

amylizza: I see that after the spam purge, I’m back over 200 followers. Thank you so much to all my new followers & friends. I love you all!

eggboxrobin: Thank you for the updates re spam purge, I’m appreciating the deep-clean!

littlegingerkid: Just checked: I lost 42 followers in last week’s spam purge. I thought I was good at blocking the spammers. Maybe genuine ones went too?

Despite all this peaceful, no-petitions acceptance, there are people reporting losing all of their followers — and even some who claim there are more spammers now than before the Purge.

So what should you do about all this, if anything? Use common sense, tweeps.

Here are 5 TellTale Signs Your New Follow Might Be A Spammer:

• Deliberately sexy profile picture. While there are tweeps who simply can’t hide their smokin’ hot babe-ish-ness or Absolute hunkiness no matter what photo they use, the majority have no problem posting a G-rated icon.
• No profile info at all. Before you follow someone back, you need to know at least a modicum about who they are. It’s okay, if goofy, if under Location, they say: The Universe, The Earth, Everywhere. It’s also very okay if under Location, they list: Tehran. Many tweeps switched their location to mask genuinely Iran-based tweeters during the recent elections. We also colored our profile pix green in support.
• No followers, no updates, disproportionate follows-to-followers. Sometimes this a truly a newbie — like my friend @emacdaddy4 who just signed on to Twitter. I verified that it was actually my buddy by checking her Following list and noting a mutual friend.  This method can work — but if the spammer is particularly devious, they’ll pick up an entire list.  If it looks suspicious, ask her pal directly.
• Dubious updates. Are the updates legitimate conversation, Re-tweets from people you’ve heard of, links from reputable sources? An often dead giveaway is a page full of #FollowFriday recommendations, with no comments, just @ after @ after @. These spammers are trying to provoke mass follows via #FF.
• Auto-DM (Direct Message) with spammy sales content. I am not a fan of any bot-related activity on Twitter.

Those are just some basics. Feel free to tweet me @guruofnew if you have questions or run into a rogue tweeter.

And from savvy blogger Thoughtpick comes a very useful list of The Top 5 Methods & Apps to Reduce Twitter Spam.

What Twitter Could Learn From America Online.

Go ahead and break out the rotten tomatoes. It’s near blasphemy to mention the much-maligned America Online in the same breath as today’s newest shooting star, Twitter. But digital anthropologists will remember that once upon a time, AOL was the rock star, replete with magazine covers, explosive growth and millions of addicted fans. The early America Online also had something all-too-few Internet darlings ever managed to achieve: a revenue-generating business model.

As one of AOL’s first Greenhouse Partners, I was there for a few of those shining years, soaking up the smarts from the likes of Ted Leonsis, Steve Case and more Harvard MBA’s than show at a Crimson football game.

What Twitter Could Learn From America Online

Lesson 1: User experience anyone? According to Nielsen, Twitter’s growth has skyrocketed to 10 million in the past couple of celebrity-fueled months. But despite lots of tweeps in the social media sandbox, very few are playing.

Here’s the real shocker from Hubspot:

• 54.9% of users have never tweeted
• 42.12 have only tweeted once.

Wimpy participation rates like this simply wouldn’t last for long in the young AOL. “Lurkers” in the chat rooms were encouraged to join the party by exuberant Chat Room Hosts, whose job it was to welcome newbies, manage flame wars and stimulate ‘repeat business.’ Nowhere were these savvy business practices more in evidence than in the Greenhouse properties, where our site survival was dependent on how long members stuck around. Our hosts were all pros at making chatters feel comfortable: {{{ MidnteLace!}}} @@>—>—–! We understood that everyone starts out as a Lurker. Our mission was to transform those silent on the sidelines into active participants.

Yes, of course it feels truly dippy now. We are all waay too cool for this kind of behavior. And yet? What if Twitter created a group of Tweeter Greeters? What if they used the new Verified Account badges for more than celebrities? What if they developed the 2009 version of Twitter Hosts, empowered to do what their AOL counterparts once did?

