First, I’ve talked to a lot of people that are discusing interesting ways to use geolocation and couponing around food, music and entertainment. Companies really seem to finally be interested in creating localized and immediate marketing campaigns around a specific location or event.

Second, I continue to have conversations with companies that are finding better ways to measure true customer engagement and vet the marketing channels that are having true impact. In fact, last night after I posted “Digging Deeper on Metrics,” I had three separate conversations with execs at different companies that talked about how they finally feel like they can really invest some money in social media campaigns, either for themselves or their clients, because the measurement tools are now catching up.

Finally, I spoke to Jeff Reine at Popbox about how brands could use this device to create an enhanced version of the traditional television commercial. If you haven’t heard of Popbox, it’s a set-top box (with an April release) that aggregates all your media in a way that’s viewable on your TV. Think of the simplicity of AppleTV, but with the ability to stream Netflix movies, Revision3 shows, Twitter, Flickr photos etc. There is also a dedicated chunk of screen real estate in the interface that is begging for content creators to really build a more interactive campaign around promoting the launch of a new show, a hot young band, or the latest Coca-Cola product. Look for that full interview with Jeff in the coming weeks.

I met with a company called Lytiks out of Boston. They’ve built a system with a simple dashboard that tracks actions, engagement, time spent on site etc. Now, in some ways it’s similar to Google Analytics. But where Lytiks really shines is the integration of call tracking into their system. The example David Jenkens, CEO of Lytiks, gave to me was that of a local plumber. Let’s say a plumber places the same phone number in yellowpages.com, their local paper and sets up a campaign using Google AdWords. How do I know which marketing channel is performing the best? What is the best ROI? In Lytiks you can create a separate phone number from inide the platform. Choose an 800 number or a local area code and place each unique number in it’s own channel. Then at the end of each month you can clearly see which channel has worked the best.

There’s also a slew of other ways to track social campaigns on Twitter and Facebook and a host of other media spaces.

Another company I talked today is called WhoLinksToMe. WLTM specializes in analysing reputation and SERP rankings through inbound links. We know that inbound links are one of the most important factors to great SEO, but the quality of those links matter too. Who is linking to you? Who isn’t? The service can also tell you who is linking to your competition, but NOT to you.

In addition to the number of links and who they are, WLTM also breaks down inbound links geographically by country so you can how far your brand extends.

These types of services appeal to me as a marketer. I’m always looking for better ways to track how well our message is reaching those on Twitter vs. Facebook vs. YouTube. Does it make more sense to write for Adotas or our own blog? Which AdWords campaigns are bringing me the most leads? Lytiks and WhoLinksToMe can answer many of those questions.

Are you at SXSW? What companies or services have you seen that can help us more intelligently track our metrics?

I quickly learned it wasn’t really a newspaper – was a marketing piece for a company called Thoora. Thoora is a news and trend aggregation site better than anything I’ve seen. From the site:

“Because Thoora is algorithmically curated it doesn’t pick favorites. Sites like Huffington Post, Lifehacker, Techcrunch, TMZ, Gawker and Mashable will all show up in Thoora results, but so will sites have never heard of like SaulColt.com and JackndJillpolitics.com”

It also looks at things like tweets per hour, Twitter impact, when a story first became popular across the web and how many blogs and news sites are talking about it.

The layout is clean and the view is customizable by category.

In addition to being a great way to get your news from one streamlined source, I also see the tremendous research benefit of a tool like this. As marketers we need to be aware of what’s hot in the world around us. This type of content can help us tell a better story with our marketing efforts that is more timely and plugged in to what people are interested in.

I also have to give Thoora a hat tip for their newspaper idea. Putting marketing materials under hotel room doors at a conference isn’t a new idea, but it’ seldom done this effectively. Taking a pitch about a news site and creating a newspaper out of that day’s hot stories is pretty genius. I kept reading it even once I realized it was a pitch and then went and checked out the site. In a sea of companies trying to get attention at SXSW, Thoora did it well on day two.

My first meeting was with Jason Parrish of Get Smart Content. They are doing some really interesting things with content targeting. They serve specific content based on a user’s geographic laocation, previous websites visited, number of times they’ve visited your site and the keywords they searched to find you. Imagine how much more effective that makes your offerings as a publisher? They’ve had success with clients like the San Antonio Visitor’s Bureau, the NFL and the newly elected Governor of Texas.

