What does this mean for you?  Well…it means a better experience when you visit our site.  It also means we need to celebrate.  And we have decided that you, yes you our current eyespeak blog readers, eyespeak Facebook fans, and eyespeak Twitter followers are going to help us celebrate by taking over our blog.  We feel like we create some good content, but we think you might have some ideas to really help us kick our new website off in style.

How can you run our blog?

Submit your content suggestions here on the Run our Blog post or submit an idea to us on Twitter or Facebook.  If you are really ambitious and would like to author a post on the new website here are the guidelines:

• Send you submission to our Social Media War Room with the Subject: I want to Run Your Blog
• Keep submissions between 250 and 500 words
• Your submission must be an original work not published anywhere else on the web or in print
• We will notify you if we select your work for publication
• Please write your best (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.) we just don't have time to edit all submissions.

That's it…this is how you can Run our Blog.

That is not the majority of my client base.  My small business clients are great and wonderful companies that don't have big budgets and most have very small and unsophisticated traditional marketing campaigns.  In several cases we serve as the entire marketing department for our client.

In my opinion it is pretty easy to create some social media buzz for a large company like Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Domino's Pizza, and other huge brands in the social media space.  The reason is really simple: They have a recognizable brand, built-in platform, and known products.

If I was the social media director at Coca-Cola I could run a campaign to give away free cases of Coke to the first 100 people that send in a video of hitting themselves in the face with a whipped cream pie.  (Or something equally as crazy/silly/funny.) And word would get around on the popular blogs and through Twitter and Facebook very quickly.  They would get a lot of buzz and a ton of videos.  (What else do high school and college kids have to do during the Summer?)

I can't do that with my clients.  Odds are that to generate responses the value of the giveaway would have to be much more substantial than a $3.50 case of soft drinks to get the same reaction and the total number of participants would be small.  (But still really funny.)

The problem is that the advertising companies that come up with those stunts are winning awards for those campaigns, when in my opinion it is the previously established platform and traditional marketing presence that was the real driver of success behind the campaign.  (Or in some cases these major brands start their social media campaign with a media buy in a traditional outlet like TV or Newspaper)

I will say it is easier to get buy in for risky stuff from my small clients.  Once you have a huge brand the lawyers get involved and make it really hard to do the fun stuff before the opportunity to capitalize has passed.

So, where's the love for the successful small-business campaigns?  What do you think?  Easier to generate accolades from a big established brand campaign or about the same?

1. Crowd Sourcing Questions – In a room of 4,000 people getting your question answered is tough, but not if your question was Tweeted or Facebooked!  If you have a good question this would be a killer way to get it asked and answered.
2. Alert Attendees of Cool Stuff – You could use Twitter and Facebook to do last minute giveaways, meet and greet passes, etc.  This could help your event gain traction even during a lunch break.
3. Sponsored Giveaways – Everyone likes free stuff…what if one of your sponsors could get a hold of your follower/fan list for a giveaway during the event.  Check out our friends at Giiv to see if they can help you with this!
4. Best Seat  - Use Social Media to upgrade someone from the back to the front…in a nice big comfy chair of course.  (Added bonus…make sure they have a cooler full of drinks and snacks!)
5. Lost and Found – Sometimes people lose things at conferences…so create a conference specific lost and found twitter account and send tweets about things that are found.  (Or have the audience use a lost and found hashtag if they find stuff!)
6. Late Groups  - Invariably some groups coming to your event will be late.  Car trouble, traffic jams, etc.  Using social media listen to them talk about being late and select one of the groups to get "white glove" treatment when they arrive.  Save them enough seats, valet their van, and make sure all of their registration materials are ready to go when they arrive.
7. Roving Twit-Pics - Send out some people into the crowd and take pics for the official conference twitter feed.  Include their Twitter user name in the pic to add some value for the attendee.
8. T-O-D - Have your social media staff (you do have someone working conference social media right?) select a "T-O-D" (Tweet of the Day) and give that tweeter a prize.  It could be insightful, funny, serious, scary…anything…just give them something!  (On stage would be even better!)
9. Backstage Antics - If you have ever been backstage at a conference…some pretty funny things are happening.  We have all seen the backstage interviews…but tweeting some candid pics would be AWESOME!
10. Video Time – Now that everyone at your conference will have an iPhone 4 (I mean really…who doesn't have one yet?) Get them to send in their videos to your uber-talented video team (You have one of those too right?) and have the crowd sourced video for a montage near the end of the event.

Okay…there are 10 things you can do for your conference/event…hurry and do it before someone else does!  Can you think of anymore?

(Click the picture to get the full res version.)

Special thanks to Wendy and Maggie!  Wendy's Daughter was getting embarrassed at the thought that her friends might see her mom on YouTube, but she was so sweet!  And Maggie was worried that she didn't get enough of her makeup done before our interview.  (She looks just fine to us!)

HT: @trippcrosby for the ending.

We are tired, but had enough energy left to put this video together:

Simply put Apple is a hype machine.  It seems relatively old school, but Apple simply hypes everything up.  CEO Steve Jobs gives hour long presentations extolling the virtues of each new device as it is released.  He describes the painstaking work that went into every little detail of the new device and then used more, and more, and more flowery speech to pump it up.

Just as the press conference room is at a fever pitch he releases them into a room where they get the opportunity to play with the devices and give their readers/viewers a first impression of the device.

Droid doesn't have a singular spokesperson, they don't have big flashy press conferences that are followed by average consumers, and they aren't a big hype machine.  It's not that Droid is an inferior phone, it is all in the presentation.

Apple presents their new devices to the world as if these devices are the very thing that the world has been longing for.  Droid phones are presented as an alternative to the iPhone if you don't want to be on the at&t network.

Show us what Droid does without mentioning iPhone.  Tell us about your developers and the apps you have in your store instead of talking about iPhone.  Only then will Droid and iPhone be in the same league for the average consumer.

What do you think?

The cutting edge technology powering this new breed of three dimensional display holds the potential to dramatically alter, not only the portable gaming landscape, but the hand held electronics market as well. Devices that use small LCD displays, like cell phones, portable media players and digital cameras are all primed for a three dimensional upgrade.

Despite being the first company to come to market in the U.S. with a device that uses the new 3D tech, Nintendo's singular focus on a relatively minute slice of the overall mobile electronics market may hinder them in the long run.

Current cell phones are more than capable of playing the latest graphic intensive games released today in addition to doing a whole lot more. As smart phones begin to grow as a percentage of all cellphones, consumers will begin to tire of carrying more than one device.

Need Proof?

As big as this news seems, it pales in comparison to the launch of Apple's iPhone 4. Twitter, Facebook, and Blog's all lit up when the phone was announced and as the phone went on sale last week. As the phone launches in real life on Thursday, these outlets will again be consumed with buzz about the new product.

In contrast, Nintendo's announcement wasn't as hyped. Like Apple, Nintendo kept strict control over the release of any information related to the device, attempting to feed into the cycle of hype and widespread speculation running rampant on the gamer blogosphere. Unlike Apple, Nintendo's hand held gaming device doesn't cut across a wide spectrum of consumers.  So, while gamers and techies were very hyped, the average consumer may not have even known the announcement was made.

(However, this should be a big seller at Christmas.)

So, is it a device issue or segment issue? I don't know the answer to that, however, I do know that if Nintendo wants to continue growth in the hand held market they should probably partner with a cellular device maker for a future release. Who wouldn't want to watch 3-D movies on their cellphone? Right?