How many of the 54.9% who’ve never tweeted might join the conversation if they weren’t concerned about being an Accidental E-Hole? Or if they weren’t worried about inadvertently falling victim to Twitter spam, password scams or viruses? Or if they weren’t simply mystified by the endless stream of disconnected me-me-me broadcast tweets?

What if some of the 42.12% who’ve trepidatiously tweeted just once got an authentic reply from the Twitterverse? Inclusion is a magical thing. In the every-Tweeter-for-himself environment on Twitter, inclusion is the happy fairy dust that leads to high engagement.

Lesson 2:  Okay, we get it — you’re an understaffed, overworked, over-caffeinated start-up scraping by with only 50 employees (and 55 million in funding.)

So why not do what AOL did in those formative years? Tap into your masses of addicted Power Users the way America Online once did with the Community Leaders program. Most sites had CL helping with everything from managing message boards to chat rooms to content development. Community Leaders received free accounts in return — a hugely sought-after prize in those days of $2.95 an hour for AOL access.

Obviously, that model no longer exists — but what’s still in full and fervent swing is the heated desire of tweeps to venture behind the velvet rope. Imagine the avalanche of applicants if Twitter asked for volunteers. Imagine the avalanche of applicants if Twitter ‘paid’ these volunteers in customized Tweets (designated colors, fonts or graphics) or added them to the recommended Follows for new users– or invited them to exclusive volunteer events. How about a SXSW Tweet-up at Gingerman Pub?

I’m ready for those tomatoes now.

Do Not Use Twitter . . .

Trending on Twitter and topping Digg, this photoshopped parody would be completely laughable if tweeps hadn’t already used Twitter during arrests and earthquakes.

Love these:

circa1908: RT @ListenToLeon: Do Not Use Twitter iF yOu TyPe Liek tHiS.

ErinMarieHogan: Do Not Use Twitter is the fastest refreshing trending topic I’ve ever seen.

allonereaction: Do not use twitter to get laid…it’s lame!!

KeLauLi: RT @AwesomeChicken7: Do Not Use Twitter if you think it means you’ll become best friends with Demi Moore

LawlietJourney: Do not use twitter to make yourself seem cool,cuz honestly if ur on here were all noobs XD

Guru’s Note: Do Not Use Twitter for your brand unless it’s part of your holistic branding strategy.

What’s Tweetworthy in Your Town? Find Out What’s Happening from Happn.

I realized this weekend at #TWTRCON why Twitter is my favorite addiction:  it’s all new, all the time –a perpetual work-in-progress.  New tools and trends bubble up constantly. If you’re a new junkie like I am, Twitter is the uber-ultimate in shiny new toys. So of course you’re going to love this hot new trend-tracking site that tracks emerging trends in 52 different metro areas around the world.  Happn.in collects and aggregates popular phrases used on Twitter, showing you what people are twittering about in your city.  The five most popular phrases each hour are posted to the site — and then they’re tweeted three times a day to the happn.in Twitter account for each city. Right now, there are about 79,678 people following happn.in in 52 cities.

And here’s a special twist that the Monetizer in me loves:  Happn lets you sponsor tweets. It actually has a business model with a mini-revenue stream. Yowzaa!  I paid a Suze Ormand-pleasing $2 per sponsored tweet. So when tweeps read what’s hot in LA, SFBay, Seattle, London, Boston and New York over the next couple of days, they’ll also see <GURU OF NEW> with a link to my site.  If I popped $100 for a heavy-up campaign, it’s possible these sponsorships could actually generate some Guru brand awareness.  But in the meantime, it’s really a blast to watch as trends zip around the world — and practically droolworthy to see what’s hot in one city and decidedly not in another. 

Guru’s Note:  I begged Jay to add the Monterey Peninsula to its list of cool trend-setting cities. But unfortunately, not enough tweeps in our eco-paradise are tweeting. (At last count, there were probably 8 of us and that includes the new seahorse @MontereyAQ and Zen Otter @EmbassyMonterey.

But good news: Things may change soon with our upcoming Social Media Monterey Mini Camp. Stay tuned for details.

Wanted: Adventurous and Creative Clients. Must Be Willing To Experiment with New Research Tools.

