News

Here’s a little proof that Twitter is now not simply location aware, in terms of latitude and longitude or address, but is now place-aware.  I checked in to both of these places on FourSquare and Twitter recognized these places by name:

Then, I decided to click on the Trader Joe’s, Falls Church link beside the little map marker, and lo! there was the following pop-up window, which is very much aware of not simply location anymore but they’re following the trend of Facebook Places and the other location-aware social networks by starting to connect to businesses:

Via Marketing Conversation and Chris AbrahamChris Abraham is co-founder and principal of Abraham Harrison LLC, an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. See his profile, contact Chris via email, Twitter, or leave a comment below.

Photo by tantek on Flickr

Since I have become addicted to Foursquare, the location check-in service, I set out to find the best tips to get to the top of Foursquare’s leaderboard while playing fair.

Here are the top 5 tips I discovered:

1If you want to become mayor, check in to places that you know that you’ll be able to check in to frequently, as many times as possible. Didn’t find your place on Foursquare already? Add it. Don’t forget and don’t neglect — someone else may steal your mayorship from you.

2Foursquare resets its leaderboard on Sunday nights. To maximize your weekly tallies, make sure you start early in the week.

3Check in to new places — every time you do so, these grant you 5 extra points, and these can add up quickly.

4Get familiar with how to unlock your special badges and work on unlocking them. Here are two great badges lists: TonyFelice.WordPress.com and TheKruser.com.

5Don’t cheat. For the sake of the community, don’t check in to places if you’re not really there. This only hurts the whole user experience on Foursquare.

Hey, Foursquare, here’s an idea for you

One feature I feel is missing in Foursquare: Once I check in to a place, I want the app to scan all my contacts and tell me the 5–10 users who are closest to my proximity at any given time. This will enable users to maximize the potential of meeting people in their network more frequently and make for a more cohesive user base.

And finally, here’s a good, short Foursquare tutorial for you:

 

How To Unlock Your World With Foursquare on Howcast

Related

• Foursquare Focuses on Privacy on Eve of Expected Facebook Location Launch (Mashable)Ayelet Noff is founder and CEO of Blonde 2.0, a New Media PR firm specializing in helping brands use social media tools such as social networks, the blogosphere and social software to create brand awareness, buzz, find leads, recruit employees or achieve any other goal. See her business profile, contact Ayelet, follow her on Twitter or leave a comment below.

Google Webmaster Tools is a phenomenal free resource.

Guest post by Danny Dover
SEO moz

For as long as I can remember, the best way for me to learn has been to do. I have gone through countless checklists while trying to understand search engine optimization. The following is a compilation of the most useful checklists I have completed in order to learn SEO. My intent is that this list can be used by people who are inexperienced in SEO but want to learn more.

Learn how to build a basic website

Before diving into SEO techniques, it’s important to know the basics of web development. The following tasks will develop the necessary web development skills needed to become successful at SEO:

Learn how to code a basic website without using a WYSIWYG editor – Don’t fear the word code, writing HTML is much easier than you think. If you can make a sandwich with two pieces of bread and put something in the middle, you can write HTML. For help, check out this excellent tutorial. Remember, don’t worry about SEO techniques at this point. Focus on learning how to build a website first.

Code a website that contains the following:

• All styles with CSS. No tables!
• Homepage has 3 unique paragraphs about you
• 3 pages total; homepage, contact and portfolio

Pick your keywords — Pick keywords that are uncompetitive. This is very important as the words you choose will become the center of your SEO efforts. I recommend using your name. Go to Google and search for yourself. If a small amount of low quality websites show up, use your name as your keywords. If your name is competitive to rank for, find a variation of your name that is easier. Example: Danny Ben Dover.

Register a domain name and find hosting — This is not nearly as difficult as it sounds. I recommend SiteGround as good option. However, there are literally thousands of choices. Use your best judgment, but remember you shouldn’t be paying more than $7 a month and the domain name should be included for free. Your only requirement is that your host can’t have immovable ads. These could be crawled by the search engines and ruin your rankings. For your domain name, use your keywords from above. Eg., dannydover.com or dannybendover.com. If your keywords are not available as a domain name, choose different keywords. (Note: In this exercise, the keywords you are optimizing for and your domain name should be the same. Although this is not always the case in the real world, having similar keywords to your domain name makes SEO much easier.)

Upload your website files to your new hosting account -  The easiest method is to use FTP to drag and drop your files. See your hosting provider for details.

Sign up for Google Analytics and verify your website – This free tool will allow you to track visitors to your website. Installation instructions are included by Google.

 

 

Wait a week and search for your keywords in the big four search engines – I generally use the rank checker tool (immediately above) as a shortcut. It is all right if your website doesn’t show up. That is what SEO is for. If you do find your website ranking (even if it is not on the first page), record how it ranks in the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) in a spreadsheet.

Wait two weeks to allow search engines to find your site and for Google Analytics to gather data.

Learn about SEO and apply it to your site

Now for the fun part. Learn basic SEO techniques and apply them to your glorious website. This will allow you to see how SEO can help your website rank.

Read the entire Beginner’s Guide to SEO – This is essential to building a strong SEO foundation. I also recommend reading the completed parts of the new Beginner’s Guide and Aaron Wall’s SEO Overview.

Read all of the Google Search Engine Ranking Factors – These will reinforce what you already know and give a perspective on variation. These factors are based off of the experience of some of the SEO industry’s most successful people.

Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools, verify and read everything – This phenomenal resource will show you how Googlebot sees your website and point out any SEO problems you have on your site. Be sure to familiarize yourself with it. The information it provides is formulated toward Google but applies to all the search engines.

Run your website through the SEOmoz tools – Specifically, I recommend the Term Target Tool and Page Strength Tool. These tools will point out areas where you can improve your website.

Add a robots.txt file and a sitemap — Although these are not really necessary for such a small site, familiarizing yourself with these files will be indispensable.

Apply your knowledge – Optimize your Title Tags, URLs, Anchor Text, HTML structure (H1, H2), and keyword usage. This is the bread and butter of onsite search engine optimization.

Link build – Add a link to your website on all of your favorite social media/networking sites. Feel free to try your luck with linkbait, although for a site with no competition this isn’t really necessary.

Track your site on Linkscape and Yahoo! Site Explorer – Wait a month for Linkscape and Yahoo to find your links and then check to see what links are being counted. On Yahoo, be sure to select “inlinks except from this domain to entire site.” Only the links on Linkscape are displayed in the order of importance.

Check Google Analytics – By this time, you should see more interesting data from your analytics tool. Use this data to learn the basics of analytics and use it as a reference point while link building.

Update your spreadsheet – Search for your keywords in the big three search engines again and look to see where your website ranks. Record these results in your spreadsheet. Tracking your data lets you see what techniques are working what techniques are not worth your time.

Test your own SEO theories and record the results — This is not really a task you can ever complete. 90% of all SEO information is already freely available if you can find it. Testing your own theories and getting good results will help you uncover the remaining 10% necessary to outperform your competition.

I sincerely believe that if you complete all the tasks on this list, you will be well on your way to becoming a successful SEO. I recommend printing this post and pasting it somewhere visible near your computer. That way you can complete all of the tasks in your spare time and develop your skills. Best of luck to all of the new SEOs!

If you liked this, be sure to check out The Beginner’s Checklist for Small Business SEO.

This post originally appeared at SEOmoz and is republished with permission. The author’s views are entirely his own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. SEOmoz is not affiliated with Socialmedia.biz and has not reviewed this translation. SEOmoz provides the Web’s best SEO tools and resources.

It’s amazing how upset people can get from a letter

On Friday night I appeared on KQED’s “This Week in Northern California” discussing the open letter Google and Verizon cowrote to the FCC proposing new broadband requirements for mobile and some type of second Internet. The letter bent everyone out of shape and caused a flurry of response from traditional journalists and bloggers. While the protest at Google on Friday was a dud, anger in the blogosphere remained very high, with most everyone trying to extrapolate what Google and Verizon meant with their rather vague proposal. Google and Verizon responded to these various theories trying to clear up some myths that had developed over the week. But in the end it appeared the two elements that most upset everyone, mobile and this “second Internet” being exempt from the FCC’s net neutrality regulation, were still very much on the table according to the two powerhouses.

If you haven’t been paying attention, or need an overview, watch my five minute segment from the KQED show with Belva Davis.David Spark helps businesses grow by developing thought leadership through storytelling and covering live events at Spark Media Solutions. He blogs at The Spark Minute and can be heard and seen regularly on ABC Radio, Cranky Geeks with John C. Dvorak, and KQED in San Francisco. See his business profile, contact David, or leave a comment below.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.

Image by smi23le on Flickr.

Guest post by Anthony Piwarun
SEOmoz

Like most in the SEO (search engine optimization) community, I’m always looking for ways to improve content for my clients. Whether it’s a website, blog or a press release, there is always a way to make it rank better. Recently I began optimizing profiles on LinkedIn, the social networking site for business professionals. Using my own LinkedIn profile as a test, I’ve discovered that the same principles we use in the SEO field.

For two months, I altered various fields of my profile and logged the effect on the number of searches that it appeared in according to LinkedIn analytics. While I’m not one to rely heavily on a single method of measurement, LinkedIn doesn’t offer an option for analytics so my primary method of measurement was the in-house tracking system. The results I found were conclusive: It is possible to optimize your LinkedIn profile to rank better in search.

Before diving into the results of my study, I’d like to point out a few areas that I believe are key to achieving an optimized LinkedIn profile and also give a brief “how-to” on optimization techniques.

How to handle the profile headline

The first and most important field to optimize on your LinkedIn profile is the headline. The headline field can be most equated to a meta description in SEO terminology. It’s a way to explain what you do and how you do it (in as few words as possible) to the world without having to use one of those awful labels known as a “job title.”

For my headline, I opted to go with three keywords and my contact information. For those that aren’t too familiar with LinkedIn, contacting a non-connection isn’t easy unless you’re in the same group or you have a mutual friend, so adding contact information is helpful for new business development. Like its SEO counterpart the meta description, it’s the first thing a searcher sees when searching on LinkedIn.

Profile summary

A LinkedIn summary is a chance to describe who you are, what you want to accomplish, and what you aspire to be. In SEO terms, I like to think of it as the first 100 words of the page. This is a great opportunity to add a ton of keywords, related terms, and longer, more descriptive strings. While it’s important to use your targeted phrase a few times throughout your summary, keep in mind this is a professional profile and if you sound like a robot you most likely won’t win the bid, get hired, or be able to go more than 4 consecutive hours without your coworkers calling you R2D2. Just like any effective website, a LinkedIn profile optimized with user experience in mind will get the sale long before a keyword-stuffed can of Spam.

