Enzo F. Cesario, Brandsplat’s CCO shares his thoughts on Jing, Nutella on Facebook and Gotye . Check it out! Or click here for more Brandsplat vids

We here at Brandsplat are not just experts in ghostwriting and savvy blog creation — we also dabble in all things online marketing. And we know better than anybody how important it is to keep bloggers happy. Bloggers are this generation’s version of on-the-scene reporters, and influential bloggers can truly make or break a company. So it isn’t surprising that many companies bend over backwards to make sure bloggers are “loving it.”

McDonald’s has a turbulent history with digital engagement. The fast food giant is often pegged as the planet’s foremost purveyor of heart disease and diabetes; online critics aren’t shy at all about stretching Ronald and Co. over the rack. The brand battles huge image issues on nearly every digital platform. 2012 has already seen the #McFail disaster, wherein a Twitter hashtag campaign backfired on the company. So when it comes to the super-costly and mega-high-stakes marketing of its partnership with the Olympics, McDonald’s is doing whatever it can to keep bloggers fat and happy, so to speak.

The Huffington Post reported last week that McDonald’s has assembled some 400 bloggers. This blogging army, according to HuffPo, has been plied with all-expense-paid vacations and lavish gifts. And all McDonald’s wants in return is a slew of positive posts about its brand and products. The high-cost, high-profile blogging campaign will be rolled out over the next few months in the UK, just in time for the Summer Games. Organizers are hoping to show bloggers how easy it is to use Facebook and Twitter to promote their glowing McBlogs. Shifty? Unethical? Sleazy? Perhaps for regular journalists — but this is blogging, so all bets are off! McDonald’s has a long history of trying to buy off bloggers — most recently with a mommy blogger experiment that backfired in 2011.

Mickey D’s isn’t the only company who tries to sway bloggers. Marie Callendar’s, Levis and nearly every cosmetic company under the sun (just to name a few) have all openly appealed to bloggers in hopes of a few kind (and influential) words. So, readers, we ask you: Does this practice make good digital marketing sense or does it make you want to take a shower? Let us have it in the comments section below!

Honesty in Facebook marketing?! Kitties attacking all kinds of webpages?! Freaky job postings?! What the heck is going on? Fear not. We sort it all out just for you in our weekly list of Five Things You Might Have Missed.

1.) The Sarah Phillips Warning: This week, Sarah Phillips made headlines for getting fired from ESPN after a Deadspin article painted the columnist as a con artist with several identities who help spearhead some big-time Internet scams. The scandal reminds us that if you’re hiding something, bloggers will always find it — and no brand is above being occasionally duped.

2.) Kitty Cat Attack! As YouTube has proven time and time again, everything is better with cats. So cat treat maker Temptations is letting Facebook fans put cats everywhere they go online. The Kitty Hijack app available on Temptations Canada’s Facebook page gets dragged into your bookmark bar and then the feline fun is unleashed as kittens crawl all over any site you visit. The funny, frenetic frenzy is Facebook and online marketing purrfection.

3.) Help Wanted: Here’s a jaw-dropping print campaign from the UK for the non-profit Freedom from Torture. Made to look like a job posting, these ads boldly seek to fill the positions of “Torturer,” “Abuser” and “Kidnapper.” Bent on making a point and standing out in an employment-starved climate, Freedom from Torture turns a simple classified ad into something unforgettable.

4.) Rocking Crowdsourcing: We love to see a spunky individual who can turn themselves into a brand by using online and social media marketing, and nobody better personifies these attributes than musician Amanda Palmer. David Meerman Scott profiles Palmer’s ingenious way of using Kickstarter to fund her new album on WebInkNow and we think it’s worth the read. Palmer has raised more than $350,000 and the total goes up nearly every minute, thanks in large part to her huge social media following.

5.) Coming Clean with Social Media Flubs: Common Sense Media’s goal is to help parents control their children’s use of Facebook and mobile phones. To get the message out, the group has released a series of funny TV ads. In the spots, parents admit to their social media flubs and misconceptions. Tech- and Facebook-addicted kids are a very real, very “now” issue and Common Sense attacks it with humor and heart.

