There is no denying the power of social media. And if 2009 with its staggering growth statistics weren’t enough proof, then look no further than the Super Bowl.  Arguably, this was the most social Super Bowl of all time. Brand marketers, sports fans, and advertising fans utilized social media to buzz about the big game.

This year’s Super Bowl was the most watched television program in history with 106.5 million watching, according to Nielsen.  I think social media played a role in those ratings. Twitter, Facebook and blogs were all a buzz leading up to the game, whether it was about watching the game, the television ads or just Americans rallying behind the much beleaguered city of New Orleans.  One can link the tremendous social media buzz around the game to its viewership.

Leading up to the big game, you couldn’t read the words “Super Bowl ads” without “social media” being connected – and with good reason. It’s not just about the commercial spot anymore; it’s about those ads - and the buzz around them - driving viewers online to start and share conversations about a brand, particularly on Facebook and Twitter.  And if done effectively marketers can create millions of brand ambassadors online, talking and sharing your brand with their family, friends and colleagues. And millions were chatting pregame about these ads, essentially creating interest to tune-in and watch them live.

We wanted to look at the advertisers to see how big broadcast media impacts social media. We have listed the top 20 biggest movers in terms of percentage from where they started before the game’s big bang.  Our finding were covered in “PRWeek” for the second year in a row.

A few thoughts on the top gainers

“Shutter Island” #1
It is interesting to see an upcoming movie garner the top percentage gainer spot - is it Leonardo DiCaprio’s appeal or Martin Scorsese? Movie studios embracing big broadcast has paid off dividends in social buzz. Entertainment brands can not only drive anticipation for an upcoming release but extend their life and keep in cultural relevancy for continued sales of DVDs through social media (from simple status updaters which enable fans to cite and publish of their favorite lines to image applications where fans can literally become part of a scene).

Google #2
Incredible spot that has received much attention - first time Google entered TV to our knowledge – what a beautifully executed and thought provoking spot spot - not everything has to been  crazy humor to break through the clutter.

E Trade #3
Their epic campaign was taken to new level this year and created much chatter - babies playing off present day landscape - “is that milk-alocholic Lindsey over there?” Touching into cultural  conversation which needs to be extended on a 24 X 7 basis - not just a one off.  We challenge creatives to be apply creative thinking to social media infrastructure as well.

Dove Men #4
What a great product debut - key placement in the Super Bowl which moved the needle.  Smart move to introduce the product to key audience while women who watch with their men endorse the benefits and will most likely purchase for the household.

So now what?
I think everyone gets that social should be a part of the marketing mix. The question is do they know how to effectively do that, especially with the TV medium? Some may say TV ads are dying, and there is some merit to that. However, big events, like the Super Bowl, Oscars, etc., will always attract people around a TV. People don’t like to view these events by themselves in their room on their laptop, It’s a community thing - “Can you believe she won!” “Did you see that catch!”  So marketers need to learn to effectively leverage the ‘traditional’ medium with social. Yes, these spots are about entertaining and brand awareness…but can they also effectively translate to social currency that live on a 24X7 basis.

We are thrilled to be selected as a finalist for the Red Herring Global 100 award which recognizes private companies that are playing a leading role in innovation and technology from around the world.

Vitrue was selected as a finalist from a pool of nearly 1,200 private companies and nominees were reviewed on both quantitative and qualitative criteria such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their ecosystem. Further noted by Red Herring, the judges look closely at the company’s global strategy to evaluate how the company will be able to handle the challenges of internationalization and a global presence. Furthermore, Red Herring cites these global innovators are the ones to watch as they disrupt their respective industries.

“This year was especially difficult,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “Despite the global economic situation, there were many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products that we had a difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists. Now we’re faced with the arduous task of selecting the final 100 winners of the award. We know that this year’s crop will grow into some amazing companies that are sure to go far.”

We are honored to be a part of this global list.  We are committed to aggressively driving social media forward and strive for new ways to exceed market expectations to establish connections between brands and consumers.

As cited in one of our blog posts from Q4 last year, we outlined our new Facebook Moderation features to the Vitrue SRM, Global Brands Demand Global Scale, “Just one year ago, we were helping brands manage fan pages that totaled 100,000 or so fans.  Today, we are currently managing pages that combine for over 10,000,000 fans marking a 100-fold increase. On top of that, our systems are managing social activity on a global scale “across the pond” so think about the transactional horse-power we are working on here. This explosive fan growth, which creates hundreds of millions of comments and social actions, requires world-class technology solutions which scale to meet the unique needs of brand marketers who want to encourage authentic conversations on Facebook but need safeguards to protect brand integrity.”

In 2009 alone, Facebook crossed the 350 million mark of global users, illustrating of the awesome power of our collective social currency.  What a tremendous opportunity this presents for marketers to drive engagement, build their fan bases and truly harness the power of social media.

Just a quick post to wish all a great holiday!

As the year draws to a close, we gratefully pause to wish you a happy holiday season.

We appreciate the continued support and are so excited about what is to come in 2010!

Facebook has become an epicenter for the “wisdom of friends” where we all share and influence each other.  Savvy brands know to “fish where the fish are” and enable customers to interact with their products in an environment where they are already spending a lot of time.

With holiday retail in full swing and cyber Monday sales rising 14% over last year (Coremetrics), brands who are social and who connect the shopping experience with the Facebook social graph will win.

We are proud to work with Buy Buy in partnership on their Facebook presence to help provide not only conversation but helpful utility.

Best Buy Facebook Page, Get Advice

Our “Shop + Share” application allows users to shop for Best Buy products and share with or get advice from their Facebook friends. By leveraging the Remix API, Best Buy is one of the first major national retailers to make a true social shopping experience on Facebook.

