Edward Boches, chief creative officer at Mullen (the agency that brought you this year’s Brand Bowl), recently sat down with Ben Kunz at SxSW to discuss creativity and content strategy.

Regarding creativity and social media, Boches says

We’re not in the business, necessarily, of telling stories anymore. We may be in the business of inspiring others to tell stories for us, soliciting their participation in the telling of stories, or perhaps allowing them to become the story themselves if you think in terms of social media. And it actually requires an entirely new mindset…

When it comes to developing content strategies for social media, Boches is adamant that you cannot understand social media’s potential or how to be creative in the space unless you do it. He spends at least four hours a day—somedays more—between Twitter, blogging, interaction, learning, studying, thinking about content, and putting presentations together.

Says Boches,

I’m fond of saying that when we move into social media, a brand’s product is not its product; its product is its content. [And brands should be asking themselves] how can I structure content that will be of value to that community, that will make them give me props and cred for helping them with that content?

We say,

Welcome to the world of the BFG Content Dept.!

Today’s SXSW session Beyond Ring Around The Collar: Reaching Tastemaker Moms focused on moms who don’t fit the 1950s style ad world. As session leader Lindsay Maines of Rock and Roll Mama pointed out, “We’re not just about the kids, the house and being harried office people. Moms still care about music and film. Marketing to them isn’t going to make your record uncool.”

Brands that extend themselves to this group are going to be successful, according to Maines and her session co-leader Heather Nolte of glamajama.com. The key is to recognize that the term “mommy bloggers” doesn’t really explain this large group of women with vast interests. There are specific subsets within this group, such as bloggers who focus on home schooling, the green movement, etc. Often these groups just get lumped together, which doesn’t do these women justice.

“Identify which market is valuable to you. Find out where they congregate and have conversations there. You build street cred when you’re part of the community,” Maines said. “Find your brand’s unique proposition for moms that’s beyond product.”

Wondering where to go online to engage with moms? Facebook is a great place because of their huge adoption of the site, Maines said. Even those who aren’t reading blogs or involved in other kinds of digital media are there. She also recommended playing around with keywords within Facebook advertising, noting success she had by including keywords like “James Dean” and “Catcher In the Rye.”

Her other advice is not to discount Twitter. With its real-time search function and ability to drill down by zipcode, the potential to find new audiences is huge.

The other thing to keep in mind is of course content. “Moms are starved for authentic content,” Nolte said. So what kinds of content would be well-received? Anything that helps moms stay savvy about safety and privacy in the digital space works well. They’re concerned about their kids online. A webinar that addresses this topic would go over well and show that you’re thinking about what these women care about.

Video is another area both session leaders recommended for brands. “Getting user generated content from this demographic is not difficult at all. It’s what they’re doing already,” Maines said.

One last tip was that brands shouldn’t just go to moms when they need something. They need to be part of the conversation and then those needs will be met over time.

Finally, Maines and Nolte offered a few brand promotions they viewed as positive:
-Maines likes the Hayden-Harnett approach to promotions through Twitter.
-The Electrolux campaign around the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.

The type of and amount of information we share online is expanding. Need proof? Just look at all the people sharing their location through services like Foursquare and Gowalla. So what’s next? What information will we be sharing this year and beyond? Ashvin Kumar, CEO and Co-Founder of Blippy, thinks he has the answer: purchasing information.

His SXSW session today shed light on how Blippy (a social network where you share what you’re buying with friends) came about and what’s on the horizon.

Last year, Kumar and fellow Blippy co-founders got together and started thinking about the kinds of data being created everyday but isn’t necessarily being shared. They thought about medical records, email and financial transactions. Of course, the world of financial transactions is where they eventually found a viable area for social information sharing. If you look at someone’s financial information, you immediately know what kinds of things they’re interested in, the restaurants where they go and how much money they spend on iTunes, Kumar says. “Life is reflected in credit card statements.”