Facebook marketing experts were hit with a study this week that can only be described as depressing. Psychologist Dr. Leonard Sax has been making headlines with claims that Facebook can actually cause depression in teenage girls.

“Then they look at all the other girls’ Facebook pages, look at them being happy and think, ‘my life sucks, look at all the things those girls are doing and how much fun they’re having,’” Sax says.

Girls who spend too much time on Facebook aren’t nurturing real life relationships, he notes. But this isn’t just sad news for teenage girls and their families. For about two years, mental health professionals have been monitoring what they call “social media depression,” a sadness or deep depression caused by following other people’s lives on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Couple this with studies that link anxiety caused by reading news online, and it’s impossible not to wonder: What can business bloggers and social media marketers do to make the Internet less depressing?

First off, we should make it clear that we in no way think that some happy online marketing can make the problems go away — just as it’s impossible for an organization or company to say things to erase a person’s mental health problems. Still, marketers do have the power to send messages that add to the online experience of users. Blogs with positive themes or that teach readers something consistently rank as the most popular and widely read on the ‘net.

So why not use your company blog to teach your readers a thing or two? Instructional blogs aren’t just a good way to add positive juju to your blog, but they are also a clever way to inject your products and services into your posts. Baking companies like Duncan Hines and Pillsbury have been using their blogs and social media pages like this for years and you can easily see why. Coca-Cola is another big brand that uses Facebook for good instead of evil. The soda company has slyly slipped into the top position when it comes to social media marketing with the happy images and life-affirming messages on the its Facebook page. Coke’s Facebook page isn’t out to change the world, but it does make visitors smile with classic visuals and sunny branded messages from the past and present.

Whether it’s teaching your readers some new tricks or spreading a positive message, we as marketers can do our small part make the barrage of Internet information less drab and depressing. Plus, by offering readers solutions or laughs or good ideas, we giving them a reason to keep coming back. And that’s something for everyone to smile about!

We’ve talked about how Facebook can help your blog marketing a lot on these pages lately. It seems like weekly there are new ideas and innovations to get the world’s most popular social network to work for your blog. But Google+, with its 25 million (and growing) users, is an untapped goldmine for driving people to your company blog.

One of the biggest benefits of Google+ is how users can set up different “circles” or audiences. Instead of wrestling with two Facebook accounts, one business and one personal, Google+ gives you the option of having two circles that keep your social and professional lives separate without more account setup hassles. Once your circles are set, linking and distributing your blogs to your followers is super-easy. Using Google+ Sparks, the topics you blog about are easier for interested readers to find. Sparks are categories and keywords picked by you and tagged to your posts. This handy tool makes not only reading the content you want to read on Goggle+ incredibly easy but it also makes your own content easier to find.

Yet the most appealing reason to put your blog on Google+ is the Google factor itself. Every company blog writing expert is going to want to take a few minutes to check the little box on Google+ that reads “Help others find my profile in search results.” This tiny preference change can take your blog and profile from obscurity to high ranking. Google+ has the benefit of being the byproduct of the most powerful search engine on the planet… so why not utilize that?

Google+ certainly has the power to drive audiences and consumers to your blog and brand, but the question remains: Do you have time for another social media marketing endeavor? And with that, we’ll turn it over to you, lovely readers. Is Google+ worth the time and effort? Which brands do you follow on Google+? Let us know in the comments section!

The Pope dabbles in Twitter marketing, a birthday boy melts Red Lobster’s butter and much, much more in this white-hot edition of the Five Things You Might Have Missed!

1.) Flashmobs, now less dorky: We happily laid branded flashmobs to rest. Honestly, we were thrilled to see them fade into the Internet mist. But Intel’s latest spin on flashmobs might have changed our minds. Armed with Intel Ultrabooks, mobsters popped up in locales all over Los Angeles to make fireworks, perform live music and create live digital art, all by using a laptop.