Job title and description

Another important field when looking to optimize a LinkedIn profile is the job title and description. I’m not going to open myself to hate mail from HR reps, so I’ll bypass job title optimization and cut right to the description. The job description you provide doesn’t have to and most likely shouldn’t be word-for-word verbiage from your job offer letter. Be creative, yet truthful; descriptive, yet succinct. Remember, your target audience has even less time than you to spend reviewing job applicants or proposals so cut to the chase.

Group memberships & connections

Group memberships and the total number of first-, second– and third-degree connections also play a part in determining your ranking in LinkedIn search results. Group memberships and connections are a lot like incoming links– they serve as a “vote of confidence” of sorts, and the closer your connection is to the searcher, the higher up you will show if they use the one-click filter option to sort by relationship. My best advice would be to join as many (relevant) groups that you can and connect with a few LIONs (LinkedIn Open Networkers) from your industry. Note: Don’t connect with random strangers, it’s just plain rude!

Hidden gem: DoFollow link love!

A little-known perk of having a LinkedIn profile is the strength of the domain and the presence of doFollow, customizable anchor links. Your profile allows three links for your website, blog, or Twitter with default anchor text like “My Website” or “Other”. The “Other” field, when selected, allows for customized anchor text. Instead of selecting “My Blog” or “My Website”, use the “Other” option and give yourself some link love from a trustworthy PR 8.

Pulling it all together

Because we’re all results-driven marketers, optimizing content and leaving it alone simply isn’t an option. We need to track, and we need to measure! Throughout my 8 week test on LinkedIn I kept a log to track changes and measure results. The fields that I changed over time were headline, summary, and work description– each of which were explained in detail above. Some other notable variables included a new recommendation from a vendor and a premium LinkedIn subscription.

Conclusion

While the actual numbers aren’t something to write home about, they show an increase of search impressions by as high as 5.5x the baseline measurement. Changing the headline, summary, and work experience alone increased search impressions by a factor of 1.8. Because a new recommendation is an uncontrolled variable, there’s no accurate way to measure (or predict) the results of this type of action. Upgrading to a premium membership slightly increased the number of search impressions but, in my opinion, not enough to justify the cost.

Key takeaways

After reading this HOW-TO, I hope to drive home the following points:

• Adding keywords to the 3 high-traffic fields of your LinkedIn profile will provide a measurable increase in the number of it will display in search results.
• Optimizing your profile will not only help it rank better in search results but also pre qualify potential connections.
• Sometimes it’s best to think of optimizing your content for user experience, not for search engines.

I hope this How-To was helpful — if anyone has done LIO testing on their own, please leave feedback in the comments below for all to see. For more internet marketing tips, be sure to visit my blog and follow me on Twitter.

This post originally appeared at SEOmoz and is republished with permission. The author’s views are entirely his own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. SEOmoz is not affiliated with Socialmedia.biz and has not reviewed this translation. SEO­moz provides the Web’s best SEO tools and resources.

My friend Effie Kapsalis helped make something very, very cool. Something brilliant, actually. Something you need to check out: Anthologize.

A brilliant idea is defined by how hard you slap yourself in the forehead, saying, “gee, that’s awesome — but so obvious, why didn’t I think of that?” Anthologize is that simple, elegant, “it never occurred to me” idea that I have been waiting for forever: a WYSIWYG way of drag-and-dropping together a linear narrative out of what is often an amalgam of reverse-chronological, jumbled-together, blog posts. Export it into an online, web-accessible “book” or even a proper ebook in the PDF, ePUB or TEI formats that can be exported and popped into your favorite ebook reader like the Amazon Kindle or Sony eReader.

Anthologize and presents itself as a free, easy-to-install and easy-to-grok WordPress plug-in.

Anthologize is a project of One Week | One Tool, a project of the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. Funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. © 2010, Center for History and New Media. For more information, contact infoATanthologizeDOTorg. Follow @anthologize.

While I have already installed it into both Chris Abraham and Marketing Conversation, I am overwhelmed with how many posts there are on both blogs that I have yet to organize my thoughts and do something with it. However, there has been quite a bit of press on the Anthologize project already.

Digital Campus

In our first-ever live broadcast, Digital Campus hosts the big reveal of what came out of One Week | One Tool, a National Endowment for the Humanities–sponsored institute at the Center for History and New Media that brought together a diverse group of developers and scholars to produce a useful software application for the humanities (and beyond) in just one week. Joining the regulars on the podcast are four members of the One Week team, Boone Gorges, Kathie Gossett, Effie Kapsalis, and Steve Ramsay. The tool revealed, Anthologize, is a WordPress–based platform for book publishing. Regular Mills Kelly finds Anthologize as beautiful as his Hawaiian vacation. (Download the .mp3)

Smithsonian 2.0

And you can now see and experiment with what we built, Anthologize.  It’s not a tool with a big scope — it does one thing well (although it is an alpha, so there are known issues). It enables researchers, curators, writers — and bloggers in general — to compile, edit, and publish anything available through RSS feeds. From Anthologize, you can send out your compile work as an eBook, paper publication, or TEI (an open XML format for storage and exchange).

ReadWriteWeb

Anthologize enables anyone working with WordPress to easily publish their content in a variety of book formats, including PDF, ePUB, and TEI, an open XML format. Anthologize can handle WordPress blog content as well as feeds from other sources, allowing these items to be updated, reordered, and edited, and then exported.

Blogging has become an increasingly important tool for scholars and educators to share their ideas, but once blogged, that’s often the end-of-the-line for that writing. Anthologize organizes this content and enables users to publish and distribute their work in additional ways — via print or e-readers.