Here’s a good working definition of Market Research:

An objective approach to finding solutions to problems in marketing. Involves qualitative and quantitative research and analysis of the findings to help marketers’ best target and reach their audiences.

For me, the operative phrases are finding solutions to problems and reach their audiences.Thanks to the emergence of Social Media, problems and solutions are the pulsebeat of our non-stop global online conversations. From the tell-it-like-it-is Power Mom bloggers to the 200 million+ Facebook members to the exploding Twitterverse, we’re chattering about everything from politics to products to people. As of December 2008, more than one billion of the world’s population is now on the Internet. Why on earth would market researchers resist these irresistible methodologies?

Here are my favorite new market research tools — I dare you, O Clients, to (hire me) to give these a try:

Twitter

Quick, easy and budget-friendly, Twitter is a goldmine of fresh consumer insights. It’s a global stream-of-consciousness on every topic imaginable. Plus, all kinds of tools and third-party services are available to convert raw data into actionable information including trends and hot topics.

Trendrr is my favorite for trend tracking and comparison. Its Twitter Search graphs are invaluable – virtually real-time, they provide graphing of keyword mentions by the hour.

Tweetmeme: Here’s how to find the most popular links on Twitter.

For your iPhone: Twitter Trend: This free app provides a tag cloud for looking at emerging trends on Twitter.

Twithority is an easy way to have the most recent Twitter trends tweeted to you. The links provide a view of Twitter trends based on both time and authority.

Hashtags.orgIf you were checking this site right now, you’d know that #liesboystell and #liesgirlstell are the numbers one and two hashtags of the moment.

Twist: Twist is a trip. Twist provides a graphical interface for trends and keywords on Twitter.

Facebook: While most of us are waiting for Facebook to do some serious monetizing via its growing datamine, in the meantime, there’s Facebook Lexicon. Lexicon aggregates and analyzes millions of Facebook Wall posts every day to provide a searchable database of trends over time. Users can query a single word or two-word combinations and compare as many as five strings per query. The results display a chart plotting the frequency with which the words are being discussed each day. All this is done automatically with no person reading individual Wall posts and all information aggregated anonymously to protect your privacy.

Brand Community Platforms Every brand researcher in existence has to be drooling over this hot new opportunity for brand-love: BzzAgents new Bzzscapes. Now brand passionistas can erect online altars to their favorites, then watch as fellow fans join in, adding their own content to the social media mix. Will the overzealous (companies included) try to game the system? How organic and authentic can these sites be?

Private Online Communities: From Ning to Communispace, building your own private online community is easier than ever and can be valuable low-risk market research tool. These ‘walled gardens’ are a safe place to engage your with best opt-in customers, test ideas, evaluate user experience and experiment with new initiatives.

Projective Expression/Journaling Platforms
Glogsterbrings graphic blogging to the masses, and just happens to be a promising online ‘projective expression’ tool, similar to the popular Focus Group technique: Collaging. The service is focused on letting people create “posters” of various bits of premade and user-generated content. Using the right tools, Glogster users can create colorful stuff with a distinct visual style — one that could be used to represent “My Customer Service Experience with Yahoo” or “If I Could Invent My Own Perfect Hair Color It Would Be …”

Glogster offers private .edu accounts, which could be used for corporate market research.

Another site, Scrapblog, lets users create personalized scrapbooks with photos, video and thousands of creative elements, and also lets them print the scrapblogs. They’ve added top scrapbooking designers with high-quality content that’s available to purchase. The problem with this site is the user is locked into Scrapblog’s formatting — which does not even provide a ‘blank’ scrapbook for true customization.

A cool new site currently in beta, Plumkeeper, is described as ‘Family Journaling Made Easy’. This promising technology leverages everything consumers already do online –including emailed stories and photos, funny text messages, mobile photos, Facebook, Twitter and more. This makes for uber-authentic market research indeed– as it plucks from existing attitudes and behaviors in all their spontaneous authenticity. If I had a Mom or family-oriented product, I’d tap right into Plumkeeper for fresh and juicy insights.

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