2) #IGaveTweetingUpForLent: It was bound to happen sooner or later — the Pope has gone cuckoo for Twitter marketing. His newest campaign? Tweeting during Lent to educate followers the on the reason for the season. The Pope started tweeting on Ash Wednesday and will continue until Easter morning. Pope Benedict sums up the brilliance and effectiveness of Twitter by saying, “In concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible, profound thoughts can be communicated, as long as those taking part in the conversation do not neglect to cultivate their own inner lives.” We totally agree, Popester.

3.) Remember Facebook Shopping? Us Either: It’s a trend that could’ve been but never really took off: Facebook shopping. Bloomberg reported this week that JC Penney, Gamestop and Nordstrom are all shutting down their Facebook stores after slumping sales and waning interest. More proof that not everything int the world of Facebook marketing is guaranteed to be a smash hit.

4.) No, Free Cheddar Bay Biscuits Do Not Count as a Meal: On the other end of the spectrum, Red Lobster is the most recent brand to cave to Facebook fan pressure… but this time it was for a worthy cause. 56-year-old Robert Mills bemoaned on his Facebook page how he couldn’t afford a birthday dinner for himself and thought Red Lobster should offer a free meal deal like other chains do. After some campaigning and cajoling by Buzzfeed, Red Lobster happily gave Mills a free birthday dinner. Aww.

5.) Pimp My TV: Named as the No. 1 trend to watch at this year’s SXSWi, “Me-TV” is exploding already (and the festival isn’t even for a few more weeks). Me-TV, or customized video programming, is the next big thing and everybody from P Diddy to Shelby.tv is eager to cash in on the craze. Think of it as all of your regular and online viewing in one place and controlled by you. Marketers will be next in line to see how Me-TV can work for brands. Stay tuned.

Feeling those mid-winter, uninspired blahs when it comes to online marketing? We’ve got just the thing to get your brain moving: Our weekly list of five things you might have missed. This week’s fivesome features news stories, marketing innovations and social media ideas guaranteed to ignite your creative fires!

1.) Food + Fashion: This interview with Cupcakes and Cashmere creator Emily Shuman tops our list for proving that when we blog about the things we’re passionate about, the money is sure to follow. The former ad executive is making big dollars by covering fashion and food in her highly-read blog. Shuman is further proof of the blog as business model and we love it.

2.) The Golden Voice Returns: Remember Ted Williams, that homeless dude with the amazing voice? After a rough ride through the media ringer, Williams returned in a charity Twitter campaign for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese this week. Kraft donated thousands of boxes of mac’n'cheese for every #voiceoflove tweet they received to Feeding America. The campaign was a stand out on Valentine’s Day for showing the Twitter love for folks who really deserve it.

3.) Best Apology Ever: O.b. Tampons has made more than a few marketing mistakes over the last two years, so when the company pulled its o.b. Ultras from store shelves late in 2011, consumers were not happy. Instead of tweeting a “we’re sorry” message, the company came up with a now viral video that sets a new standard for creative corporate apologies. Without giving away the details, we’ll just say this hilarious and ingenious interactive spot is sure to put o.b. on the road to redemption.

4.) Even Zuckerberg’s Pinterest Crazy: We clocked Pinterest as the “it” social media site last year and having Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg sign up this week seems to confirm that prediction. Zuckerberg is already enthusiastically pinning and posting, proving that Pinterest is a social media force to be reckoned with.

5.) Here’s to New Voices, Too: With the sad passing of Whitney Houston and the downright bizarre Grammy awards from last weekend, it seemed like music could use a fresh face or two. Luckily, a super-viral Target commercial answered the call by introducing the planet to 11-year-old Denise Bestman from Staten Island. Her cover of Rolling in the Deep is evidence that talent and hope are found in unlikely places.

Brandsplat Report-Chronicle Video, Specialty Blogs, SuperBowl Ad from Enzo Cesario on Vimeo.

