ColemanMedia Report

Looking to cash in on the skyrocketing social media marketing budgets and shore up shrinking revenues, the States of California and New York separately announced that they will begin taxing marketers’ “earned media” throughout the social Web. Under the new statutes, which take effect January 1, California will levy a $15 tax for every positive Facebook comment, $17 for every blog post, and $22 for every viral video view relating to a Brand or corporation operating out of the state. New York will levy similar fees. “Everyone keeps talking about how earned media is far more valuable than paid media,” said California State Controller John Chiang, “so we’ve decided to treat it as an asset. And tax the hell out of it. If companies want to engage in viral marketing tactics, they’re going to have to pay the piper. And that piper is me. You know that sexy, saucy Old Spice guy? Come January 1st, he’s gonna get hit with a bill so big it’ll make Nicolas Cage look like a financial guru.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency confirmed early Tuesday that nearly 230 million people across the United States have been injured in the social media “explosion” that has rocked the country over the last 12 months.  According to FEMA officials, the injuries, which range from mild annoyances to severe head traumas, have been caused by the perfect storm of rising social media usage, a surge in social media marketing campaigns, and chief marketing officers demanding to know what their social media strategies are.  ”We predicted back in 2008 that social media presented a significant health risk,” said Lon Dolittle, Chief Emergency Response Officer for FEMA.  ”But we had no idea it would be this bad.  This ‘explosion,’ as so many sales reps and media journalists have aptly named it, has not just torn a hole in the fabric that was everyday physical human contact, but it’s created arguably the most over-hyped and inflated media phenomenon this country has ever seen.”

Self-proclaimed social media expert and panelist Lester Swindleson refused to verbally answer any of moderator Sam Speakwell’s questions during the “Media and Marketing in the Social Graph” session at the OMMA Social Media Conference last week, opting instead to live-Tweet his comments, according to several deeply irritated witnesses at the scene.  Swindleson’s Tweets, which included many references to the hash tags #stupidquestion and #socialNOOB, were reportedly intended to demonstrate his wikipedic knowledge and nonsensical commitment to the medium.  ”Really, it just made him look like a complete and total douchebag,” said one conference attendee who asked to remain anonymous.  ”I mean seriously, who came to this conference to watch this ass clown type things into his Droid Incredible?  Thank God my company didn’t actually have to pay for me to attend this conference, or they would feel like complete idiots.  Speaking of idiots, where the hell do they find these people?”

A study released late last week by the Center for Social (Media) Studies revealed that quasi-popular location-based social networking tool Foursquare is a “complete and total sausagefest.”  According to the report, the Foursquare user base has a nearly four-to-one male-to-female ratio, almost double the two-to-one male-to-female ratio required to officially proclaim a party a “sausagefest.”  ”Everyone was so hot on Foursquare, from marketing departments, to, well, marketing departments,” said lead researcher Just Czechtin.  ”But these findings totally killed the party.  After finding out that most of the people on Foursquare were just ad agency people trying to figure out how people use it, and 75% of those people were dudes, we expect most people to check out, and migrate over Sammy’s house party, where at least you have a chance at talking to some chicks.”

Just three hours after popular social networking application Twitter announced the addition of sponsored Tweets, retail clerk and Twitter user Ryan Baumgarten confirmed that the Tweet promoting “gr8 deals on Cialis & Viagra” at an unnamed Canadian pharmacy was probably not from friend and fellow Twitter user Ced Needlemeier.  The Tweet, which hit Baumgarten’s feed at 12:32 p.m. Tuesday, reportedly came from Needlemeier’s @NeedleInAHaystack account, but lacked his recognizable voice.  ”There’s no way that was Ced, man,” said Baumgarten.  ”He’s always blabbing on about the ‘Ra Ra Riot Tix’ he just scored, or how hot the girl at ‘S-Bucks was who served him his Carml Mach.’  I mean, this was obviously one of those ads, man.  Why does Twitter gotta sellout like this?  Can’t they just leave us to make #DrakesEyebrows a trending topic without trying to make money?”

