As part of New York’s Social Media Week, marketing and content experts addressed emerging content trends for the panel, “What’s The Future?,” on Wednesday at MSL Group.

Brian Solis, principal analyst for Altimeter Group, was performing double duty, appearing as a panelist and launching his new book What’s the Future of Business? Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences.

Curran, Snow, Solis, and Walter at the MSL Group panel.

The panel was composed of several thought leaders in the content, marketing, and PR industries, including Solis; Shane Snow, CCO of Contently; Ekaterina Walter, social media strategist at Intel; Alex Bruell, reporter at Ad Age; and Joel Curran, managing director of MSL New York.

The discussion focused on the evolving nature of content strategy and the challenges of operating in real-time.

Curran said that successful content marketers will increasingly be ”people who can craft a story around a brand narrative quickly.”

Solis echoed this notion, saying, “We need to become real-time marketers,” citing the Oreo example from this year’s Super Bowl, illustrating how effective timely content marketing can be.

But, it goes beyond a one-time success story. The impetus for marketers to produce consistent content based on what matters at any given moment is often at odds with the legal hurdles of creating brand content, especially when it comes to trying to publish anything within a matter of minutes.

Still, Curran said, the most important aspect of content creation remains ”great storytelling,” and Solis added that it’s important to “let the audience take a journey.”

Snow, urging a more diverse notion of storytelling, said, “There’s more than one good way to tell a story.” Whether it’s text, a photograph, a video, or any other medium, content must be in whatever form most appropriate for the particular story to have an impact.

And, the panel agreed, it’s not just about producing quality content — it must be delivered to the right place at the right time. People operate in the “now,” and if marketers want to be relevant to their audience, they must function there, too.

As Solis said in the pre-panel talk introducing his book, “Context is king. Content in the right context is what matters.”

Brands Tapping into Valentine’s Day

Tessa Wegert of ClickZ writes about what brands did for Valentine’s Day marketing. The Wildlife Conservation Society brought back its “Name a Roach” campaign on its website and Facebook, where fans can weigh in on what they think a roach should be called.

U.K. clothing retailer Not on the High Street started a #TweetHeart Twitter campaign. “By sending a tweet to the brand about someone special using the #TweetHeart hashtag or, alternatively, posting to the brand’s Facebook page, participants could see their tweets turned into a customized show,” Wegert says.

Ideas for Visual Content Marketing

Content Marketing Institute’s Steve Glauberman writes about visual content marketing.

He says that companies should create custom infographics that are “appealing to the eye, but also highly relevant to your target audience.”

Marketers can go retro with their campaigns and “post a visual history of their origins on a Facebook page, including everything from business milestones like new locations and new services to photos of old product packaging and retro ads.” They should also give a behind-the-scenes look at the company with photos of what goes on.

YouTube’s Viral Reunion Campaign

Mashable reports on a viral campaign on YouTube that helped one girl find her vacation photos. The video, titled “Who’s that girl?” is 24-seconds long and asks viewers to help locate the girl so that her SD card, which contain hundreds of vacation photos, could be returned.

The card was originally found in the Netherlands by Peter van Leeuwen, who posted the video in late January. The girl got her card back this week after a friend saw the video.

Intel’s TV Service in the Testing Phase

According to Gigaom, Intel is testing its TV service in hundreds of homes.

Intel Media will be introducing the service in the United States before the end of 2013 “through a mix of retail partnerships and direct sales to consumers.”

In an announcement earlier this week, the company revealed that the device would come equipped with a camera that could identify its viewers and provide personalized ads.

How to Find Guest Blogging Jobs

CopyBlogger reports on three services that writers can use to find guest blogging opportunities. 

They can search Topsy for popular topics and add in “guest post.” For example, they should type in “guest post” cooking if they want to write about cooking. That same search can also be run on Google+, which will most likely garner a lot of results. Bing ranks differently than Google, so it’s also worth it to try that search engine as well.

Intel and Microsoft’s Branded Interactive Film

“Discovered,” a Kinect interactive movie, promotes Microsoft and Intel, and allows users to star in it.