BBC Tech Brief

Tim Carmody at Snarkmarket reports on the success of “one week I one tool”, in which a group at the US Center for Digital Humanity spent a week designing and building a digital tool from scratch.

They posted teasers about the project online but did not reveal the result of their work until the seven days were up:

“They put together a great open-source tool: Anthol­o­gize, a Word­Press plu­gin that helps you take online con­tent like blog posts and col­lect, edit, design, and for­mat them into a book — for either dig­i­tal or print. Solid soft­ware, with obvi­ous util­ity for lots of peo­ple, not just aca­d­e­mics.”

And it’s open source too — which makes it a free for all. Bookbinding is certainly a lot less fiddly these days…

The Atlantic

Anthologize is a WordPress plugin that allows scholars, conference organizers, and bloggers to create eBooks out of websites. Its creators imagine it could be used by researchers to “sketch ideas, collaborate with co-authors, edit and develop research notes into arguments, publish conference proceedings, and engage in public scholarly communication without the typical barriers.” Or perhaps teachers will turn their class blogs into custom publications.

So, what separates Anthologize from commercial blog-to-book services like Blurb or Lulu? (Both fantastic services, IMHO.) First, it’s a WordPress plugin, so if you’re familiar with that tool (as many are), it should be easy to manipulate.

“Because it’s open source, third-party developers can create translators and importers for other formats as well, and contribute them back,” added Doug Knox, director of publication and digital initiatives at the Newberry Library, and part of the One Week, One Tool team. “Lulu and Blurb — and others like FastPencil — are focused on commercial blog-to-book publishing. They don’t have as much flexibility in importing existing content, and they aren’t as open to extending the range of output formats.”

This was all the result of the One Week One Tool project and, to be honest, shows that Rapid Application Development can be the start of a true gift and a true legacy to the world of coding, open source, and online publishing and personal publishing empowerment. Via Chris Abraham.Chris Abraham is co-founder and principal of Abraham Harrison LLC, an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. See his profile, contact Chris via email, Twitter, or leave a comment below.

Image from Bite Daily.

 
How do you measure the ROI of social media? This is a question that we are often asked by companies that want to enter the social media realm but are afraid or unsure of how to prove its success to their superiors. Want to show your bosses that social media works? Below is a great video from Erik Qualman (@equalman) at Socialnomics that showcases several social media ROI success stories.

Here are the top 10 facts you should remember from this video:

1) Gary Vaynerchuk grew his family business from $4 million to $50 million using social media.

2) Wetpaint/Altimeter found companies that widely engage in social media surpass their peers in both revenue and profit. (See Ranking the Top 100 Global Brands — PDF.)

3) Lenovo has experienced a 20% reduction in activity to their call center since they launched their community website for customers.

4) Burger King invested  less than $50,000 in their Whopper Sacrifice Facebook application and received an estimated return of over $400,000 in press/media value. They received 32 million impressions as a result of this campaign.

5) Blendtec quintupled sales with its “Will it Blend” series on YouTube.

6) Dell has already made $3 million in sales via twitter (I’ve heard this number has already increased to $6.5 million).

7) Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI.

8 ) 37% of generation Y heard about the Ford Fiesta via social media before its launch in the US. 25% of Ford’s marketing budget is spent on digital/social media. They are the only US auto company that didn’t take a government loan.

9) Naked Pizza set a one day sales record using social media: 68% of their sales came via Twitter and 85% of their new customers.

10) Software company Genius.com reports 24% of social media leads convert to sales opportunities.

Here’s the video:

As Alex Bogusky, Co-Chairman of CP&B says: “You can’t buy attention anymore. Having a huge budget doesn’t mean anything in social media…. The old media paradigm was “pay to play.” Now you get back what you authentically put in. You’ve got to be willing to “play to play.”

71% of companies plan to increase investments in social  media by an average of 40% because:

1) It’s low-cost marketing

2) Getting traction

3) We have to do it

If you don’t do it, you can be certain that your competitors will.

“Think of Twitter as the canary in the coal mine” — Morgan Johnston, JetBlue Airways

“Our head of social media is the customer” — McDonald’s

The time for social media is now.

Repubished from Blonde 2.0.Ayelet Noff is founder and CEO of Blonde 2.0, a New Media PR firm specializing in helping brands use social media tools such as social networks, the blogosphere and social software to create brand awareness, buzz, find leads, recruit employees or achieve any other goal. See her business profile, contact Ayelet, follow her on Twitter or leave a comment below.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.

Executives and management are looking for strong data that can demonstrate why they should consider social media. DemingHill has compiled some of that data in this brief video to demonstrate the business case for social media.

Want answers for your company? Contact us here.

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We began working with easy-forex to combine their forex trading and social media activity back in February 2010. We knew right away that teaming easy-forex’s expertise, vibrancy, and fresh approach to FX with our knowledge of the nuts and bolts of social media would invariably produce a winning combination.

When we first took stock of easy-forex’s social media efforts, it was clear they had already recognized the value of social profiles and had already laid the groundwork for us on Twitter and YouTube. We knew too, though, that easy-forex’s full potential was only beginning to be actualized, and so we set out to create a home for their traders, a place where they could come and chat with one another regarding their trading habits, methods, tips and strategies – basically, anything and everything related to forex.

easy-forex has always made an effort to be on the cutting edge of trading innovation, and we made sure that bloggers were made aware of this fact by letting them know all about easy-forex’s great customer service and any releases of new products, all through our blogger outreach campaign. This consisted of an extensive search and mapping effort to find the most relevant and high-profile blogs read by the target market. We created a blogger kit detailing easy-forex’s most promising products/services and set our sights on the top 90 bloggers in the tech and forex industry. Our efforts paid off and we received coverage in such tier 1 blogs as VentureBeat, as well as GoMo News and Currency Trading. We were able to reach over 500,000 unique readers with easy-forex’s compelling story of how their unique approach was impacting online trading. Our story was also heavily retweeted and shared by others, furthering its overall social ROI.