“Fast Company” recently cited Best Buy as a brand doing it right by tapping into peer recommendations.

Social shopping is imperative for retail brands as they need to provide experiences that make it very easy for fans to tap into the knowledge of their friends, whose opinions are more likely to make an impact on their purchasing decisions.

Since 1988, as World AIDS Day is observed on each on December 1st.

Vitrue is proud to be working with (RED)™ , a simple idea that transforms our collective power as shoppers into a financial force that helps those affected by HIV in Africa.

(RED) product partners include powerhouse brands like Starbucks, American Express, Converse and Apple – just to name a few.  Our spending dollars when buying red products from these brands delivers a huge impact on the fight against AIDS.  To date over $140 million has been raised.

Yesterday’s observation was tremendous and the social media response was significant.  Major pushes on Facebook and Twitter to turn them each RED – literally. As “Mashable” cited, you could show you support by changing your profile picture on Facebook or tweeting with red hash tags – even Twitter turned their home page red.

Today the (RED) Facebook page has toped over 380,000 fans and the Twitter followers are over – 914,000 - such powerful adoption.

Using social media to do social good just makes sense.  People connect to causes and brands that are good and do good.  Any effective communication strategy is tied to giving consumers the power to express their values and emotions by doing things that matter in their lives.

Social media environments provide an unparalleled environment to make social change.  We are all influenced by social actions and simply fanning, commenting, liking, tweeting power incredible social awareness and change.

We are proud to support (RED)’s Facebook page.  By making it easier for consumers to interact with brands and entities that give back, it is a powerful way for charities to spread their message going forward. With brands and charities showcasing content and by simply sharing something you think is cool you are powering significant social change – be it a thought, a video testimonial, or an inspirational song.

We enthusiastically welcome interest and inquiries from other charities so that we can provide expertise on how to best leverage this marketing medium as we firmly believe social media and social good need to be tied together.

We wanted to provide some simple yet powerful takeaways of where we see social media headed as we head into 2010.

We have never seen a hotter market or a more fascinating time – as social media is truly changing how we interact with each other let alone our favorite  brands.

What we see working at Vitrue is staying committed to aggressively driving social media marketing forward and continually striving for strategic and creative new ways to meet and exceed evolving client and market needs as being social is now intrinsic to mainstream culture.

This morning we saw a great article in “Ad Age”, Starbucks Rings in the Holidays With Big Social-Media Push, that hit on one of our core trends.

“It’s like we’ve taken the version 1.0 of last year and now we’re really doing it at scale and going to a lot more places where our customers already are,” said Chris Bruzzo, VP-brand, content and online at Starbucks. “People are saying this is going to be a big year for social media and we’re a microcosm of that. Whereas last year it was a curiosity, this year it’s a core part of the program.”

So what do we anticipate seeing more of next year?
Check our top trends and let us know what you think will shape the future of social media.

Vitrue’s Seven Trends for Social Media in 2010

1. “Grass Roots Social Media” - push to customize and segment, making more localized and more relevant
2. Integration of social media will become the norm/become fabric of corporate marketing programs – what typically was siloed management of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, social media will be come much more integrated – like in the 90s for ad serving  whole departments are being created to manage social media. Testing and trials are over. It is here to stay.
3. Social communications sophistication - companies will be employing some of the same tactics they have used with email marketing over the past 10 years.  They have learned about messaging their customer base from years of trial, and now will be using much of the same process and policy.
4. Brands going global in their social strategy
5. Platform approach – brands need management systems and scale – everything is getting more social at an exponential rate
6. “Wisdom of friends” vs the “wisdom of crowds” purchasing influence continued to be shaped more and more by our peers
7. Facebook continues to evolve as the “identity platform” as its social currency, interactivity and its maturing portability is unmatched

In partnership with Publicis and General Mills, Vitrue launched an engaging Facebook presence for Yoplait’s “Know Your Girls” breast cancer awareness and education campaign.  Over the past 11 years, Yoplait has raised over $22 million for breast cancer and this year strives to take it a step further by tapping into Facebook to educate and unite women.

By establishing a comprehensive Facebook hub that is filled with information, Yoplait is helping empower and inform women as well as provide them the tools virally educate and raise awareness within their own social circles.

The campaign’s creative touts a strong message in a fun, sassy and truly all-girl manner of “Know Your Girls”.

The comprehensive Facebook presence enables women to connect and share through four different applications, all of which integrate into the publisher feature of a user’s wall enabling their social actions to organically spread and create awareness.

Yoplait Pledge - Know Your Girls

The pledge tab asks young women to “pledge” to get to know their body through education and awareness.  For each pledge executed, Yoplait will donate 10 cents to  the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® for research on young women. For every pledge received by October 31, 2009, Yoplait will donate 10 cents to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, up to $100,000.

The “Your Girls” tab allows you to add a photo of “Your Girls” as an empowering, proud and oh-so-sassy statement. No need to worry – no boys allowed – this is a gender-gated Facebook application.

Yoplait Lower Risk - Know Your Girls

The “Lower Risk” tab, provides fun and educational messages that can be downloaded and printed or shared with friends on Facebook.

The “Quiz” asks users a series of questions to test their knowledge of breast cancer and prevention and displays key facts after each answer to help expand knowledge.

The wall posts coming show the unified passion for a cure and each message provides another unique face and inspiring story behind the ongoing fight against breast cancer.

It’s our hope that this page and its message continue to grow and be shared throughout Facebook’s vast community.  And, hopefully, with programs like Yoplait’s “Know Your Girls”, that one day every woman will be empowered through education and awareness to take a stand against breast cancer.

This initiative is especially near and dear to my heart as my mother is a breast cancer survivor, and I know first-hand how early detection—through awareness, education and empowerment—can save your life and the lives of those you love.

Help us spread the word.