I think it’s important for us to get a clear understanding of the playing field as it relates to digital marketing today in order to prepare for the challenges we most definitely will face tomorrow. My hope is to provide context for the ideas and direction EMG is heading.

I begin with a few questions that I ask myself every day.

What ideas should we lead with? – The one’s with the best or most compelling creative, relevant strategy, newest technology, most popular or that shows the most promising return on investment? Is it all of the above or something much more complex, integrated and visceral?

How do we measure or benchmark success? Monetize social media? Break through barriers? How do we adapt faster and test quicker? Who are we influenced by? Who do we want to influence?

We now know that digital marketing can at times become the single backbone to success or failure – that it is no longer for simply marketing to youth, Millennials and soccer moms.

We have a continuous flood of information and intelligence resources to help us monitor, uncover and identify common campaign curses, unforeseen pitfalls, potential market penetration opportunities, unique engagement challenges, unconventional strategies and user experience best-practices.

Thought Leaders, must now work together to quickly take advantage of the ever changing digital landscape in order to continue to meet and surpass audience expectations; to not become stale; to determine what to embrace and what to ignore.

Digital marketing has now moved well beyond its infancy of simple electronic press kit sites and landing pages, search marketing, widgets, apps, online promotions and mobile contests, display advertising and even alternate reality games.

Think about the ground-breaking campaigns that are showing success with non-competing partnerships; campaigns that are reaching unbeknownst audiences via aggregated and unique content, popularity rankings, social evangelism and innovative creative; that are creating a personalized story and connection with our audiences outside the boundaries of the previous conventional digital campaign.

How much risk do we take, however?

Regardless of the complexity, all of our goals are singular, simple and historical. Identify the audience, both the core and the fringe, find the best way of delivering our content to them, learn from our success and failures, and risk just enough to stand out and be different.

Year after year offices, campuses and households are swept up in March Madness and the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, dreaming of the big upsets, buzzer beaters and of course, bracket poll bragging rights. Over the years however, I’ve been about as likely to watch, or care about, the NCAA Tournament as I am at becoming the next starting power forward for the Lakers. This year has been different though, this year my alma matter and small, little known school just outside Pittsburgh, PA, Robert Morris University appeared in the bracket for the first time since 1992 not only causing me to watch my first full tournament game but also, from doing marketing in for higher education, changed the way I look at the NCAA tournament forever.

Since Robert Morris is little known outside the Pittsburgh area and I now live in southern California, it’s VERY rare that I ever get more than an “oh ok” when I respond to someone asking where I went to college and at times I’ve even found myself replying with “I went to a small school in Pennsylvania, you never heard of it”. Now, with the NCAA Tournament underway and the national recognition that RMU has gotten from it, I found myself transformed into an ambassador for my school with a renewed sense of pride for the place that I got my degree.

Every time RMU was mentioned on TV or when people talked about the tournament, I found myself not only pointing out that I’m an alumni, but answering questions about the school and giving a two minute “sales pitch” on all the great things about it. After digging out my RMU alumni t-shirt and wearing it to the local sports bar to watch the game, I almost felt like a celebrity with the constant flow of people coming up to me and asking me about the school. Throughout the game I was in constantly responding to, and texting friends from college, some of which I hadn’t connected with in a long time, to talk about the game and how exciting it all was.

So now that you see how an NCAA Tournament appearance can affect alumni like me, let’s dig into what effect a Tournament appearance has on the university itself. For starters, as I mentioned previously, the NCAA tournament gives alumni a reason to reconnect with one another, have renewed pride and interest in their school and act as ambassadors which in turn will gives the school a new reason to reach out to those alumni for donations and involvement in events. Secondly, a large majority of high school students want to go to a “name brand” school and the local and national attention that the NCAA tournament provides drastically increases brand recognition and interest from perspective students and inquiries and applications should see a huge spike as a result. Schools like Gonzaga and Duke are prime examples of small schools with a small student population but being nationally known due to having a strong basketball program. Another great example was in 2007 when Appalachian State upset Michigan in a football game to go from complete national obscurity to infamy over night.

This all comes back to the importance of college sports programs and how their success can directly affect the success and growth of a university and can help to attract new students and donors. For small, obscure schools, like Robert Morris, proper use of the money the school will receive from appearing in the tournament along with a great marketing, communications and PR campaign to capture the spike in interested and attention and build off the tournament momentum can lead to positive growth for years to come.

Is social media a dead space for Advertisers now?  Certainly not, however, according to this article that was forwarded to me by a friend (thanks Spore); Randall Stross from the NY Times seems to lean in that direction.  I have a few issues with this article, or perhaps, I take issue with the case study presented as well as the social network platform that was used for this particular Advertising promotion.

The case presented was about Crest White Strips which Proctor & Gamble ran a large promotion.  This article discussed P&G’s campaign on Facebook, specifically, and how they felt the campaign fell short of the desired metrics.

According to the article, “Independent experts on Web advertising” has identified “a myriad of difficulties in making brand advertising work on social networking sites.  Members of social networks want to spend time with friends, not brands.”  This is ludicrous.  First off, I would like to know who these “Independent experts” are, and see what level of involvement they have with social networking sites and advertiser campaigns.  As an avid social networking user, I feel that the above quote about users wanting to spend time with friends and not brands is a completely inaccurate statement with a caveat that the brands that are trying to engage the users must position their campaigns in a way that is enticing to that brand enthusiast.

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So last week while at a partner conference for ECM leader Interwoven up in San Francisco, I was able to pop over to the Web 2.0 conference right across the street, where EMG happened to be exhibiting for the first time. After spending just 20 minutes talking with my colleagues in the booth as well as a few attendees here and there, I began to notice something very peculiar. Never in my life has there been a greater diversity of industry, age, culture, interest or human specimens under one roof then at this conference. It was an anthropologists dream.

Now, regardless what you may feel about the term “2.o” in general, you have to admit that never has such a buzz phrase fostered such indulgence and interests since I can remember… OK, don’t judge on that one. I guess the fascinating part for me was just how individuals, companies and the conference hosts themselves had spun the 2.0 genre to include so many things. From major media providers to small technology start ups to interactive agencies to the biggest names on the Internet - everyone has found a way to exploit, nay I say, capitalize, on the phrase itself. But has it worked.

Let’s ask the eighty-year old woman slowly shuffling down the walk way about just why she is here shall we - oh wait, where did she go. Never-mind, I was bombarded, humbled and entertained by the gamut of other conversations I engaged in. From the genius start-up entrepreneur looking to change the way the web fosters communication as we know it to the stoic academic that was just looking for some great debate to the individual from the SF Parks & Recreation department and his dramatic testimony on the future of the parks and social networking.

Everyone had an opinion. Well good for them, because regardless of how you feel, there has been a noticeable shift in those that are standing behind the school of thought that demonstrates the web as a true business unit and aren’t going to settle for anything but more accountability, more engagement and more advancement around this extremely young medium. So I say, hats off to all you(us) weirdos, evangelists and experimenters on the edge of digital sanity. You are the beacon for my faith and the direction you will take us.