December marks the awakening of the Christmas spirit – and what is Christmas spirit without Holiday songs?

Brandlings put together a list of our favorite Christmas songs and songs that remind us of the Holiday season. Initially, we intended to create a top 10 list that we would share with our readers, however… when compiling everyone’s favorite songs, we very quickly realized that top 10 actually meant top 30.  Who really has just one favorite Christmas song anyway?

So, clank your mugs of egg nog, decorate your tree, enjoy your family, and get into the holiday spirit! This list has something for everyone. We have funny songs, hidden gems, classical, pop versions, and, of course, traditional.

Here is sample of what you have to look forward to:

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Jackson Five
Christmas Time Is Here, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Vince Guaraldi
Baby, It’s Cold Outside, Dean Martin
You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, Thurl Ravenscroft
All I Want For Christmas Is You, Mariah Carey
Carol Of The Bells, John Williams
Do They Know It’s Christmas, Feed The World, Band Aid
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, Ella Fitzgerald
Santa Baby, The Swingle Singers
Rock Around The Clock, Bill Haley

If you want to listen in, we’ve shared the play list through Spotify on our Facebook page. Check it out!

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Movember, the month formerly known as November, is a moustache growing charity event held during November each year, raising funds and awareness for men’s health in the process. Welt was able to interview Donny Killian, Movember’s US manager, to find out more about the event.

Welt: How did the idea originally come about?

Donny: It started in 2003 in Melbourne, Australia, with a couple of friends talking about ‘80s fashion and how everything cycles back into vogue. They decided then and there that the moustache was the perfect old school fashion that needed a comeback. That November, they got 30 of their friends together to grow a Mo, Aussie slang for moustache, re-naming the month Movember.

The rules were simple: Start the month clean-shaven, and grow a moustache for 30 days. The guys had so much fun, and were shocked by the amount of conversations started by the moustache. They decided to grow the following year, and to do it for a cause. Inspired by the breast cancer and women’s health movement, they chose an under-served disease that affecting 1 in 6 men, prostate cancer.

The following year, 450 Aussies raised $55,000 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia… And that was the beginning of the men’s health movement.

Welt: Currently in the US, $7,091,183 has been raised. What has not proven to be effective in your social media efforts to help raise this number?

Donny: We are thrilled with the amount raised so far this year (nearly $7.2M) and how far we’ve come from last year. In 2010, we had nearly 65,000 registered Mo Bros and Mo Sistas participating and they raised $7.5M ($81M globally, with 450,000 global participants). We are only 18 days into the month and already have 138,000 US participants and close to $51M globally! We are honored to have this overwhelming support.

Our community is a fun, strong and dedicated force – they understand our messaging, believe in the cause and spread awareness in their own unique way. We support our Mo Bros and Mo Sistas throughout their Movember journey by providing the tools and resources for them to have meaningful conversations, educate others and above all have remarkable experiences throughout the month.

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If you’re not trying to build better relationships, open two-way channels, and deepen the engagement between your brand and your consumer, than why are you using social media?

As “civilians,” social media makes it easy for us to share our feelings, ideas, viewpoints and ourselves. We touch a lot of people in one post. But when you’re a business, or more importantly a brand, the implications and interpretations of this information are also limitless. There are many ways to abuse and over-use social media. More importantly, social media isn’t (necessarily) meant to take the place of other media, it’s a tool to improve our ability to connect, and in most cases should be used in conjunction with a solid mixed media approach. Social media requires support and a lot of hard work, right?

Well, considering we use social media to better connect with our consumers, it might be worth taking a look at how the platforms affect them. A research study at Edinburgh Napier University suggests that Facebook usage creates stressors that impact users anxiety levels. Psychotherapist Stacey Nunez agrees that Facebook can cause severe angst and even depression. She explains that cyber-stalking and romanticizing about photos makes it difficult for a person to connect via face-to-face interaction, it creates false expectations, and that it lowers self-esteem. In short, she asserts Facebook enhances stressors and makes it difficult for managing adversity.

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No budget, no marketing dollars, no existing clientele, a business name, great event ideas, and a drive to succeed…

This was me, six months ago, when I decided to leave my job and embark on a journey of entrepreneurial passion. I had the winning idea, but — with my limited budget — how was I to promote it and spread the word?

Let’s fast forward to the present day. I have two major events on the docket: Run for Your Life Zombie 5K scheduled for October 23, 2011 and Challenge Cincinnati Urban Adventure Race scheduled for March 24, 2012. Using solely social media, I have managed to create buzz and increase traffic to my event websites, to the point at which I now fully expect both events to sell out. Keep in mind that I have yet to spend $1 on advertising! So what new fad or idea did I use? None — I used simple, old fashioned networking skills, and the ability of social network sites to magnify those skills.

Social media has proved effective in promoting events like Run for Your Life Zombie 5K.

Building my initial following wasn’t easy, but I knew that with Facebook and LinkedIn, I had thousands of possible connections. Not only did I personally have all of these connections but, the charitable organizations that were to benefit from my events had many as well. Here is how it went down:

• I synchronized the launch of my websites and event Facebook pages with coordinated requests to my family, friends, and acquaintances and with those of family, friends, and acquaintances of others who were involved with the planning of the event.
• I sent personal individualized requests to over 200 people asking them to “Like” our page and requested that they post it on their wall at least once.
• I spent the first week continually following up with my friends, family, and acquaintances on Facebook chat to confirm my requests and most of all…(drum roll please) to thank them!
• Half of my posts from the first week were not informational posts at all, but rather me thanking those who were supporting us and helping us spread the word early.

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The strategies behind branding efforts and building a real-life relationship are comparable.

Think about it: When you’re starting a relationship you try to prove to the other person that you’re trustworthy and good for them. You don’t do this in one particular way, but you express yourself across multiple platforms – calling, texting, dating, and yes, shockingly enough, you also make things “Facebook official” by becoming one of their social media friends. If you want the relationship to last and you’ve done something wrong, you inevitably have to fix the problem, but more importantly, gain back their trust.

Similarly in branding, marketers not only want to gain awareness, but also want to establish credibility and trust. In order to achieve these things a brand does not just market to their consumer over one platform — it engages in a variety of mediums.

A digital audit can determine metrics to measure against a larger marketing goal.

Keeping this in mind, it would seemingly make sense that, especially when things are not working out, marketing managers would conduct a comprehensive analysis of their efforts, right? Not always, and unfortunately this analysis is especially deficient across the digital platform!

As more and more companies discover the digital marketing universe, it seems less actually utilize the full scope that digital has to offer. This inability to optimize is partially due to the fact that most companies don’t actually know what they’re supposed to be doing or why they’re suppose to be doing it. It seems that many companies either believe that the more users they touch, the more the success, or that having a mere digital presence is enough.

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