What a classic case of the power of social media. HP, like Dell, has truly embraced the influencers in social media program to help them spread the word about the HP Dragon Notebook: 31 influencers to give away 31 notebooks in 31 days. What a unique and insightful way to not only maximize reach, but introduce Hewlett Packard to the social arena in a very positive way.  Here’s one of the chosen influencers, Chris Pirillo and his campaign to give away the HP Dragon.

If you type in “hp dragon” in search, you’ll notice that only the social media sites are the top ranked search results. The reason that this is important is now HP has built a positive influence within the social sphere and has garnered incremental influencer attention, who want to partner with them on future initiatives.

At Ammomarketing, we understand the importance of developing influencer relationships are very much with the intention of creating long-term partnerships with strong value exchange between the company and the influencers. Overtime, this value exchange turns into a trusting exchange that’s mutually reciprocated and can yield optimum benefits for both parties. Canadian clients are beginning to see the value of social media as a cost-effective way to strengthen brand perception, drive reach and create enduring and positive brand conversations. Good for you HP!

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The New York Times launched a very interesting product today called ‘Times Widgets’. It’s still in Beta, but I believe the concept is somewhat of a game changer - especially considering the industry on whole is in flux and the future is somewhat uncertain.

In my opinion, this adds rocket fuel to the NYT’s content distribution strategy. This comes off the heels of an excellent and well coordinated acquisition campaign from the publication blending celebrities with other NYC personalities and Times writers alike. Here are a couple of the videos (the entire campaign can be seen at: nytimes.com/conversations

At Mindblossom, we get asked almost daily about widgets, widget strategies, successful widgets, monetization, engagement, an so on. We have been fortunate to have built a one or two somewhat successful ones in the past, but I would argue that the maturity of these digital assets had not peaked until this year. I am quite bullish on the future of widgets and believe this will be something we push much more heavily into especially with iPhone and other devices coming to market. For the most part, these devices have the widget concept at their core.

If any one can share more real world examples in the same vein (and calibre) shown within the NYT strategy outlined above, I would really appreciate it.

Cheers!

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I had the distinct opportunity to attend the Rotman Lecture series to watch an insightful presentation by Rahaf Harfoush, a key member of Barack Obama’s Campaign that helped reshape the way political campaigns are run. Ideally, the voice of the people should be represented, and to garner their support means listening to their concerns and persuading them that you will answer those concerns. The Obama Campaign took it one step further: It harnessed this support by arming people with tools to help spread the message and making them feel integral to the campaign. This popular armament provided incredible individual empowerment that caused an explosion of smaller campaigns that fueled the Obama fire.

The Campaign unleashed its brand to the masses and the public embraced it and made it stronger. A great example of this is the Yes We Can Video by Little Will.i.am, an initiative developed by supporters who took Obama’s message, made it their own, and spread the word. It became synonymous with the Campaign and eventually amassed over 14.5 MM views.

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