One lesson taught by Stanford GSB Professor Jennifer Aaker is to include the opposite of every idea proposed in a brainstorming session. This tool vastly expands the number ideas, both excellent and terrible in equal proportion. This thinking led one former student to launch a social media campaign to register 20,000 South Asian bone marrow donors to find a match for a friend with leukemia. The result not only increased disease awareness and found a donor, but it also provided an excellent example of successful social networking, factoring in the strength of a specific goal, the power of reversing the rules, the necessity of creating a campaign that allows for no-fuss collaboration, and the need to tell a good story.

Stanford GSB Professor Jennifer Aaker talks about corporate brand experiments, such as Terminal Man, a famed Twitterer for an airline company, and other unprecedented tests in social media communications. Her analysis is that companies that embrace and interact with individual commentary in digital media will be far ahead of those that try to quash those who freely share their opinions.

Focus on making your employees excited about the brand, rather than just the customers. This is the new face of forward-thinking companies, says Jennifer Aaker, a professor with Stanford's Graduate School of Business. This strategy is now employed more often, giving employees their own blogs, Twitter feeds, etc., which allows customers to get excited about a brand they can come to trust.

Happiness drives many of us, but often down the wrong road. How can our desire to please ourselves so often lead us astray? Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Jennifer Aaker states that happiness has many nuanced definitions between excitement and peacefulness. The way you choose to define it is dependent on demographics, including factors like gender, age, mindset, and culture. Moreover, these perceived feelings of happiness evolve over a lifetime, and inform how one makes decisions.

Using the case study of Team Sameer - a successful social media campaign to find a bone marrow donor for a man with leukemia - Stanford GSB professor Jennifer Aaker goes into detail on the effective strategies of an email plea sent to just 450 people, which lead to nearly 25,000 participants nationwide. Communicating a story through focused, humanistic messaging is an imperative element for social media that drives audiences to take action.

In their quest for an authentic viral campaign, the global soft drink giant gave $50,000 to seven teams worldwide, one of whom created the Coke Happiness Machine. Stanford GSB Professor Jennifer Aaker, shows this popular YouTube video, and talks about how this small investment had big payoff for authenticity, connection, surprise, meaning, and global appeal.

Research shows that happiness must be created, not found. Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Jennifer Aaker believes that creating an environment that allows for happiness offers longer-lasting joy for oneself and other members of a community. This environment would enable people to find real meaning, make real connections, and feel that they are a part of something bigger. In addition, this is a particularly important concept in the digital age.