Speaking of Twitter, we worked closely with easy-forex to procure real time actionable trading data, directly from their dealing room, to send out as tweets. This close relationship added industry relevant substance to our tweets which set us apart from the average FX tweeters and contributed to a spike in easy-forex’s Twitter following by 25% in just two months.

Leveraging Facebook and other channels

Taking off in all these various directions simultaneously, with each venue showing an exponential growth rate, we created an easy-forex Facebook page to act as a central hub for all our forex trading and social media efforts. We use the social network as a coalescing tool with which to announce and trackback any and all forex trading and social media collateral including blog posts, videos, tweets, news feeds, and discussions, keeping the page active and alive.

Our easy-forex FB page also served to replace the typical forex forum pages traditionally used as a place where traders can come to share their thoughts. By replacing the traditional forums with a Facebook style setting, the discussion is made more real and more personal. It also serves as a barrier preventing any anonymous person/competitor from writing whatever they like without taking responsibility for their words. On social networks, where one has their picture posted, their information written and is connected to friends and family, one feels a responsibility for their actions and words, and will think twice before posting something.

Since launching the easy-forex page at the tail end of February 2010, we managed to go from zilch to over 5,000 fans. An easy-forex YouTube channel features easy-forex’s Emma Andreou’s engaging and informative daily dose of FX happenings and has built a growing loyal audience. In three minutes these forex trading daily videos cover the top 10 market reports, saving hours of research for individual traders. A LinkedIn group was also opened with the same daily diligence for sparking group interaction and information sharing, within and among all easy-forex’s members.

We also built a blog for easy-forex where we publish forex related news and market views. Here too easy-forex became an active partner in helping us to build their brand by encouraging their own FX specialist to write and participate in the blog. Their keen insights and bold predictions have led to the blog becoming a weekly must read amongst the easy-forex community and beyond.

One of the main goals of our social media activities has been to create full transparency between easy-forex and traders via our discussions on all our social channels as well as the information we provide on our blog. This massive online presence within social networks as well as blogs, not to mention the sharing of our content by others, has had the added effect of helping easy-forex’s SEO efforts.

It’s important to note that across all our platforms, members are by no means passive assets. easy-forex’s campaigns are highly interactive with broad open channels being kept for our various online communities on a daily basis. After all, happy members are the best ambassadors your company could ever ask for, a fact whose full reach and value is beyond measurability.

Fantasy Team campaign’s payoff

Take our first easy-forex Facebook campaign, for example. The campaign was called easy-forex’s “Fantasy Team.” It began June 8, designed to coincide with and build off the internationally popular World Cup soccer games. The campaign content consisted of asking our Facebook members to create their own fantasy soccer team, using as random and as outrageous a selection of personalities that they could think of. Participants were encouraged to get even more creative by presenting their selection in the form of doctored photographs with superimposed heads, or upload video versions, or any wacky way that their imaginations could conjure up.

The results beat all expectations. During the three-week campaign, easy-forex’s FB member count increased by a staggering 2,600 people, approximately 50 submissions were entered, and easy-forex received over 800 lead applications requesting more information about their company. All in all, a super successful and highly interactive campaign combing forex trading and social media efforts.

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the great potential waiting to be uncovered in the realm of forex trading and social media. We are hard at work thinking up new creative ideas and campaigns that can help take us to the next level of our social media activity with easy-forex. Stay tuned for what comes next — we promise to keep things interesting.Ayelet Noff is founder and CEO of Blonde 2.0, a social media firm specializing in helping brands use social media tools such as social networks, the blogosphere and social software to create brand awareness, recruit employees or achieve any other goal. See her business profile, contact Ayelet, follow her on Twitter or leave a comment below.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

Related posts:

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2. P2P file-trading wars
3. 3 killer social media case studies

From easy-forex’s fantasy team campaign

We began working with easy-forex to combine their forex trading and social media activity back in February 2010. We knew right away that teaming easy-forex’s expertise, vibrancy, and fresh approach to FX with our knowledge of the nuts and bolts of social media would invariably produce a winning combination.

When we first took stock of easy-forex’s social media efforts, it was clear they had already recognized the value of social profiles and had already laid the groundwork for us on Twitter and YouTube. We knew too, though, that easy-forex’s full potential was only beginning to be actualized, and so we set out to create a home for their traders, a place where they could come and chat with one another regarding their trading habits, methods, tips and strategies — basically, anything and everything related to forex.

easy-forex has always made an effort to be on the cutting edge of trading innovation, and we made sure that bloggers were made aware of this fact by letting them know all about easy-forex’s great customer service and any releases of new products, all through our blogger outreach campaign. This consisted of an extensive search and mapping effort to find the most relevant and high-profile blogs read by the target market. We created a blogger kit detailing easy-forex’s most promising products/services and set our sights on the top 90 bloggers in the tech and forex industry. Our efforts paid off and we received coverage in such tier 1 blogs as VentureBeat, as well as GoMo News and Currency Trading. We were able to reach over 500,000 unique readers with easy-forex’s compelling story of how their unique approach was impacting online trading. Our story was also heavily retweeted and shared by others, furthering its overall social ROI.