Enzo F. Cesario, Brandsplat’s CCO shares his thoughts on the Chronicle Viral Video, Specialty Blogs and Super Bowl Ads. Check it out! Or click here for more Brandsplat vids

It’s that special time of year when social media marketers, advertisers and online marketing gurus come together to celebrate one special thing: viral Super Bowl ads! Continuing the tradition of year’s past, 2012 has already seen a slew of Super Bowl ads… and the game is still a couple of weeks away. Here’s a few of the trends and news stories you can expect to see more of as the Super Bowl gets closer.

Tons of Teasers: Advertisers are hoping to use movie-like previews online to get viewers and consumers excited about their Super Bowl ads. And as silly as an ad for an ad sounds, they seem to be working. Many, like a recent spot for VW, have already roped in millions of views and gone very viral.

Embracing the Bark Side: That VW preview ad with the millions of views is none other than “The Bark Side,” a commercial which features dogs in Star Wars costumes barking the movie’s iconic “Imperial March.” The clip is a follow-up to last year’s smash, The Force. And if the preview is any indication, Volkswagen has another hit on its hands.

More Controversy: Only time will tell if Madonna will stir up controversy during her 12 minute halftime set, but there are several ads already set to grab headlines and tick people off. At the top of the list has to be the dead fetus-filled commercials from presidential wannabe and general nutjob, Randall Terry. Look for Terry’s ads to be the talk of Monday morning newscasts.

Brands Take to the Tiny Screen: This year ads won’t just be living on the plasma flatscreen or online but also in apps for smartphones. Chevy Game Time is one such app that offers prizes and real-time gaming while the Super Bowl is on. Food Network, EA Sports and ESPN Sports Center are some of the other brands launching apps to enhance game day.

Super Social Media: We’ve seen brands like Doritos and Chevy use social media to cross-promote ads in years past but this year social media has gone legit. For the first time ever, the Super Bowl has its own social media hub that will cover all the action on Twitter and Facebook surrounding the game as well as keep tabs on the latest social media news stories developing in the days before the big day.

What a week! Between awards show cattiness, brand breakdowns and Internet shutdowns, there is no shortage of things to dish about. So let’s get right into all the latest online marketing news in a list we all know and love as our “Five Things You Might Have Missed.”

1.) Timeline App-valanche: In its short life, Facebook’s Timeline has been known for garnering a lot of resistance and headlines. We can now add apps to that list. Tons of blogs reported on the addition of Timeline apps this week because, love it or loathe it, Timeline is Facebook’s latest product and apps could be the next big thing in Facebook marketing.

2.) Lionel Richie, Free Speech Protector? This video from slick ad director Matthijs Volt may not have set out to say a lot about piracy and SOPA but by using dialogue from hit films (without permission) to recreate Lionel Richie’s hit “Hello” the video is the kind of thumbing of the nose the movement needs right now. Funny, brilliantly edited and released at a time of year when we celebrate film, this viral hit laughs at piracy laws and makes us smile, too.

3.) MINI is Red Hot and Social: The itty bitty car MINI has launched a giant Facebook campaign in which one of its cars is suspended on a hill by a rope with a Bunsen burner underneath, burning away at the rope. This crazy science experiment relies on Facebook page likes to release the car into the wild. Users who like the brand also get to check in on the car’s status.

4.) From Tart to Sour: This week, Pinkberry was the latest brand to hop onto to Twitter to put out a bad PR fire. Co-founder of the yogurt empire Young Lee was arrested after chasing down a transient and beating him with a tire iron. Company heads swiftly took to Twitter to state that Young has not been an active part of Pinkberry since 2010 and now serves solely as a stockholder. The company is desperately (and understandably) trying to distance itself from Lee, but given the amount of negative posts online, it might take more than a few tweets and a press release to make its image sweet again.

5.) Going Wiki-less: During the SOPA protests blackouts of Wednesday, many big websites shutdown services, and the most missed site had to be Wikipedia. Wiki withdraw proved how much we would miss uncensored unregulated information and the message was received loud and clear.