What would make someone want to share this kind of potentially sensitive information? “People want to share,” Kumar says. It makes them feel good when they’re putting something out there and get comments back. Plus, when your friends are using it, it’s that much more enticing. “Blippy enables another way of sharing. Your desire to share is greater than the risk of exposing sensitive information…and there’s a view into friends’ lives you hadn’t had before.”

Right now, most people are engaged in what Kumar calls active sharing, such as status updates on Facebook or check-ins on Foursquare. The rest of the day these people are creating all sorts of data that can be tapped into. This is the world of passive sharing, which Blippy focuses on. Most Blippy users start out by sharing their iTunes purchases and Netflix movies as opposed to actual credit card transaction, Kumar admits.

There is data that can go beyond just consumption of goods and into more general consumption. For example, what if you could share your utility bill with friends? Knowing your energy consumption versus that of friends could potentially lead to lower consumption.

Blippy users and developers should look for an API within the next month and a dedicated debit card down the road, Kumar says. “The face of social payments is just getting started.”

Gary Vaynerchuk kicked off his SXSW session today by thanking people as they walked into Ballroom D at the convention center. That simple act set the tone for his talk, which centered around the “thank you economy.” In plan English, it’s all about customer service and appreciating and thanking your customers, viewers, etc. It’s all about being human.

Vaynerchuk firmly believes in being human and of course customer service. “No matter what you do or where you think you’re going, you’re all going to be doing one thing: customer service. That’s what I’m obsessed with,” he said. People and companies “massively underestimate caring. Your product will have a problem if you don’t give a [expletive].”

He also talked about some of the problems he sees among companies. “No real business is built overnight. You don’t build a business in six months. I hear people say if this new product doesn’t take off in six months, we’re out,” he said. These things take time and the key according to Vaynerchuk is to never veer away from your core values.

Vaynerchuk also touched on the importance of loving what you, the subject of his book Crush It. Before the Internet, it wasn’t necessarily practical to keep working a dull day job and work on your passion in the evening. But now, it’s possible.

Vaynerchuk talks to 80 and 90 year-olds all the time and they never tell him they wished they had more money, he said. They tell him they wished they hadn’t worked in that awful factory for so many years. “They didn’t have the out that we do. This room has no excuses. We should be embarrassed if we don’t try to make ourselves happy.”

Brad Hunstable, the founder of Ustream, closed out today’s sessions with his thoughts on using live streaming video to improve your social media presence.

Hunstable kicked off his talk by talking about the power of watchng something happen live. “It just feels different when you’re watching something live,” he said. There are big moments many can remember watching something live with others, such as the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Today, there’s a shift away from shared content consumption to watching something by yourself. Hunstable believes that live video can bring back some of that community feel and create engaging experiences along the way.

The thing about live video is also that people tend to spend quite a bit of time with it. Hunstable said the average viewer will watch 28 minutes of live video. For a brand, 28 minutes of being engaged is extremely powerful. That engaged live audience can translate to results including, TV viewership, sales, and an increase in social media fans or followers.

Hunstable walked through a few examples that demonstrate the ROI of live streaming video. For the American Music Awards in 2009, airing a live pre-event show resulted in about two million more views of the awards show than the previous year. Ustream worked with the band Kiss to deliver a live full concert along with pre-show backstage video content for about six hours. More than one million unique viewers tuned in to that programming and spent an average of 43 minutes watching. The programming also lead to an increase in sales of guitar hero packets and tickets.

For Nick Jonas and Bill Maher, live video streaming has helped them to build up a social media audience. Live video of Nick Jonas doing guerilla concerts around L.A. meant a 4.5 percent increase in his Facebook fan count over the course of one day. His normal daily increase is around 0.4 percent. Viewers were of course required to become a fan of his Facebook page in order to see the live content. Bill Maher, who didn’t have much of a social media presence when he did his live streaming video, was able to becoming a trending topic on Twitter as a result of the live stream.

These are some impressive statistics but this is where the naysayers often claim that this model requires someone to be physically behind a computer at a certain time. But of course those were the old days. These days, people are watching (and creating) live video on the go from their phones, as well as watching by using technology like Boxee. As Hunstable pointed out, “The live world is being redistributed. Everything can be live.”