Speaking of Twitter, we worked closely with easy-forex to procure real time actionable trading data, directly from their dealing room, to send out as tweets. This close relationship added industry relevant substance to our tweets which set us apart from the average FX tweeters and contributed to a spike in easy-forex’s Twitter following by 25% in just two months.

Leveraging Facebook and other channels

Taking off in all these various directions simultaneously, with each venue showing an exponential growth rate, we created an easy-forex Facebook page to act as a central hub for all our forex trading and social media efforts. We use the social network as a coalescing tool with which to announce and trackback any and all forex trading and social media collateral including blog posts, videos, tweets, news feeds, and discussions, keeping the page active and alive.

Our easy-forex FB page also served to replace the typical forex forum pages traditionally used as a place where traders can come to share their thoughts. By replacing the traditional forums with a Facebook style setting, the discussion is made more real and more personal. It also serves as a barrier preventing any anonymous person/competitor from writing whatever they like without taking responsibility for their words. On social networks, where one has their picture posted, their information written and is connected to friends and family, one feels a responsibility for their actions and words, and will think twice before posting something.

Since launching the easy-forex page at the tail end of February 2010, we managed to go from zilch to over 5,000 fans. An easy-forex YouTube channel features easy-forex’s Emma Andreou’s engaging and informative daily dose of FX happenings and has built a growing loyal audience. In three minutes these forex trading daily videos cover the top 10 market reports, saving hours of research for individual traders. A LinkedIn group was also opened with the same daily diligence for sparking group interaction and information sharing, within and among all easy-forex’s members.

We also built a blog for easy-forex where we publish forex related news and market views. Here too easy-forex became an active partner in helping us to build their brand by encouraging their own FX specialist to write and participate in the blog. Their keen insights and bold predictions have led to the blog becoming a weekly must read amongst the easy-forex community and beyond.

One of the main goals of our social media activities has been to create full transparency between easy-forex and traders via our discussions on all our social channels as well as the information we provide on our blog. This massive online presence within social networks as well as blogs, not to mention the sharing of our content by others, has had the added effect of helping easy-forex’s SEO efforts.

It’s important to note that across all our platforms, members are by no means passive assets. easy-forex’s campaigns are highly interactive with broad open channels being kept for our various online communities on a daily basis. After all, happy members are the best ambassadors your company could ever ask for, a fact whose full reach and value is beyond measurability.

Fantasy Team campaign’s payoff

Take our first easy-forex Facebook campaign, for example. The campaign was called easy-forex’s Fantasy Team. It began June 8, designed to coincide with and build off the internationally popular World Cup soccer games. The campaign content consisted of asking our Facebook members to create their own fantasy soccer team, using as random and as outrageous a selection of personalities that they could think of. Participants were encouraged to get even more creative by presenting their selection in the form of doctored photographs with superimposed heads, or upload video versions, or any wacky way that their imaginations could conjure up.

The results beat all expectations. During the three-week campaign, easy-forex’s FB member count increased by a staggering 2,600 people, approximately 50 submissions were entered, and easy-forex received over 800 lead applications requesting more information about their company. All in all, a super successful and highly interactive campaign combing forex trading and social media efforts.

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the great potential waiting to be uncovered in the realm of forex trading and social media. We are hard at work thinking up new creative ideas and campaigns that can help take us to the next level of our social media activity with easy-forex. Stay tuned for what comes next — we promise to keep things interesting.
Ayelet Noff is founder and CEO of Blonde 2.0, a New Media PR firm specializing in helping brands use social media tools such as social networks, the blogosphere and social software to create brand awareness, buzz, find leads, recruit employees or achieve any other goal. See her business profile, contact Ayelet, follow her on Twitter or leave a comment below.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

Top 10 Sectors by Share of U.S. Internet Time RANK Category Share of Time

June 2010 Share of Time

June 2009 % Change in

Share of Time 1 Social Networks 22.7% 15.8% 43% 2 Online Games 10.2% 9.3% 10% 3 E-mail 8.3% 11.5% –28% 4 Portals 4.4% 5.5% –19% 5 Instant Messaging 4.0% 4.7% –15% 6 Videos/Movies 3.9% 3.5% 12% 7 Search 3.5% 3.4% 1% 8 Software Manufacturers 3.3% 3.3% 0% 9 Multi-category Entertainment 2.8% 3.0% –7% 10 Classifieds/Auctions 2.7% 2.7% –2% Other 34.3% 37.3% –8% Source: The Nielsen Company New study: 43% annual increase in use of social networks, blogs

Our use of social networking and blogs roared ahead by 43 percent over the past year, according to a report released today by Nielsen Online titled “What Americans Do Online.”

The study indicated that Americans spend one-third their online time (36 percent) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging. We now spend nearly a quarter of our time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago — a hefty 43 percent increase — showing that time spent on sites like Facebook and Twitter is no longer confined to early adopters but is clearly a mainstream activity.

But we knew that, right?

Email is tailing off a bit, except on mobile devices, where it continues to dominate, according to the study.

Interesting study. Does it jibe with the online behavior you’ve been seeing?

A wide collection of free reports

I often hear from business colleagues that they don’t know where to turn to when they want to download and share the latest reports on the state of social media. So I’ll mention here that I’ve pulled together what appears to be the Web’s largest collection of free reports and whitepapers, from dozens of different sources, on our sister site, Socialbrite.org, as a public service.

