Remember Kony? Did you hype it up last March and then let it sail away into Internet obscurity forever? Around this time last year, it was one of the most popular videos with the most views in as little time. As of right now, 96,690,273 people have seen it. But it seems that as much as it was hyped up, it flopped even quicker. Why?

When it comes to virility on the Internet, a call to action can’t be postponed. If you had to wait a month to share or post your own “Call Me Maybe” parody or if Grumpy Cat wasn’t shareable for a certain period of time, that would take away the punch. You can’t launch a Breast Cancer Awareness Day video and air it 2 months before Breast Cancer Awareness Day. The biggest problem the Kony project faced, besides horrible PR for creator Jason Russell and his charity Invisible Children, was lag time. The day that the worldwide canvassing campaign was April 20^th. A month and a half after the video set sail.

Perhaps if they video launched and the call to action was a week, or even two weeks later, people would still have cared and participated. Instead, they waited 46 days. In that time, Jason Russell was arrested for public nudity, had a mental breakdown, Invisible Children was called out for not using their funds wisely, and several news outlets reported that Kony wasn’t as big of an issue as Invisible Children made it out to be.

Other people began to talk about how Russell and many other activists like him were actually instigating slacktivism. People would say that retweets, YouTube views, and putting posters up to create awareness would never help the problem. A retweet does not give a child freedom. (Unless, of course, a company donated money from every retweet to the specific charity that funneled into actively making something happen.)

So, was Kony a success? In some ways, yes. 96 million views = money. Hopefully, that money went to the foundation. But the call to action completely failed. Let this serve as a helpful hint for people using a viral video or meme: follow up immediately.span style=”color: #999999;”

The bare bones basis of social media management encompasses all of those things, and more. But the new horizon of social media (and we think, the bread and butter or perhaps its intended purpose) is real-time marketing. Being timely is professional, but being on top of things right in the moment is expert. To give a perfect example of this, we present to you: the tweet and photo during the Super Bowl that Oreo created on the fly:

Now, being a huge and recognizable brand, they already had content that they completed to go out prior to Super Bowl Sunday. They had a cookie vs. cream campaign, where people submitted pictures and artists at the Oreo factory turned them into cookie or cream sculptures. Super Bowl, a time where people all want to put their 2 cents in on the Internet, was a brilliant time to launch this.

But what gave them the edge was that they had a graphic designer on hand (or maybe just on call) who created that graphic right when the lights went out at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. In the first hour alone, that graphic got 10,000 retweets. Tens of thousands of people were talking about it. That’s pretty damn good!

When you are running a brand and you have a social media strategy that thrives on conversation, being on top of your game is extremely important. After all, it’s a mere reply, not a conversation, if you take a few hours or even a day to respond to a question, complaint, or comment.

First, it was the Internet and our computers. We interacted with websites, games and other people from the comfort of our own home.

Then, it was cell phones. We interacted with our friends via text message and compared Snake scores. Nokia was king. The Motorolla Razr was the new, cool thing to surpass it.

After that, came mobile web browsing, the Blackberry, and LG’s reign. We interacted with each other still with instant text messages, but then we began to have BBMs and email at our fingertips.

Finally, the smartphone arose. We now have iPhone and Android. We don’t ask questions, we Google. We interact with each other, still. But it’s more intense and immediate. We also interact with brands, using social media.

The way we’ve interacted with each other has become increasingly more immediate. But it recently has jumped into another venue — one that was never used for interaction before, unless calling in to talk shows counts. The television is the new device we use for interacting. And more than interaction, it’s extraction.  Advertisers are now making your television a device for collecting your information. They want to be able to cater your TV-watching experience to their specific brands.

If you have Cable, you’ve probably seen an ad like the one above. You can use the buttons already set on your remote control to interact with the ads. If you don’t have cable and use websites or apps like Hulu? They flat-out ask you what you’d prefer your “advertising experience” to be.

Advertisers have never said it so blatantly before, but most ads are about the user’s experience. They want you to feel good so you buy the product. Now, they have ways to mold that experience in realtime. Whether it works or not, it’s too soon to tell. But advertising is becoming more and more innovative. We like it that way.