I also got a chance to shoot a video piece with Mark Horvath. Mark runs a site called InvisiblePeople.tv which shines a light on the growing problem of homelessness. I can’t say too much about how it will be used, but I can say it will be used in a very public way at SXSW tomorrow.

It’s been a great day so far. It’s such a great feeling to be around people with so much passion for technology and business. I’m looking forward to the next few days. But, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for the opening night Ustream party with Gym Class Heroes and Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy performing!

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Now, I’m just spit-balling here, but my goal is come back from SXSW with a boatload of information that I can use to help those in the performance marketing industry grow their business. So, if you’re open to sitting down with me for a few minutes to talk, shoot a video for Relevantly Speaking, or just grab beer and brainstorm – I’m in!

Email me at: sparent AT mediatrust DOT com or reach out to me via Twitter @americancliche.

Safe travels to Austin.

Toyota has already started the mea culpa process with commercials like this:

They’ve now started to harness social media as well. According to a post on Los Angeles Times Blog, Toyota has setup a branded channel on TweetMeme in partnership with Federated Media. It’s called Toyota Conversations and it’s essentially an aggegator of articles and web fodder about the brand. The LA Times articles seems to indicate that it was mostly including “positive sentiment” in the feed. However, when I looked it I actually saw a feed weighted more heavily on pieces critical of Toyota.

Is this the right approach?

I think it is. Look, no amount of spin is going to make this go away right now. Instead, Toyota has taken the initiative to aggregate it, acknowledge it and allow real conversation around it. While allowing a real stream of sentiment, Toyota is allowing all viewpoints – mostly negative – in to their “conversation,” but they are also able to brand it correctly. Take a look at the Toyota Conversations page and you see a section called “What We’re Doing” that allows the company to clearly state their message. There is also a link to a recent episode of Digg Dialogg which features Toyota’s US President, Jim Lentz. Additionally there are links to Toyota’s presence on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Toyota’s brand is a mess right now, but they’re being as transparent about it as they can be. By taking this approach, not only are they laying their cards on the table, but they’re also saying “let us have it and after you do, we want to tell you how we plan to make it right.” Under the circumstances I think this is a genius approach to making lemonade out of lemons.

What do you think? Is this the right approach? What could they be doing better? I’d love your feedback in the comments.

I’m getting fired up for SXSW Interactive in Austin, TX. Do you have a killer social media app? Have you spotted a trend that no one else seems to have noticed? Are you someone in the affiliate space that sees real value in attending SXSW? If you answered “yes” to any of the previous questions, I want to speak with YOU in Austin. Send me an email at sparent AT mediatrust DOT com and we’ll chat.

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From the UK Telegraph:

“Thorpe Park in Surrey is eager to introduce a ‘’signature stench” to its horror maze SAW Alive which opens next month. In a ”contest” on Friday, members of the public will be offered a £500 cash prize to produce the most pungent-smelling urine. The smell will then be used alongside other stenches in the maze.”

At first, I thought “wow, why do I waste my time reading this garbage?” But then, I started to think about. This is genius marketing on several levels.

First, it got picked up by TONS of worldwide press. By issuing a press release announcing this silly contest, they got media outlets to cover their amusement. For free.

Second, it got coverage of it’s new attraction, SAW Alive. Instead of having to buy print ads or local airtime in TV or radio, they got the media talking about their new offering.

Finally, and most importantly, it gets customers in the door. Notice how the “contest” involves people coming to the theme park on Friday? They don’t need to do this on a weekend when they probably have no problem with attendance. Doing it mid-week makes it less likely that people would take a day off from work and travel to the park. But, doing it on Friday is just tempting enough that it might give people that push over the edge to make a long weekend out of it and go to Thorpe Park.

So let’s reiterate here – for the cost of a press release this company has achieved three very important things:

1. Brand Awareness on a Worldwide Scale

2. Publicity Around A New Product Launch

3. New Customer Acquisition

Even though it’s easy to dismiss the, admittedly, stinky premise, you can’t deny that this is genius marketing for very little money spent.