Social media experts like ourselves have been predicting the arrival of the branded social network for years. But the truth is many have tried but few brands have been able to inspire the kind of ongoing conversation and interaction needed to keep a social network alive. Yet Lego’s new attempt at branded social media might be just the thing to catapult the platform into mainstream popularity.

ReBrick is a little bit social, a little bit Pinterest, and 100 percent Lego. Lego is already one of the most photographed and shared brands on the Internet, so why not create a hub that serves as an exchange of all things awesomely Lego? And that is exactly what ReBrick intends to do. As a toy and iconic brand, Lego has always been about creating, so ReBrick highlights the best in Lego creations instead of the latest in Lego products. Mainly the project hopes to unite the millions of existing Lego-based communities that are spread all over the web. “Lego has a very strong and vibrant community, with hundreds of thousands of videos and many millions of pictures on online,” said Peter Espersen, Lego’s online community leader in an interview with Click Z News. “But they’re all distributed across hundreds of blogs and thousands of websites. It’s about giving fans the credit that they deserve and putting an amplifier to the interesting stuff they’re doing so everyone around the web can find it.” For Lego fans, ReBrick could prove to be the all-in-one stop for great ideas and creations from all over the web. For social media marketing gurus, the expansion of branded social networks could prove to be a challenge.

Granted, it takes a mega-brand like Lego to conquer its own social media platform but as niche networks expand, the need for the general social media management might diminish a tad. Custom-made social networks that speak directly to a vivid and enthusiastic audience are undoubtedly the wave of the future. And only time will tell how this will change the face of social media marketing.

It’s no secret that MySpace, once high on every social media management guru’s list, has experienced a well-documented fall out of popularity. But the site might just have a comeback left in it, if Justin Timberlake has anything to say about it.

Last week, Timberlake, MySpace’s new co-owner, pulled an Ashton when he showed up at a press conference to tout the awesomeness that will be MySpace TV. In one of those churned-out celebrity endorsement speeches, JT told an audience last Wednesday, “We’re ready to take television and entertainment to the next step by upgrading it to the social networking experience. Why text or email your friends to talk about your favorite programs after they’ve aired when you could be sharing the experience with real-time interactivity from anywhere across the globe?”

The folks at GetGlue could argue that they already offer that kind of thing and Facebook devotees are most likely questioning the upgrade in the first place. But the ace up MySpace’s sleeve are the technological goodies to offer an immediate and communal experience that none of its competitors can top. MySpace TV will first draw on the site’s some 42 million songs and 100,000 music videos for programming and then branch out to produce reality and sports television with its partner Panasonic. Sounds like a new version of MTV — without the Snooki.

Timberlake promises MySpace will be the bridge between social networking and television.

“As the plot of your favorite drama unfolds, the joke of your favorite SNL character plays or even the last-second shot of your favorite team swishes the net, we’re giving you the opportunity to connect your friends to your moments as they’re actually occurring,” he adds. “This is the evolution of one of our greatest inventions, the television.”

Yet it remains to be seen if Timberlake (whose last hit record was popular right around the first time people cared about MySpace) and Panasonic can put the brand back on the map. What do you think, readers? Can MySpace pull a Cher and make a big comeback? Does the concept of social real-time television have real marketing possibilities? Tell us all about it in the comments section!

When you’re blogging for business, comments on that blog are highly coveted. Comments help a blog’s search engine ranking and help bring people back to your site to continue a conversation. Sure, there’s a lot of spam you have to sift through, but in the end, bloggers want readers to respond to what they’ve written. Bloggers are writers and writers are egomaniacs and they want people to react to what they’ve written. I can say all this because I’ll freely admit to my own egotism as quick as I’ll tell you I’m a professional writer. But what’s the secret to getting comments?

SEO gurus and self-proclaimed social media marketing know-it-alls would like you to believe there is a precise formula for getting comments. Don’t believe them for a second. Those of us who work in the blogging trenches day after day know that the secret to blog comments is good content and interaction. The easiest thing you can do to get more comments on your blog is go read similar blogs in your field and make comments. Sounds simple, I know… but finding the right blogs to comments on takes time and research. After you’ve located your blogging comrades, open your mouth and give them feedback. Again, easy — but the results are amazing. Bloggers, especially longtime bloggers, know that the platform is a social one and by commenting back on your blog, they’ll be increasing their chances for new readers, too.