According to AdAge, “Users download the game from Xbox Live, log in with Facebook or Instagram and the game allows them to punch, kick, jump and more as a co-star in an action film with Avengers star Chris Evans; dance & crowd surf with Redfoo of LMFAO; and walk up the red carpet with model Chanel Iman.”

The game aims to show whether or not “users have what it takes to be a ‘rising star.’”

Email Marketing for Teens

Teens are, of course, huge on the Internet, and ClickZ gives advice for marketers on how to tap into this demographic.

Blogger Christine Dore says that in terms of email marketing, the text needs to be short, and an image should be embedded. She says brands need to familiarize themselves with popular teen websites and blogs, and send out different messages for the varied ages of teens.

No More Print Edition for Newsweek

By the end of this year, Newsweek will become a digital only publication, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The weekly newsmagazine will turn into a website, Newsweek Global, and be supported through subscription fees.

Forming an Engaged Audience

According to NewsCred, it’s easy to get people to look at content, but it’s hard to make them stick around and engaged with it. In order to accomplish this, brands should be posting breaking news, putting out content speedily after an event occurs.

They need to “Decide upfront how you will measure success, whether it’s social sharing, inbound calls, or some other metric” and figure out the editorial strategy and voice. T

he content should be distributed on the platforms that its audience uses, whether that’s email, Pinterest, Facebook, or any other number of channels.

How to Succeed in Blogging: Fail at Something

CopyBlogger’s Demian Farnworth has a theory: Write about failing on your blog, and you just may succeed. This is because when bloggers are transparent, and people value the human connection.

This applies to businesses as well: Farnworth says that businesses should be truthful about their flaws, because people are always going to be attracted to honesty.

Lessons on Not Overloading the Customer

ClickZ’s Tessa Wegert says that overloading customers is not a wise idea for brands. For example, instead of posting the same message on Twitter and Facebook a few times per day, brands should send out “messages that deliver both brand value and interest: a timely or seasonal special offer, a behind-the-scenes look at your office or staff, a response to a consumer inquiry.”

Posting times should be scheduled for messages, whether it’s three days a week or only on the weekend.

“Show respect for their interest and engagement by ensuring that you don’t overstay your welcome,” she writes.

Using Data to Tell a Brand Story

Patricia Redsicker of Content Marketing Institute writes about the importance of using credible data when telling a brand story.

Brands can find the information through doing research on government websites or Q&A sites like Get the Data or Quora, and then visualize the story with an infographic.

The story should be shaped in a way where the brand is “saying something that hasn’t been said before. … More often than not, a successful data-driven story will require the collaboration of analytical-types (to gather, analyze, filter and visualize data) and creative types to unearth a compelling story that’s just waiting to be told.”

Red Bull Posts Space Photos on Instagram

Red Bull, a huge content creator and the sponsor of the #Stratos mission, posted photos of space and the project after a failed effort to carry it out.

Felix Baumgartner was set to jump 22 miles from space, but couldn’t do it because of windy condition, according to Mashable. Red Bull took to Instagram, where it has over 400,000 followers, and posted some photos anyway. Currently, there are 3,800 images on the site.

Get to Know Gotye’s Content Strategy

Singer of the mega hit song “Somebody That I Used to Know,” Gotye has a killer content strategy, writes Blogger Steve Farnsworth.

The song’s video has more than 331 million hits on YouTube, and Gotye has leveraged it to promote his tour dates, and a “call to action in the description.”

In addition, he creates content that is interesting and fans want to hear what he has to say.

Deadline.com Buys Variety

In a move that proves how “once-mighty print publications are being vanquished by Web rivals,” the Wall Street Journal’s Keach Hagey reports how Deadline.com has acquired Variety for $25 million.

Penske Media Corp., which is owned by Deadline.com, is claiming that Variety will be available in some form in print, but this deal might “spell the end for either the daily or weekly print versions of Variety.”

The legendary publication has been around since 1905 and currently has 17,3000 paying online subscribers.

