Old Spice − a good Christmas present for granddad and a logo resembling the Blue Peter ship. These were the first thoughts that sprung to mind which is hardly surprising considering it’s a 71-year-old brand.  How very wrong I was…

Something rather exciting was going on in the Twittersphere last night. Wearing just a towel (and cheesy grin), the @OldSpice Man was responding to online mentions of the brand in a personalised YouTube video directly to you from a bathroom. He was also answering questions from Yahoo Answers, comments on posts and it seemed anything else posted about Old Spice on the Internet. At first I thought it was a very obvious use of a promoted tweet and scantily clad male model to make the blokes jealous and the ladies ‘ooo’ and ‘ahhh.’ But, the videos were genuinely funny and struck the perfect tone for the brand.

Well that was me set for the evening. I was gripped, highly amused and in awe of a campaign that seemed to have got it so very right! How measurable this is going to be, I’m not sure, but the Old Spice man was keeping up well and successfully interacting with his bemused audience. I was keeping a close eye on the ever-increasing number of Twitter followers which doubled to nearly 12,000 in just a couple of hours. Oh and when I looked this morning it was nearing the 30,000 followers mark.

It must be the fresh man smell because there ain’t no flies on the Old Spice man (or perhaps his PR team) as a few of the video responses were very shrewdly targeted at prolific tweeters (with over a million followers) and journalists. Hello exposure.

The only disappointment of the evening is that I’m still waiting for my response…

Aside from the buff Old Spice man, another brand hoping to gain exposure by exposing in its latest viral campaign is Perrier and its partnership with Dita Von Teese. I’m yet to come across any real online buzz but the story had great coverage in the red tops so watch this space.

Reading through the press this morning, it’s clear that social media is being well and truly recognised as a legitimate marketing strategy for 2009.

Following the buzz that started in 2007, and grew rapidly during 2008, social media marketing is now flourishing in this tough economic climate.  I can think of a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, the process provides tangible results.  Due to the wonders of Google Analytics, we can track traffic sources and conversion rates.  ROI can be easily calculated and clients can see the impact the campaign is having on their bottom line.  This transparency has to be an attractive proposition for businesses.

Secondly, I’ve heard two buzzwords for success in 2009.  These are ‘honesty’ and ‘excitement’.  Social media provides both.  At its core, social media is about engaging with customers.  It’s all about creating an open and honest conversation between both parties.  It’s also about creating a buzz online about your product or service.  By engaging with your target market, you’re building excitement around your brand.

So is social media right for every business?  It helps if your business has a decent website and perhaps a blog – the perfect place to drive traffic to, and engage directly with your customers.

Clearly, your customers need to be online.  If they are, it helps if there’s a conversation already happening between them.  Are your customers the type of people who form communities and talk around the subject?  A little keyword research will help you find out what’s happening online in your industry.

I’m struggling to think of an industry that wouldn’t benefit from a social media campaign.  I’d love to hear your thoughts..

The clear advantage is that digital services can be benchmarked.  They can be monitored and reported on, enabling success to be measured against expenditure.

Clients can be more selective about who they choose to carry out these services.  As a result, pricing needs to be sharper and digital agencies must go the extra mile to ensure they win new business.

A recent poll on TopRank placed SEO as the number one web marketing technique. Quite simply, it’s a relatively cheap form of advertising (if you find the right agency!) and the results can have a direct impact on your bottom line.  Also, all results can be tracked and every bit of traffic can be followed through to conversion.  We’ve certainly seen an increase in the number of clients requesting an SEO campaign over the past month.

For this reason, I’m convinced that Google Adsense will become increasingly popular compared to other web marketing strategies, such as affiliate marketing.  Pay-per-click campaigns can be immediately adjusted and near real-time reporting allows for instantaneous ROI data.

Blogging also emerged high up on TopRank’s poll.  This is a great way for a company to interact directly with its clients and other businesses.  It’s also an integral part of an SEO campaign.  A successful blog will drive traffic to a company website and should result in improved organic listings. Setting up a company blog is also relatively cheap.  Most blogging platforms are free and easy to set up – the challenge is ensuring your staff buy into its importance and recognise the potential ROI.

Online PR is another service directly associated with search engine optimisation.  All well-rounded website promotion campaigns should include an element of this, especially when the competition for top spots in result pages is so fierce.  A company website should no longer be seen as the only place where the public can find out about the latest news from an organisation. Directories and news feeds should also be utilised to create an online buzz around a company. Again, this will have a direct impact on the number of visitors going to your site and hopefully result in an increase in sales or enquiries.

What the current economic climate should do is bring about the death of banner ad campaigns.  The scourge of internet web browsing is an expensive form of advertising that many users find extremely irritating. Unfortunately I can’t see global brands, such as Nike, cutting back on this form of advertising.
On the other hand, email marketing should fare well against other digital advertising services in the economic downturn.  When compared to offline direct marketing campaigns, email marketing is cheaper and offers better reporting.  Businesses can track ‘open’ and ‘click-through’ rates and see a direct response to their campaign.

Social networking can also be a great way for companies to generate new ideas internally, engage with customers directly and act as a forum for people with similar interests.  In this climate, expect to see smaller companies continue to take advantage of the free services offered by Facebook and Bebo.  I was really interested to read Julaine’s blog post yesterday about how Orange has developed its own in-house social networking solution. I agree that if the budget is there, this is a great way for a company to allow its staff to interact with one another within a controlled corporate environment.

The door is now wide open for digital services to make their mark – it’s just whether people decide to walk through it!