Six content creators took over the SXSW Day Stage this afternoon to take part in a matchmaking session with Miller Lite care of Digitas. Representing Miller Lite was VP of Marketing Grant Leech.

The session took a quick-paced approach where content hopefuls were given a total of six minutes on stage: 45 seconds to introduce themselves, three minutes to sell the idea, two minutes of Q&A with Leech and 15 seconds to give a final impression. The winning pitch meant $24,000 and the audience pick meant $8,000.

The purpose of the session was to shed some light on how brands and content creators can get together in this new world of advertising. For the participants and audience, I also saw it as a great lesson in pitching and timing. If you can’t share your idea within a few minutes, that’s a problem. For folks out there wishing to improve their presentation skills and timing, I’d recommend taking part in an Ignite or Pecha Kucha event near you.

On to today’s content hopefuls. Up first was Ben Relles, a creator of the “I Got A Crush On Obama” video. His idea was to tap into a web show that already has an established audience and a good audience fit for Miller Lite, The Key Of Awesome. For Miller Lite, the show would do a music parody series where Miller Lite is the star. The title would be “I Love My Miller Lite - The Rock Opera” and it would be about giving people a break in the day where they can enjoy life and be entertained through the video.

On the plus side, Relles has a built-in audience so Miller Lite would be guaranteed a good number of video views. Relles’ pitch was also entertaining and he even sang a few lines.

Moving on to the second pitch, Kent Nichols took a very different approach. He opened up by sharing his understanding of the Miller Lite audience and some of the challenges alcohol brands face online. To avoid any age verification issues, Nichols’ idea would be around controlling who can see the Miller Lite content. To do that, he envisioned a buzzworthy events series at 21+ venues that would show a longer form film. The film would be shown on a large screen and would be something very overwhelming to the senses.

Nichols showed how big he can think and dream. For alcohol brands, building an experience around content could be enticing although I could see cost quickly becoming an issue.

Next up was Kestrin Pantera, a cellist and the creator of a mobile karaoke experience. Pantera’s concept was entitled “For Quake’s Sake” and centered around a big earthquake hitting L.A. That would mean it’s time for “The Party At The End Of The World” where a series would show survival skills in a fun way and of course Miller Lite would be there. They would even encourage a competition around solving challenges using nothing but a ziptie, blowtorch and duct tape.

And finally, Greg Goodfried of Eqal pitched his concept, “A Love Story Told On The Internet.” This was all about focusing on that same everyday kind of guy, the lovable loser. This character, Charlie, would be depicted on a trip to Paris where he meets Sophie, a girl (and fellow Miller Lite drinker) he wants to spend some time with. Through a miscommunication, Charlie thinks he is supposed to meet Sophie on Chatroulette but is instead expected at a cafe called Chateau Roulette. The idea here is that viewers would be encouraged to go on Chatroulette, find Charlie and let him know where he is supposed to meet Sophie.

This final idea was my favorite because it’s not the typical beer ad and it taps into a technology that’s extremely current. It would connect the brand to something relevant to its audience and get consumers engaged. Goodfried even had some interesting concepts for the retail environment. This idea ended up becoming the audience’s pick.

Miller Lite’s pick was pitch five: The Beer Run. I’m looking forward to seeing how it comes together after being present for the initial pitch.

This afternoon’s session on the Rules of Brand Fiction From Twittering Mad Men has been a SXSW 2010 favorite, probably because it hits very close to home for me. I created a fictional social media character of my own and I also apply a similar approach to the strategy behind the some of the brand’s BFG manages in social media.

The Mad Men example is one that’s recognized as best-in-class and was started by fans of the show, not the show itself or AMC. Today’s panelists Helen Klein Ross (Betty Draper on Twitter) and Michael Bissell (Roger Sterling on Twitter) walked us through what they do, best practices, and applications of this for different types of brands.

