1. VirginAmerica “Hashtag” - Allow consumers to tweet things they’ve never done but always wanted to do… that is, they are “virgins” of (for example: I’ve always wanted to skydive #VirginAmerica).  Within means, Virgin will pick winners randomly and fly them to a destination where they get to do whatever is they’ve never tried.

2. HFWIF? (How far will it fly) - Tweet a HFWIF message once per week containing some nugget of insight into Virgin’s ‘spectacular’ service. Every Twitter user who retweets is entered to win Elevate miles.  So the tweet ‘flies’ through the twittersphere… if that’s even possible to measure Then DM some code to redeem the miles.

3. TweetSeat! – Tweet your flight/seat # and locate your to-be in-flight neighbors via Twitter

4. VirginAmerica Word Association Game – Play a fun word association game for new followers (say a VA tag word – new follower can @ reply with what it first conjures in their mind) x # of people who play win something

5. Virgin = _____  - have people fill in the blank @ virgin america, give out elevate miles or free drinks for creative answers

6. New Twitter Geo-tag - What if there’s some new kind of tag for location like:

Having lunch in [Paris, France] with @myfriend

Then you can geocode it. Create a mashup like TwitterVision, but only take locations from tweets (versus users’ profile location)

7. Where in the world is…? - have people do some Where’s Waldo type of search based off of clues Virgin puts out about ‘where they are’ that day

8. Elevate Your Followers - Randomly give out Elevate miles for every x # of new followers

9. RED-commendations – Have people nominate songs and then vote for additions to the RED system

10. Conversation Starters - Have fun hypothetical seat chat sessions (playing off their in-flight conversation starters) – give away Elevate miles

To our friends at Virgin America, we’ll assume that our check is in the mail? Or at least how about some Twitter love!

You can follow us on Twitter at @Affinitive, or go to www.twitter.com/affinitive (you can follow me at @BobTroia. Thanks to @sarahashley, @patrickcourtney, and @tomkincaid!)

I recently returned from WOMMA’s Word of Mouth Marketing Summit in Las Vegas. It was a fun (yet sleepless!) few days and it’s always great running into/reconnecting with familiar faces as well as meeting new ones.

Historically, these events have always left me invigorated and full of new ideas. But this time, something felt… “different” (and it wasn’t the shots of Petron that we did at the Wynn just a few hours earlier after an all-night Blackjack marathon )

In the opening “State of WOM Address” given by WOMMA President John Bell, he said something along the lines of the word of mouth marketing industry reaching a “tipping point“. I think what he meant was that WOM is about to transition from a “niche” form of marketing and a tiny part of the overall marketing mix to a more “mainstream” tactic that is on the top-of-minds of any C-level executive.

Yes! I agree 100%! But after two days of panels and networking with people from a variety of backgrounds (brands, agencies, services), I started to wonder, could word of mouth marketing, rather than reaching a “tipping point”, be “jumping the shark“?

Thinking back to the “early” WOMMA events (2005), there was an electricity/excitement in the air. It’s really hard to explain, but everyone was drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid. The excitement wasn’t about what had been done, but about the potential of what could be done. There were far more questions than answers, but that was fine, because it was forcing people to think about things like tactics, metrics, and business models. And for brands, how can they sell WOM to their boss and how do they budget for it?

Flash forward 3.5 years – word of mouth marketing has matured into a multi-billion dollar industry. There are tons of books, blogs, and even awards dedicated to the concept. So although I didn’t find it surprising that audience members (many of whom were new to the industry and first-timers at a WOM-related conference) were asking many of the same questions as back in 2005, the vibe was much less “electric” and more “uncertain”, and what surprised me was the lack of concrete answers being provided, in particular with respect to:

• Tactics
• Metrics
• ROI
• Ethics

How can that be possible? Are we, as practitioners, really still figuring things out? Or are we hesitant to share too much info with other agencies/potential competitors (since the event was probably 90% vendors/agencies)?

On the agency/vendor front, are folks jumping into the WOM/SM arena out of true passion/belief or are they just trying to latch on the next “big/cool” thing or make a quick buck? Will the industry simply become dominated by a small group of large PR Social Media agencies? If times become tough economy-wise and competition more fierce, will things like ethics be tossed out the window? Please tell me no!

However, I do truly believe that the industry is at a crossroads. The lines are being blurred between PR, marketing, loyalty/CRM, and customer service as these tactics increasingly overlap. Demanding accountability and establishing consistent metrics among both brands and agencies is the only way to ensure things “tip” rather than “jump”. Hopefully this stirs up some healthy dialog – I encourage you to post your thoughts below, or drop me a tweet!

Oh, by the way you can check out all of the live “tweets”/micro-commentary that were posted during the WOMMA Summit by looking for posts tagged #womsum (or just click this link).

Thankfully, she was found safe a few days later (turns out she had run away and was not abducted). End of story, right?

Not exactly. In an effort to protect her privacy (and not have the incident “follow” her for the rest of her life), people are being asked to remove any mentions of the incident, the child’s name, as well as photos, etc. – essentially, an attempt to give this child a “clean slate”.

A totally understandable request (which is why I haven’t linked to any of the aforementioned content), but therein lies the problem. The web is a hydra of information, and every piece of content posted online – every blog post, photo, status update, video, tweet, comment, etc. must now be treated as permanent, decentralized record. Even if something is deleted, odds are that the information has been archived and/or reposted elsewhere and will no doubt be discovered in the future. Not a big deal for the average “joe the plumber” (oops, scratch that…), but you never know when something like a moment of, say, teenage indiscretion can come back to haunt you later in life when going for a job interview, running for office, etc.

Censorship versus Privacy versus Slander

I’ve identified the following types of social media “messes” that we will all need to face at some time. If you can think of other categories, definitely drop me a tweet or post a comment:

1. Censorship – Attempt to wipe out or suppress the creation of any factual information that may harm the reputation of a person or organization. See China and Scientology.
2. Privacy – Attempt to protect the personal information of an individual that can put their identity or safety at risk. An example would be a crazed fan posting a celebrity’s email address, phone number, social security #/credit card info, location of schools attended by children, etc.
3. Slander/Libel – Attempt to challenge/rebut damaging (let’s assume false) information posted by an individual or a in more organized, calculated manner. But whether something is considered libel or slander is up for debate.

A Social Media “Fixer”?

So, how do you deal with/clean up a social media mess? Like the Harvey Keitel character in “Pulp Fiction”, could there exist a social media “fixer”, i.e., someone who can clean up a social media “mess”? That would be virtually impossible. Sure, there are plenty of companies out there who tout “reputation management” services, but those are more ongoing/proactive and often involve trying to “bury” the offending information in search results.

I’ll admit, these are somewhat uncharted waters and my analysis may be way off base but this is pretty eye-opening issue. Please don’t take this to mean we must all fear social media, but rather that we must understand how to co-exist with it (and if done properly, embrace it) and choose to accept the consequences of the actions by both ourselves and others (and have a strategy in place to deal with any future social media “messes”). Come on, we were all young and stupid once…