See the main Social media reports page. We’ve broken the Reports section into these categories:

• Social media/social networking reports
• Nonprofit/public interest reports
• Media reports
• Internet usage reports
• Mobile reports

I’ve hired a contractor on odesk to keep these directories up to date, so if you come across additional reports that should be included here, please add a comment either here or on any of the reports pages.

JD Lasica works with major companies and nonprofits on social media strategies. See his business profile, contact JD or leave a comment.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

Related posts:

1. Young people’s lives: ‘self-directed media productions’
2. Teens and social media
3. Top social media sites of 2008

Top 10 Sectors by Share of U.S. Internet Time RANK Category Share of Time

June 2010 Share of Time

June 2009 % Change in

Share of Time 1 Social Networks 22.7% 15.8% 43% 2 Online Games 10.2% 9.3% 10% 3 E-mail 8.3% 11.5% –28% 4 Portals 4.4% 5.5% –19% 5 Instant Messaging 4.0% 4.7% –15% 6 Videos/Movies 3.9% 3.5% 12% 7 Search 3.5% 3.4% 1% 8 Software Manufacturers 3.3% 3.3% 0% 9 Multi-category Entertainment 2.8% 3.0% –7% 10 Classifieds/Auctions 2.7% 2.7% –2% Other 34.3% 37.3% –8% Source: The Nielsen Company New study: 43% annual increase in use of social networks, blogs

Our use of social networking and blogs roared ahead by 43 percent over the past year, according to a report released today by Nielsen Online titled “What Americans Do Online.”

The study indicated that Americans spend one-third their online time (36 percent) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging. We now spend nearly a quarter of our time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago — a hefty 43 percent increase — showing that time spent on sites like Facebook and Twitter is no longer confined to early adopters but is clearly a mainstream activity.

But we knew that, right?

Email is tailing off a bit, except on mobile devices, where it continues to dominate, according to the study.

Interesting study. Does it jibe with the online behavior you’ve been seeing?

A wide collection of free reports

I often hear from business colleagues that they don’t know where to turn to when they want to download and share the latest reports on the state of social media. So I’ll mention here that I’ve pulled together what appears to be the Web’s largest collection of free reports and whitepapers, from dozens of different sources, on our sister site, Socialbrite.org, as a public service.

See the main Social media reports page. We’ve broken the Reports section into these categories:

• Social media/social networking reports
• Nonprofit/public interest reports
• Media reports
• Internet usage reports
• Mobile reports

I’ve hired a contractor on odesk to keep these directories up to date, so if you come across additional reports that should be included here, please add a comment either here or on any of the reports pages.

JD Lasica works with major companies and nonprofits on social media strategies. See his business profile, contact JD or leave a comment.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

The summer’s half gone already! Here’s our roundup of social media, tech and marketing conferences and events scheduled for the month of August.

For the full year, see our Calendar of 2010 social media, tech and marketing conferences. We’ve also published a roundup of nonprofit and social change conferences and events on our sister site, Socialbrite.

We’ll publish a list of noteworthy conferences and events at the beginning of every month during the year. Hope to see you at some of these! If you know of other must-attend events, please share by posting the info in the comments at the bottom.

Conference Date Place August Techonomy Conference Aug. 4–6 Lake Tahoe We’ve seen the failure of markets in September 2008, the failure of international action in Copenhagen last December and the great difficulty Washington has getting things done. If we want solutions to major problems, the institutions, tools and resources we have now will not suffice. We have got to look to innovation, both technological and social. BlogHer Aug. 5–7 New York BlogHer’s sixth annual conference (Aug. 6–7) will be held in conjunction with BlogHer Business (Aug. 5). The conference for women bloggers attracts about 90% women, 10% men. Big South Social Media Summit Aug. 14 Nashville, Tenn. This gathering will feature forward-thinking business executives from companies like Southwest, SAP, Comcast and Domino’s as well as social media loving celebrities who will speak directly on how they drive ROI through social media. Speakers will share real-world success stories, pitfalls and case studies to demonstrate the true value of social media. Affiliate Summit East Aug. 15–17 New York City This gathering includes an exhibit hall with affiliate merchants, vendors and networks as well as multiple tracks of educational sessions covering the latest trends and information from affiliate marketing experts. Gnomedex Aug. 19–21 Seattle Gnomedex is a top gathering of geeks, open source pioneers and cool kids.

JD Lasica works with major companies and nonprofits on social media strategies. See his business profile, contact JD or leave a comment.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

The summer’s half gone already! Here’s our roundup of social media, tech and marketing conferences and events scheduled for the month of August.

For the full year, see our Calendar of 2010 social media, tech and marketing conferences. We’ve also published a roundup of nonprofit and social change conferences and events on our sister site, Socialbrite.

We’ll publish a list of noteworthy conferences and events at the beginning of every month during the year. Hope to see you at some of these! If you know of other must-attend events, please share by posting the info in the comments at the bottom.

Conference Date Place August Techonomy Conference Aug. 4–6 Lake Tahoe We’ve seen the failure of markets in September 2008, the failure of international action in Copenhagen last December and the great difficulty Washington has getting things done. If we want solutions to major problems, the institutions, tools and resources we have now will not suffice. We have got to look to innovation — both technological and social. BlogHer Aug. 5–7 New York BlogHer’s sixth annual conference (Aug. 6–7) will be held in conjunction with BlogHer Business (Aug. 5). The conference for women bloggers attracts about 90% women, 10% men. Big South Social Media Summit Aug. 14 Nashville, Tenn. This gathering will feature forward-thinking business executives from companies like Southwest, SAP, Comcast and Domino’s as well as social media loving celebrities who will speak directly on how they drive ROI through social media. Speakers will share real-world success stories, pitfalls and case studies to demonstrate the true value of social media. Affiliate Summit East Aug. 15–17 New York City This gathering includes an exhibit hall with affiliate merchants, vendors and networks as well as multiple tracks of educational sessions covering the latest trends and information from affiliate marketing experts. Gnomedex Aug. 19–21 Seattle Gnomedex is a top gathering of geeks, open source pioneers and cool kids.