To start with, our panelists defined brand fiction as “participatory entertainment in the service of a brand.” This leads us to some new thinking as far as advertising goes. The new advertising is the invitation to participate and participation is the new metric, Klein Ross said.

In August 2008, Mad Men characters began their foray into Twitter, interacting mainly with one other and then with audience members. The challenge from day one is that they’re of course Tweeting as characters that exist in 1963, so many questions popped up around that and drew various responses from the characters. They’re also quite adept at staying in character and taking full advantage of the improvisational space that is Twitter.

The characters have also expanded to other platforms, such as a blog and LinkedIn for Betty Draper. Virtual events also play a role and create opportunities for audience interaction. Still other fans have gone ahead and created their own fictional characters around the show, @Bud_Melman, a mailroom clerk for Sterling Cooper, @perfectsec, a secretary who trains others, and @FrankAdman, a 1960s ad guy from San Francisco.

What’s great about all that these folks do is that they’re deepening the level of audience engagement, attracting new audiences, and keeping excitement alive for the show between episodes and seasons. They’re also able to collect real data and metrics about their audience. This would of course be key in the world of mainstream brands getting into brand fiction. So that of course raises the question: Could this approach work for other brands? Absolutely. As Klein Ross pointed out today, “Every brand has a story to tell.”

Here they are, the 10 rules of brand fiction from our Mad Men Twitter friends:

1. Content Is King: Your success depends on the quality of the creative and you need someone dedicated to it. It’s important to create a brand fiction canon with a detailed account of the characters, settings, and vernacular.
2. Continuity Across Platforms
3. Be Authentic
4. Be Relevant: Remember that as you change mediums, your message may have to change too.
5. Share: The goal is to let fans engage. Respond, retweet and be friendly.
6. Don’t Trust A Bot To Do The Job Of A Human: In other words, you can’t automate good content.
7. Don’t Dilute The Brand
8. Campaign Assessment: Keep track of the necessary metrics and archive your content.
9. Do Not Underestimate The Time/Effort It Takes For Success
10. Have Fun

Ethnographer and social media guru Danah Boyd tackled a tough yet relevant topic in today’s Opening Keynote: Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity.

Early on, Boyd defined privacy, which is key because this is a word that frequently gets tossed around in different ways. Privacy is about having control over how information is flowing. When we think about privacy, it’s important to consider the context and the technology. When people don’t have control of their information, they can often feel that their privacy is being violated.

As existing technologies change and new ones pop up, the question of privacy vs. publicity and how they intertwine becomes more and more relevant.

Boyd points to two privacy fails from the past year: Google Buzz and Facebook’s new privacy settings. According to Boyd, Google got into trouble by juxtaposing something very private (email or gmail in this case) with something public. They also didn’t do enough to help users understand Buzz.

Facebook’s privacy changes became problematic through the way people found out about them (or didn’t in many cases). Facebookers saw a pop up and clicked through it as many are used to doing. Thirty-five percent of users read it and changed the settings, which means 65 percent didn’t and made their content public. Boyd says that in her research she has yet to find a non-techie person who knows what their Facebook privacy settings are. That becomes an issue when we start to examine the kinds of posts people are making on Facebook and the fact that they’re going public.

Social media creates a situation where information is public by default and private through some kind of effort. It’s of course the opposite in our offline lives. In social media, this means we have to think about when to make something private, a change in thinking for most of us.

Our activity online and the privacy we expect is impacted by age and life stage, Boyd said. Teenagers are more conscious about what they have to gain by making information public. Adults tend to be more conscious about what they have to lose.

We’re seeing real life examples of the public vs. private debate everyday. Think of teachers. How public can they be online? Is it appropriate to post dating info, photos of drinking with friends or religious info? In the offline space, a teacher is more likely to know the boundaries of what to share with a student. In the online space, it’s tough to switch between the two.

These questions will likely linger on as more privacy and publicity mashups surface. ChatRoulette is one of the latest high profile ones. There will be others and they will continue to challenge what we think. Boyd said technology will make a mess of privacy and publicity. And privacy and publicity aren’t going anywhere. Neither one is dead.