The added bonus of reading blogs by folks in your same industry? You might actually learn something while you’re meeting people who have the same career as you. It’s like a non-stop networking event, all without having to get dressed up and choke down bad appetizers. Establishing a healthy and informed back and forth with other bloggers also lets your non-blogging readers know that your blog has an opinion and you’re not too high and mighty to talk to readers. Comments are also a great place to answer questions about your company and what you do.

Yet the greatest weapon you have to get more comments is you. Your bad self, that fountain of personality in the mirror who sprinkles his or her genius on every blog is what will make readers comment. So share the love — put “you” in your content and in your comments and just sit back and watch the readers weigh in!

Holidays gotcha down? Work stressing you out? Well, kick your feet up, sit back and enjoy the hottest and oddest online marketing news stories in a little concoction we call our “Five Things You Might Have Missed” list!

1.) Rockin’ Around the Facebook Tree: Singapore, social media and Heineken aren’t things you traditionally think of at Christmas, but that’s about to change. The Heineken Super Social Christmas Tree in Clarke Quay, Singapore, is a digital art installation of 48 massive LCD screens that display photos and messages from app users who pop by the tree. It’s social media meets art with holiday flare.

2.) Yes, Virginia, People Still Use Blogger: The much-mocked blogging platform Blogger got its Google+ makeover this week, and it’s about darn time! Easy to use and easier to find, Blogger needs to step into the WordPress/Tumblr era and hopefully these updates will be a step in the right direction.

3.) Russian Out for a Whopper: Burger-shaped turntables, tattoos, unicorns and sassy dancing counter girls are just a few of the delights you’ll find in this Russian Burger King ad that’s going viral faster than you can say “paper crown.” If U.S. Burger Kings were this cool, we might actually eat there.

4.) Artsy-Fartsy Gets Appsy-Snappsy: Despite what the media would lead you to believe, people actually like looking at art and now there’s an app that helps art lovers find local visual delights on their phones. ArtSpotter helps visitors to London find all of the noteworthy galleries, exhibits and museums on a handy-dandy map. The app just launched and hopefully it will spread to cities around the globe. Mobile marketing and apps have made the visual arts cool and accessible and we think that’s worth celebrating.

5.) That Warm, Fuzzy Holiday Feeling: Lastly, this list of things marketers can do to give back during the holidays makes our list because it’s nice to use this time of year to actually think of others and do good stuff. Plus, the efforts are easy on the wallet and things even work-from-home bloggers and marketers can manage.

Are we feeling a little bloated, tired and stressed out — and not because of the holidays? Many of us who live and breathe online marketing have a tendency to try to eat everything at the daily digital buffet and walk away feeling exhausted. We’ve talked about the digital diet trend here at Brandsplat before, but we think the holidays are a perfect time to revisit and revise our digital marketing diets.

Diets, by their very nature, are the act of cutting out stuff that isn’t good for us. So our digital marketing diets should eliminate the efforts that aren’t working. If, for example, like one of my clients, you have better luck on LinkedIn than with Facebook, by all means play to your strengths. This doesn’t mean you have dump Facebook altogether, but budget your time and effort so it makes sense.

Next on our diet and exercise list is make your blog start working out. If your blog is just sitting there eating Fritos and doing nothing, make it get up and get busy. In other words, if you have a blog that features all of your excellent advice and industry expertise, spread the word! Tweet links to your blog. Post it on LinkedIn and Facebook. Your custom content may be brilliant, but if nobody sees it, then what’s the point?

Once you’ve dumped the digital junk food, it’s time to introduce some healthy habits into your diet. The holidays are a fabulous time to get on the email marketing bandwagon. Why? Well, it’s inexpensive to implement and it’s a great tool to help keep your clients in the know during the season. Brands like Barnes & Noble and The Home Depot use it to tell folks about specials and new merchandise — and, thanks to smartphones, emails are read and received anywhere.