The keynote address for the MOMMA Global conference held last week in San Francisco was nothing but a very thinly-veiled sales pitch for the speaker’s company, according to several witnesses who attended the event.  AntEye Social Chief Marketing Officer Randall Smugfellow’s 45-minute speech reportedly focused on the growing importance of Social Media in the overall marketing mix for approximately 4 minutes before launching into a 41-minute “advertisement” for his company’s services, complete with a 32-slide PowerPoint presentation.  According to witnesses, Randall stressed how critical it was for all brands to speak with him out in the lobby to discuss next steps.  ”This is bullshit, man,” said one attendee.  ”I take a day away from the office to get some insight into my industry, and it’s nothing but another sales meeting.  I wonder when they’re gonna offer the timeshares in Boca Raton.”

Digital location-based service and annoyingly popular social media networking tool of the moment Foursquare revealed that co-worker Skip Dangley interviewed at rival agency Dimm, Wittedt & Thicke while on his lunch break Tuesday afternoon.  Dangley, a self-professed “addict” of Foursquare and acting “Mayor” of Louie’s Sub & Pub on Pico Blvd., inadvertently revealed his lunch plans when he “checked in” to the DWT Los Angeles office.  ”When Skip left, we assumed he was running out to Louie’s to grab a hoagie,” said Dangley’s direct supervisor Jed Lewis.  ”But when I saw his post on my BlackBerry that he was ‘about to unlock the Better Job Badge at another agency,’ I knew something was up.  So we went ahead and packed up all his stuff so that when he gets back to the office he can ‘check out’ of his current job that much easier.”

Only days after the much ballyhooed and bewildering launch of social media tool Google Buzz, search giant and political lobbyist Google has announced the upcoming launch of “UsToo,” a new platform that will allow the media conglomerate to quickly and underwhelmingly copy virtually any popular social, mobile or web application.  According to the announcement, “UsToo” will give Google the flexibility to release confusing and relatively useless applications that mirror whatever the hottest new future trend may be.  ”We learned a lot from Buzz,” said Google co-founder Sergey Brin.  ”We were late to the game with a social sharing tool that quite simply, even we didn’t understand.  With ‘UsToo’ we’ll no longer be late.  We’ll be nimble enough to release perplexingly forgettable applications almost immediately after a far better version of it becomes popular with the general public.  Because, quite frankly, I’m getting bored of running an immensely profitable search engine.”

According to a report issued Monday by the social media watchdog group Friend Feeder, Facebook users have created more than 16 million new fan pages with the express purpose of generating more fans than every person, public figure, or brand that they dislike, don’t agree with, or simply want to make fun of.  The pages and groups, which started as jokes about pictures of domesticated animals getting more fans than Glenn Beck or Nickelback, have quickly snowballed to collectively waste more than 189 million hours of Facebook user time in the last week alone.  ”We see this as the beginning of the end for Facebook,” said Matthew P. Whipplebottoms, a research analyst at Friend Feeder.  ”It started with lost cows wandering on to people’s walls, where the utility of keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances gave way to the mindless time suck that is ‘Let’s see if this one-eyed mole rat can get more fans than the Verizon Guy’s glasses.’”

A resume received by the New York office of Kirschenbaum, Bomb, Senegal & Partners claiming to have over 25 years of digital ad sales experience was questioned by Human Resources Manager Becky Wurschester early Tuesday, according to several witnesses at the scene.  The resume, tastefully printed on 80lb. Productolith Matte stock in 10-pt. Lucida Sans font, reportedly raised red flags because it claimed to have Internet ad sales experience dating back to 1985.  ”Unless you’re Al Gore, or possibly Tommy Lee Jones,” said Wurchester, “the Internet didn’t even exist back then. So how could you be selling advertising on it?  And 14+ years of Social Media experience?  Friendster isn’t even 14 yet.  And why, if you have more experience than humanly possible, would you be applying for junior account coordinator position?”