Mondelēz Intl (Kraft) to Spend 10 Percent of Budget on Mobile Marketing

Mondelēz Intl, the new name of Kraft Foods, is now going to spending 10 percent of its worldwide marketing budget on mobile-focused campaigns, according to ClickZ.

With the initiative dubbed ”Mobile Futures,” Mondelez is seeking mobile start-ups to assist with marketing. An open call for startup submissions is now open and ends Nov. 9.

The Result of Intel’s Latest Social Video

This past July, Intel launched its campaign called “The Beauty Inside,” which featured different actors playing the lead character in a series of videos that ran until late September.

ClickZ is reporting that the campaign was a huge success: It received 55 million views, and 94,000 Facebook likes.

“Alex” posted updates on Facebook and fans were able to interact with the brand on there as well. This was Intel’s second social video, the first premiered in the summer of 2011, receiving 15 million views over a period of 11 days.

Only 38 Percent of Businesses Have a Content Strategy in Place

A new report by EConsultancy finds that only 38 percent of brands have a “defined content strategy,” according to Business 2 Community.

This low percentage is in light of the fact that more than 90 percent of “digital marketing professionals believe that content marketing will be more important in the next 12 months” and “almost three-quarters (73%) agree that ‘brands are becoming publishers.’”

Companies aren’t engaging in content marketing, the report claims, because of a lack of human resources, content creation skills, and budget, as well as company politics.

Social TV and Getting People Involved

AdAge’s Jeff Schroer commented upon social TV and how certain apps are failing while Twitter does a great job. A problem he points out is that many TV networks use social apps and platforms simply to promote themselves instead of encouraging interaction among show fans.

He writes, “When networks, agencies and entrepreneurs build experiences that enhance our basic human desire to share meaningful experiences, the social TV experience for consumers will improve. We need to find ways to put authentic social interactions in the experience instead of offering shameless promotions and gimmicks to influence viewer tune-in rates.”

Is Twitter Becoming An Old Media Company?

Like most aging former rebels, Twitter appears to be getting a little bit comfortable in its later years. 

The Verge’s Joshua Kopestein reports Twitter is “falling in line with everybody else.”

Banning a journalist and giving up Occupy Wall Street protester Malcolm Harris are reading like the actions of big media company. Is Twitter turning into its dad?

Intel and Toshiba’s New Interactive Romance

A few lucky fans got the chance to star in The Beauty Inside, opposite Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Episodes from Intel and Toshiba’s interactive film are now on YouTube and Facebook. 

The plot is simple — a man, Alex, wakes up as a different person every morning and one day, he falls in love. What’s the guy to do? Hopefuls were able to try out for the part of Alex via webcam.

“Visually, Alex is played by different actors in each episode — and by fans in webcam recordings, scattered throughout, that are presented as Alex’s video diaries to himself,” Ad Week reports.

How Millenials Are Changing the Workplace

About a third of U.S. employees have a boss who is younger than they are. While this may be unsettling for some at times, it also represents a large shift in the way people are doing business.

Forbes has the breakdown. Not surprisingly, millenials would rather chat over e-mail and aren’t interested in eating with the oldsters in the office.

Why Digital Agencies Need to Think Like a Newsroom

Ad Age argues that digital agencies need to change their creative department mentalities.

“The process of arriving at the best social content looks more like ‘Newsroom’ than ‘The Pitch.’ Creative and social staffers merge the zeitgeist with the brand ethos all day, every day. Creative latches onto trends immediately, before they expire. If something culturally important happens, you need to be able to build a concept, execute it and publish it without delay,” Ian Schafer said.

Serendip’s Crowd Curation Sounds Good

For the past six months, Serendip has been aggregating information from music sources including Twitter, SoundCloud and YouTube to create a database of information on what influences sharing.

And here’s the infographic courtesy of Mashable.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Charlie Trotter

The brands are teaming up again and next month will release a new social video series, “The Beauty Inside,” which will have stars along with unknown actors chosen at open casting calls.

Along with the fact that anyone can audition, ”The Beauty Inside“ is a social series because fans will be able to interact with its main character, Alex, on social media sites, according to Creativity.