If there were one message from today’s SXSW panel How To Create A Viral Video, it would be that it’s all about the content.

Jonathan Wells from Flux moderated the discussion and was joined by Margaret Gould Stewart of YouTube, Jason Wishnow of Ted, and Damian Kulash of the band OK Go.

The panel began by breaking down viral video into two groups. One is where the video is viral by accident. The creator was in the right place at the right time and caught something extraordinary. These folks aren’t likely to go “viral” again. The second category is much broader and the creators are people who made the viral video on purpose and will make more.

The question is what can you do to make sure your content is seen by lots of people over and over. The answer is it’s all about the content. It’s also about creating content for your audience and making sure the production value is where it needs to be. For Wishnow’s Ted audience, it’s important for the videos to look amazing, which explains their multiple camera angles, hi-def shooting and tight camera angles. For Kulash and OK Go, the production quality should be on the lower end. “If my videos looked good, people wouldn’t watch them,” Kulash said.

Kulash of course can prove that this type of content and production is effective. The first video OK Go posted was their Backyard Dance Video, which obtained more than 300,000 views in its first month–more records than the band had sold at the time. Fast forward from that first video to their many others, including the well known Treadmill Dancing video and their most recent, which was sponsored by State Farm.

The State Farm sponsorship of the video is an interesting story from the band as well. Kulash explained that State Farm initially wanted to run the video exclusively on their website, something the band didn’t agree to. “Exclusivity online just doesn’t work,” Kulash said. That can work in the real world but online, “the point of something spreading is that it’s supposed to spread. You can’t just drive traffic to one place. Only our diehard fans would have gone to State Farm’s site.”

The band did agree to put State Farm in the video but made sure the brand was part of the story. A State Farm branded truck gets the action started in the video, which works since State Farm’s dollars made the video happen. The band also gives them a thanks at the very end of the video. Was it worth it for State Farm? I’d imagine so. Kulash said people tend to watch the video four to five times as opposed to just once.

So then, what about video content for non-music videos? Positive content works well. Negative or depressing content doesn’t get spread, according to Gould Stewart. Content that has an element of surprise also tends to be successful, like this Rammstein vs. Cookie Monster video:

Other tactics include focusing on your audience and interacting with them, allowing your videos to be embedded, distributing them on multiple platforms and tweaking your metadata. “It’s so frustrating when you see great content with crappy metadata,” Gould Stewart said.

If all else fails, include kittens in your video to make it go viral.

While the Beyond BBQs session today at times bordered on a pep rally feel, Mallory Messina from Southwest Airlines offered an interesting glimpse into the inner workings of the airline.

Messina opened up with a key statement: “If we lose our corporate culture, we lose our most valuable asset.” For Southwest, that means it’s about the employees first and foremost. In fact, the company views its employees as its number one customer and of course the customer is always right. Southwest wants to keep its employees in-the-know, empowered, and even asking tough questions.

Putting power in the hands of employees means that Southwest expects a lot from them. It begins with the hiring process, where attitude is more important than skill. Messina said Southwest could find the most skilled pilot but that pilot wouldn’t be hired if he or she had a bad attitude.

Southwest also expects its employees to live a certain way. It’s about:

1. Having a “Servant’s Heart,” which means employees actively volunteer in the community and treat fellow employees with respect. If you start with employees, it will trickle to customers.
2. A Warrior Spirit with the desire to do the best they can
3. A Fun-LUVing attitude that doesn’t take itself too seriously

In return, staffers are recognized for their hard work through various programs. And the company even has a staff of Culture Ambassadors, including today’s session leader, Messina.

One of the company’s latest endeavors is about bringing its employees together through a social media style portal, which is about to launch. By bringing together the company’s 35,000+ employees, the hope is that they’ll start to feel more like a family and the small company that Southwest once was. “If we don’t grow and change with the times, we’re going to fail,” Messina said.

As BFG has discovered with our company’s social-based Extranet, this is also a great way for employees from all over to share ideas and best practices.