Lastly, get in the habit of saying “no” and saying “I need help.” Say no to marketing techniques that you don’t have time for or you instinctively know aren’t right for your company. And say “I need help” to blogging, social media and digital marketing experts who can help you with the areas that are mysterious or difficult.

Happy dieting and healthy marketing!

Happy Thanksgiving! At the tender age of 85, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has decided to go under the knife. In celebration of the milestone, Macy’s has jumped head first into digital engagement, and the holiday classic is looking trendier than ever.

Maybe it’s the simplicity of a parade. Maybe its a parade’s family-friendly entertainment value. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that you can watch it on television for free. But the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is suddenly cooler this year. To celebrate 85 years, Macy’s has released a brand new website for the event, filled with eye-popping animation and interactive features like games and photos. The site features a full lineup of performers and balloons so parade fans can see when their favorites will be floating down Broadway.

In addition, Macy’s just released a handy, free Droid app that alerts folks at the parade of route changes, lineup and help getting around town. For people who can’t make the trek to NYC, the app provides an inside look at the parade with galleries, exclusive traffic light cams and historical and trivia information. Over on Facebook, Macy’s wants its friends to be part of the parade, so it has created The Parade Brigade. The app allows fans to post pictures and memories of the parade and the winner with the most votes will be featured as Macy’s profile picture for the week. Macy’s promises that it will use Twitter to keep viewers updated on backstage parade gossip and developing news stories while posting exclusive photos from the event. Since the Macy’s Twitter account already serves as a major line of communication between Macy’s and its shoppers, we expect the brand’s Twitter team to work overtime on Thanksgiving.

So grab a drumstick, enjoy the parade and be thankful there are so many ways brands of any size can use online marketing to reach new audiences!

Freshness is a word we preach often in the custom content biz. Fresh and timely blogs, articles and social media updates are king in online marketing because they help readers and consumers find brands. Now Google’s latest algorithm overall includes a freshness update which is bound to confirm the power of keeping it fresh.

Google conducts hundreds of algorithm updates a year, but this current batch of ten updates is creating a buzz in the content marketing world. The freshness update in particular is causing marketers to salivate because of its proposed power. The update will impact 6 to 35 percent of web search results and it includes searches for up-to-the-minute events, news stories, blog posts and hot topics. For small business owners, the update is titillating because it will also push up the ranking of product and service reviews. According to Google’s official blog, the freshness update will allow searchers to find the latest information about a topic first. This means if you typed in “online marketing” the most recently updated blogs and articles would rank higher. Likewise with current news stories. If you searched for Demi Moore, news stories about the newly single actress would appear before biographical information, with many of the items being just a few minutes old. Basically, your new Google searches will have faster and more recent results than ever before.

Freshness is now not only ideal for our businesses content but a necessity. In order to stay relevant, our content has to be fresh and interesting — and this a good thing. Bloggers and article marketers and small business owners now have the opportunity to keep their followers up to date with the latest happenings in their world. Content creators are now not only spreading the word about their business but providing news.

It’s the end of the week, which I think calls for a cheer. Hooray for Friday! Hooray for weekends! Hooray for not being part of the PR team at Penn State! And hooray for our weekly list of five things you might have missed!

1.) Like Wal-Mart, but Smaller and Without All the Stuff: A tiny Wal-Mart? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of being a Wal-Mart? Nevertheless, San Diego has a Wal-Mart Pop-up store where shoppers — get this — can’t actually purchase anything from the store. But they can order online from Walmart.com. This makes our list for being the first in-person online store we’ve ever heard of — and for being the branding WTF of the Week.

2.) My Latte’s Animated: Leave it to Starbucks to find a way to make your coffee cups even more interesting. The online marketing and mobile masters announced an Augmented Reality app that brings to life special holiday characters on the company’s signature red cups. Snowflakes and frolicking creatures appear on your smartphone when you aim it at your cup, and each Starbucks store has displays specifically set up for more real-life animated fun.

3.) Facebook Gift Giving Made Easy: Etsy may have changed the way we play the holiday game forever by introducing a gift recommendation guide through Facebook. Friends on Facebook who like items on Etsy create a list of must-haves for their followers to see. Meanwhile, Etsy strikes gold by bringing in new shoppers, too. Online shopping and marketing genius!

