For those unfamiliar with the term, booth babes are essentially spokesmodels that companies hire to augment their staff at high-traffic events in order to draw in a crowd. Usually very young and attractive women, booth babes have gotten a lot of negative attention in the past few years for dressing too provocatively and being nothing more than a distraction at these predominately male-attended IT events. And, this year, Interop was no exception.

Journalist Shamus McGillicuddy of TechTarget’s SearchNetworking.com notes, “the companies that hire [booth babes] do a grave disservice to the industry… I lose a lot of respect for companies who rely on them.”

Indeed, this is how many trade show attendees and other journalists feel, especially the successful, tech-savvy women who are typically outnumbered 10 to 1 at events like Interop. McGillicuddy even says that he refuses “to stop at any booth that features these women.” So, while companies may be able to collect a few more leads as a result of their alluring spokesmodels, it could hinder their press exposure as booth babes are a clear deterrent for a growing percentage of trade show attendees, including respected journalists like McGillicuddy.

While booth babes may cast a negative light over companies choosing to employ them, March’s clients CloudSigma and ExtraHop Networks found creative ways around this tactic at this year’s Interop Las Vegas event. Instead of booth babes, CloudSigma brought on a Spock look-a-like (who was 6’ 8”!) to help attract attendees to its booth, which generated a lot of buzz at the event and on social sites like Twitter, even putting it in the running for the “best Interop booth” prize.

Similarly, ExtraHop employed Yo Yo Joe, the U.S. national yo-yo champion, to draw attention to its booth with impressive yo-yo routines set to music and various tricks, including knocking a dime off an attendee’s ear! Coupled with an ExtraHop-branded yo-yo giveaway, ExtraHop attracted a large crowd at the show and got significant recognition from attendees and press alike.

These impressive trade show tactics were not only infinitely more respectable than hiring booth babes, but were far more successful in attracting crowds and generating buzz. As an industry, we can only hope that such creative tactics as Spock and Yo Yo Joe will be the future of technology trade shows. Our hats go off to companies like our clients CloudSigma and ExtraHop for spearheading this movement.

Brian joins us from Matter Communications, where he worked on a number of tech accounts. Prior to Matter, Brian was a member of the EMC sales team.

It’s an exciting day here at March PR. Welcome to the team, Brian!

Brittany will be a senior this fall at Boston University and recently returned back to Boston after spending the semester in London, interning for Songkick.

Brooke will be a senior this fall at Florida State University and is excited for her upcoming role as president of the FPRA Student Capital Chapter.

Welcome to the team, ladies! We look forward to working with you.

Schools.com has created an infographic that aims to show how “social media is replacing traditional journalism as a news source.” The research depicted in the infographic shows that 59.5% of people get their news from TV, 28.8% from newspapers, 27.8% from social media and 18.8% from radio. Of the 27.8% using social media as their news source, 59.5% use Facebook, 19.9% use Twitter, 12.7% use YouTube and 11.6% use Google+.

In a close third place, social media is quickly climbing the ranks to be society’s preferred source of news. This aligns with research from TEKGROUP’s 2011 Social Media News Survey report, which found that an overwhelming 84% frequently or exclusively use social media tools to follow or monitor news and information. This may partly be due to the speed at which social media is able to disseminate news to the masses. In fact, many significant news stories have broken on social media before television stations or print newspapers picked them up. Stories including the Hudson River plane crash, royal wedding announcement, and death of Osama bin Laden all broke on Twitter.

So what does this mean for traditional journalism? While its top rank may be hanging in the balance, there are still many advantages that are keeping it alive. Although social media may only have a few characters to relay pertinent news, traditional stories have the ability to provide all the facts in one place while exploring multiple angles without being hampered by forced brevity. What’s more, news coming from traditional journalism comes from reliable sources with an element of credibility that is often missing from the average social media user who often, although unknowingly, may publish hear-say or rumors. In fact, Schools.com shows that nearly 50% of people have heard breaking news on social media that turned out to be false!

So, what do you think, is social media killing the traditional news industry or will there always be a place for TV broadcasts and the printed word?

Their (our??) constant connectedness allows them constant access to real-time information. They use their smartphone for work, entertainment and shopping. According to this eMarketer article, “they watch videos in coffee shops, social network at concerts, play games in waiting rooms, scan barcodes in stores and shopping with their smartphone from anywhere at any time.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

By 2016, eMarketer estimates nearly three in five consumers will have a smartphone – wow. This class is growing rapidly and is defined by the members’ shared behaviors. Namely, the fact that these people simply don’t accept a dull moment. If they are bored, they automatically turn to their phone.

What does this mean for marketers? It presents an enormous opportunity to reach consumers, as they are constantly in search of information. With all the times throughout the day the smartphone class is looking at their phone, marketers have a chance to reach their consumers and potentially close a sale. It’s a must to target your audience where they are – and the verdict is in: they’re probably on their smartphones!

Remember when we used to have to flip open our cellphones to make calls? Waiting on a beep, and running to the nearest payphone to make a return call? Or even when our laptops felt so heavy; like they had a data center installed inside them? Nowadays, we have the option to video chat through our cellphones, and we have laptops that are lighter than some cellphones. The amenities of modern-day technology have spoiled us greatly. I “woke up from my coma” when I found myself buying eBooks from the Internet to read on my cellphone and iPad. Now, I find myself making random trips to check out physical books at the library, just to keep sane.