The voice of Alex is narrated by Topher Grace, however, the character’s face will keep changing. This allows the company to vet many actors for the role (starting today on Facebook) and give the campaign a transparent edge.

Last year, with “The Inside Experience,” Intel and Toshiba’s fans were given the opportunity to help the lead character, Christina, get out of a conundrum. In the introductory video, it appeared that “Christina,” played by Emmy Rossum, had been kidnapped, and fans could pour over clues she posted on Facebook to figure out how to locate her. The campaign, before it was even launched, received 1.75 million views on its trailer.

“The Beauty Inside” is taking social participation to a new level by giving anyone the chance to be casted.

“This global, social film is proof that the right technology can blend two major forms of entertainment and give a global audience the opportunity to be engaged and have a chance to play a role in a blockbuster-style Hollywood movie,” said Johan Jervoe, vice president partner Marketing at Intel, in a statement.

Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence sets the strategy and guidelines for all social media content across the company’s far-reaching locations and business units.

It’s quite a task managing all that distributed content. Intel’s Facebook profiles, for example, have around 10 million fans spread across 36 pages (and almost 50 countries). The company also has presence on Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

“Our team of nine provides a central POV on everything social,” said Intel social media strategist Ekaterina
Walter. “We help create a social infrastructure that geographies and business units can use. We also create unified branding and presence and then scale it globally,”

Global is Local, Local is Global

In large distributed organizations, content needs to flow from the local to the global, and vice versa.

“We have some content and branding that we create centrally, but a lot of time you have to go specifically local because local is important,” Walter said. “Centrally, we can’t presume to know everything that works and everything that doesn’t. However, sometimes we create programs centrally that are then easily scaled within geographies.”

Similarly, she said, sometimes fantastic ideas begin locally and then the company can implement them in various countries.

As an example, Walter cites the popular ‘Museum of Me‘ application, which allows users to upload videos and photos to a personalized online museum. Developed in Asia for the Asian market, Museum of Me went viral “mechanically,” Walter said, “without any media support.”

“Because we have a central structure in place in the Social Media Center of Excellence, we were able to take that and run it out to all our countries automatically,” she said. “Central support helped us to scale up the content distribution.”

Engaging with Content

The measure of successful social media content –particularly for B2B brands– is the level of engagement shown by its audience, Walter said.

“The number of fans you have is all great and good, but it’s a vanity metric,” she said. “We want to move beyond that to look at who we reach, how often we reach them, and unique compressions within that. For us, the beauty of social is increased engagement.”

In terms of engagement, says Walter, brands should ask:

• Who within the brand demographic engages the most and how does that change across time?
• What does that engagement look like?
• How many likes, comments, and shares does the brand have?

Walter suggests using social media content to bring customers’ opinions in to the fold, including trivia questions, challenges and puzzles.

“Things like that allow you to have true, meaningful conversations around topics that you and your audience are passionate about,” Walter said.

Content Tips

Walter’s #1 content strategy tip is to focus resources on understanding audience. (Use polls and analytics to really understand an audience and figure out what type of content resonates with them.)

Brands should use also analytics to test, track, and adjust new content strategies in flexible ways, Walter said.

“Make sure you know your voice,” she said. “There is no way you can use a PR broadcasting voice and expect your audience to relate to you. Ask yourself ‘What kind of human voice can I develop that people can relate to?’”

And finally, to support content across different locations and business units, Walter said that companies must make sure to document everything. And then they need to distribute that information across all relevant locations so that stakeholders know what works and what doesn’t work.

“When a brand is on Facebook and you feel like it probably shouldn’t be there, it’s that the brand hasn’t figured out how to communicate in 2011,” they note. We completely agree – it is always risky to attack a platform without a plan.

Check out some of the crazy but true campaigns they mention:

• A robot that shot stains at a line of crisp, bright-white shirts for Ariel laundry detergent (Saatchi Stockholm) . Facebook fans choose which “flavor” of stain to shoot on their computers.
• Users sent their sick friends personalized cans of soup for Heinz’s “Get Well Soup” campaign.
• Facebook users helped lead a real “character” escape from a room in an evolving “social film”ruled by Facebook posts and own videos.