4.) Ordinary Days No More: The Amazing Everyday ad for Nokia Lumina may have been created for Euro audiences, but its clip on how folks make humdrum days more exciting is the kind of thing people everywhere can love. The clip is gobbling up some big hits on YouTube and is list worthy for its infectious music and lighthearted message.

5.) Ashton Stops Tweeting: Señor Kutcher, social media icon, actor and cougar lover, hopped off Twitter for a while after a mega-mistake. Kutcher tweeted dumbly about the firing of Joe Paterno without acknowledging the horrible sex abuse scandal behind the termination. As Rick Perry says, “Oops.” He was then digitally bitch slapped by tweeps with an ax to grind. He later apologized, deleted the tweet and hopped off the site for a few days. Thanks, Ashton, for providing us with another example of why we should think before we tweet.

Google is the touchstone when it comes to brand engagement, online brand management and general world domination. The search engine mega-brand is often looked to by professors, sociologists and advertisers for clues as to what will happen next in world of online marketing and business. Yet for all of Google’s assets, beauty has never been one of them. Lady Google is useful — even beloved — but she isn’t cute. So when recently-anointed CEO Larry Page announced last week that the brand was going to get an image makeover, we wanted more details immediately.

Here’s what we learned: According to Silicon Valley’s top rag for tech dish, MercuryNews.com, the universal redesign will be the first in the company’s 13-year history. The sparse, organized look of Google+, which launched in June, will set the tone for how the rest of the facelift will go down. The same uncluttered look is slowly being integrated into Google products like Documents, Gmail, Calendar and Search.

“Our ultimate ambition is to transform the overall Google experience, making it beautifully simple, almost automagical, as we understand what you want and can deliver it instantly,” Page told Wall Street analysts in a pow wow last week. Clearly, Google is responding to consumers who are becoming more and more obsessed with sharp design.

Whenever a brand changes its “look,” there is always room for concern. Last month’s Facebook makeover and last year’s Gap logo disaster have shown us that when you change things up on consumers, they don’t always love it. But it’s high time for Google to mix it up and get a sleeker image. Readers, what do you think? Is now the hour for Google to go under the knife, or do think the company shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken? Tell us more in the comments section!

While the face-to-face customer service for most airlines remains largely a highly unsatisfying experience, we can’t help but fall in love with the way the big old jet airliners use online marketing. Jet Blue and United might be the headline grabbers with savvy social media campaigns, but when it comes to overall digital engagement, Virgin America leaves the competition in the dust.

We nearly spit out our tasty morning beverages when we heard a recent Pandora online radio ad for Virgin America wherein the announcer quotes Yelp reviews of the company as if they were reviews from top critics gushing over some important film. The humor in the ad comes from the playful real-life copy that teases Yelpers light-heartedly while giving potential passengers an insight into what good stuff they can expect from a Virgin flight. Hilarious and smart, the ads are one of the few popping up on Pandora that don’t make you reach for your mute button — and that’s saying something.

The company fares equally as well on Facebook. The brand’s signature sly sense of humor is in attendance here, too. The current Chair Modeling Contest is proof Branson’s baby has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. Facebook users are encouraged to post pictures of themselves modeling in chairs to celebrate the company’s Elevate Your Seat program, which allows flyers to transfer points from AMEX’s rewards program to Virgin mileage. Winners of the photo face-off can walk away with travel vouchers, WiFi passes and other cool stuff. Virgin America’s Facebook page also plays home to the Approximator, which calculates how much time you’ve spent on a boring airline and then gives you 20 percent off on flights to Dallas-Fort Worth.

Over on YouTube, Virgin America is running the beyond cute and quirky Twin Tested videos that feature real-life twins who fly on Virgin and a competitor to the same location. The twins later exchange notes that are of the standard “my flight had WiFi!” and “mine sucked” variety. While effective, the videos get grating. But all is forgiven once you’ve watched “We’re all in this together,” a brightly animated commercial with a catchy jingle. The sweet video confection is a joint commercial for Method products, which are in the restrooms aboard every flight.

Yes, Virgin America still has a steep ticket price, but the brand’s message is clear — fly with us and you’ll have fun; fly with them and it’ll suck. Based on the genius online marketing, consider us sold.