The long planed sequel to The Phantom of the Opera seems to be gearing up for its West End premiere.

The original Phantom has been doing very well digitally with the engaging vBlog “The Phantom’s Lair”, although sadly it hasn’t been updated in almost a year. What it is a pity, because it such a fantastic channel for a show like Phantom that has been running for so long but it is still well alive and kicking.

But back to the future: A straightforward site was launched recently, for the sequel, Love Never Dies, in conjunction with a twitter feed and a FaceBook widget gearing up to some big announcement for this coming October 8th.

The site has a simple intro that bridges from the original Phantom to the sequel that takes place in NY’s Connie Island. The twitter is, of course, in the voice of the Phantom, and it started with two hilarious tweets in Latin (a first one?).The widget is again a twitter feed with news about the sequel.

Maybe a bit too much twitter, but it’s still early and It would be interesting what other digital strategies the Phantom comes up with. It is a no-brainer for such a global production, as the show is, to take advantage of the digital space.

Careful with what you post, Bosses will listen

Posting on FaceBook has become ubiquitous. Everybody has a profile and tries to gather as many “fiends” as possible. And, it’s not only showing off. It’s also broadening our audience.

One of the things I find more interesting about this embracing of the digital social networking, is how lines are blurring between our personal and professional lifes. As an example, when a co-worker married his gay lover, we found about it through the ceremony photos he posted on FaceBook. Or, a friend of mine who works as a social worker at a school and keeps getting invitation from kids at her school to become friends.

So here there is one more victim of all this mess up we like to call social networking. A girl in the UK, pissed off at her boss vented and insulted him, on a FaceBook status update. But, ops, she forgot that they were FaceBook friends, possible digitally befriended him when things were better. In short, he read the post and what is most ironic; fire her on the spot, on FaceBook. I guess you can call that social networking.

Golden rules of digital marketing

Faris Yakob comes up with some Golden Rules of the Web that are very good samples of what we can and should be doing from a digital marketing perspective.
1. Attention is like friendship: It can't be bought, only earned.
2. Viral is dead; long live the spread.
3. Remix, reuse, recycle
4. Affect the network
5. Be nice or leave
6. Everywhere you go, always take your friends with you
7. Socialize your media
8. Find new ways to see
9. Augment your Reality

How to make a video contest succeed or suck.

Brutal and frank and almost a check list article.
Marketers before launching, before developing a user video submitted contest print this article out and make sure you want to do it.

The infamous article!

Advertising Agency vs. Social Media

Two very interesting articles by Joe Marchese about how the communications business is changing. In his first article (Social Media Demands A Reinvented Agency), he analyzes how Social Media serves a different purpose from a traditional camping. A second article (Agencies: Reinvented Or Replaced) goes on discussing if the traditional agency is ready to manage a social media campaign, or even if it will be able to evolve and change.

On one hand we have the traditional advertising agency model, on the other the new media and especially social media. Although both have plenty of points in common, the differences are significant, especially in how different is the set up for both of them. While a traditional campaign has a clearly define beginning (launch) and end, a social media campaign has to be an on-going effort to be really effective. So the problem is not that much, if a traditional agency can undertake a social media campaign, but if they (and their clients) are able to change their mind set up. Not an easy task especially when agency compensation is being systematically reduced and kept under scrutiny and quick returns the law of the day.