Imagine waking up from this coma as a PR professional. Some serious adjustments would have to be made in order to play catch-up. We’ve involved social media in the PR mix, so much so that it has revolutionized the profession. Many believe that, in order to become a successful public relations professional, and to build successful brands, companies and executives have to become well versed with the various social media platforms. This extends all the way from understanding how they can help various initiatives, to knowing the right ones to use for the job, which can be challenging given that new ones are created so often.

Utilizing social media in campaigns means that brands now have to personalize themselves with consumers and figure out how to effectively join in on their conversations. PR professionals can no longer get away with blasting information to audiences. This new era calls for direct communication, especially now that social media users have much bigger voices. However, with the boom and ease of content-sharing capabilities, this makes the job a little harder.

These are just a few factors that an “old-school” PR professional waking up from a 10-year coma would encounter. As technology is ever-changing, it will be interesting to ask Martin’s question again 10 years from now. I’m almost certain that while reminiscing with friends about the good old times, the iPad 3, Facebook and Twitter among other things, will make for good jokes.

The race kicks off with a celebration at Game On near Fenway Park and sends racers on an urban adventure they’ll never forget.

To register, visit Starlight’s events page.

More information will also be available on the STARmazing Race Twitter and Facebook pages.

And remember, all proceeds go directly to the Starlight Children’s Foundation.

Facebook

• User base: 845+ million users
• Benefit: interacting on a more personal level with contacts
• Demographic: the largest segment of Facebook users are between 21-24 years old (17.5% male and 16.6% female), followed by 18-20 year olds and then 35-44 year olds
• Drawback: trying to connect to too many users can dilute the genuine connections (60% of Facebook users no longer know 20% of their friends and 50% speak to only half their friends)

Twitter

• User base: 140+ million active users
• Benefit: great for short, to-the-point updates, monitoring conversations and finding potential customers
• Demographic: 54.6% are female and 45.4% are male
• Demographic: the largest segment of Twitter users are between 31-49 years old, followed by 18-29 year olds

LinkedIn

• User base: 150+ million users
• Benefit: showing off professional accomplishments and establishing connections
• Demographic: 51% are male and 49% are female
• Demographic: the largest segment of LinkedIn users are between 35-44 years old (23%)

Google+

• User base: 100+ million users
• Benefit: starting conversations and adding specific people to them
• Benefit: using the ‘circles’ feature to target your messages to specific audiences
• Demographic: 30.38% female and 69.62% male

So, what spurred Zuckerberg to include organ donation status as a part of his powerhouse social networking site? In an exclusive interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts, he shares that conversations at the dinner table with his med-student girlfriend first sparked the idea. Furthermore, his relationship with Steve Jobs, who was the recipient of a liver transplant, drove him to put the idea into practice.

In an excerpt from the ABC interview, Zuckerberg said, “Facebook is really about communicating and telling stories.. We think that people can really help spread awareness of organ donation and that they want to participate in this to the friends. And that can be a big part of helping solve the crisis that’s out there.”

Though he is notoriously private, Zuckerberg shared that his girlfriend is going to be a pediatrician, and she often tells him stories about patients who are “getting sicker as they don’t have the organ that they need.”

At its core, social networking is about connecting, building relationships and creating awareness of something – whether it’s an idea, an illness, a product or a brand. It’s all in the way you use it, and understanding your audience is key, but with its massive reach, Facebook has the power to really make a difference on many levels.

Unlike traditional social media efforts (it’s odd to think that there are now “traditional” social media efforts), Live for Now is not hosted on other networks, such as Facebook or Twitter.  It is instead Pepsi’s own, self-developed and independent platform.

Live for Now will essentially be a pop culture news aggregator, tracking the hottest topics from around the web and presenting them in a colorful and lively format. The news content hosted on the site can be shared with friends via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Pepsi will host “challenges” from celebrities in which they ask their fans to complete a task, and the beverage company has also partnered with a daily deals site to offer discounted concert tickets.

If this sounds like an interesting little side project to further engage consumers on social media, think again. The “result of intense consumer research carried out across a variety of markets over the past nine months,” as AdAge puts it, will be the centerpiece of Pepsi’s first ever global campaign. Live for Now will become Pepsi’s homepage, and will launch on Wednesday by “taking over” Yahoo.com as well.

Pepsi has stated that the reason for Live for Now is because the brand has always done well when it has been able to successfully connect itself to pop culture, but “there have been times in the last decade where we haven’t been in the right place in entertainment around the world, haven’t been at the forefront,” said Simon Lowden, CMO of PepsiCo. It is not unfair to assume that, with Live for Now, Pepsi wishes to become one of the top pop culture news aggregators on the web.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Live for Now plays out. Will consumers be OK with getting their news directly from a brand? Is the departure from normal online marketing, including replacing your homepage with a content site and investing heavily in celebrity integration, worth the ROI?

Many have theorized that the future of marketing is content.  With Live for Now, Pepsi has bought in, and the results, whatever they may be, will serve as a learning point for all brands to follow.

What do you think? Will Live for Now be a successful venture for Pepsi?

Image via TechCrunch