JD Lasica works with major companies and nonprofits on social media strategies. See his business profile, contact JD or leave a comment.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

Related posts:

1. Social media, tech & marketing events: July
2. Social media, tech, marketing events: March
3. Social media, tech, marketing events: April

I’m an executive and I HATE social media.  There, I said it.  It’s finally “out there.”  But before you Twitter a flaming flash mob link to assemble pitchfork-wielding Second Life villagers outside my door, I urge you to take a deep breath, put down your double frappuccino, remove your earpiece, step away from your iPad, and set your iPhasers to stun, for I come in peace.  If you’ve ever wondered why your CEO ALSO hates social media, social networking and, well, socializing in general, I urge you to continue reading.  Just as Fox TV’s Masked Magician series demystified the tricks of the world’s most famous illusionists, I offer the following as both a behind-the-scenes peak and a confessional of sorts, into the mind of the executive.  For to truly understand the conflicting yet predictable stonewalling in this domain, one must search deep below the surface, plumbing the depths of the executive psyche, motivations, and worldviews, for only then will you be able to “crack the code,” engage us in our native tongue and communicate in a vocabulary and language to which we will respond.  Consider this your own personal backstage pass to the inner sanctum of the Executive Suite.

Executive: More Perception Than Position

For starters, the term “executive” isn’t a title as much as it is a mindset or a set of attributes – often leading to career success and the achievement of such rank – but what might surprise most is that this ambition and executive mentality often begins to manifest itself early in life.  For example, while most were partying and hanging out in high school, we were already taking college-level classes while holding down several part time jobs.  And when most were “finding themselves” in college and still deciding on a major after three years, we were serving in student leadership, doing internships, or doubling up on classes to finish college a semester early.  And when most were finally in the workforce, instead of clubbing and playing in multiple softball leagues, we were completing an advanced degree in night school, pursuing professional certifications, and framing out retirement plans.



Executives are high achievers – that’s just how we’re wired.  Give me a mountain and I’ll climb it.  And if you don’t have a mountain, I’ll find my own mountain and I’ll climb it.  And if I can’t find a mountain, I’ll build one – just so I can climb it. But here’s what most people don’t get about executives. Once a CEO climbs a mountain, he doesn’t feel the need to Tweet to the world that he did it.  He doesn’t have the natural desire to blog, “Look what a great climber I am” and include multiple pictures with links to his Facebook and LinkedIn account.  He did it because it’s in his DNA.  He doesn’t require the attention, approval, or applause of others, and therein lies the fundamental source of the problem – executives are non-narcissistic in a YouTube world.  We’re outliers.  In a society that brags, blogs, and Tweets about the tiniest personal minutia, we could care less because, frankly, we expect success, it’s normal to us.  It’s like Vince Lombardi’s admonition to his running back after an overly exuberant display, “Next time you make a touchdown, act like you’ve been there before.”

Eagles Don’t Flock

Executives are “eagles,” and unlike seagulls, eagles don’t flock. We’re not joiners and we’re not groupies, which is why we overwhelmingly prefer challenging single-person sports like running, cycling, weightlifting, and our one concession to “group sports” – golf (which is still technically a single-person sport, but more fun in groups).  Lance Armstrong didn’t win his titles without leaving the peloton, and ditto for greats like Sampras, Tiger, and Arnold.  They had to go above and beyond the group to achieve greatness, and for this reason it truly IS lonely at the top (not that we mind).

Social Networking: The Problem is “Networking”

The reason we hate social networking is the same reason we hate REGULAR networking.  Exchanging small talk for 2 hours in a room full of strangers, with a drink in one hand and a business card in the other, and a “Hi, I’m Doug” nametag peeling off my lapel, and standing – my goodness the standing – and looking unsuccessfully for ANY food with some protein in it, and wondering if this guy with the too-firm handshake is going to see if we can “LinkIn” after sharing an elevator ride, before glancing at my watch and counting the minutes until I can leave and get back to work.  It’s a nightmare.  Why?  Because – surprise, surprise – most executives are actually introverts, who value their time and their privacy and are constantly evaluating the ROI tradeoffs of every hour of every day.  (Quiz:  How many times have you heard a CEO describe himself as a “People Person”?)



To say that we are ANTI-social would be a huge misrepresentation, but when you combine the word “social” with “networking” – let’s just say it sends shivers up my spine.  Do I like the company of others?  Sure I do – but I want the time to be well spent.  Instead of random, shallow, unfocused SMALL talk, CEO’s would much rather sit around with a small group of peers for 2 hours and discuss BIG specific challenges – and their solutions.  In fact, the reason so much business gets done on the golf course is because it’s one of the few places leaders actually congregate and feel relaxed enough to discuss what’s really on their minds.

Social Networking: The Problem is “Social”

The next hurdle for executives with social networking are the implications of the root word “Social”, and, by its very spelling, its association to Socialism. Socialism is defined as, “Any system of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively,” and further, “An economic and political theory based on public ownership or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.”  (At least that’s what someone wrote on Wikipedia). The premise and value of the “social media” movement is the power of the collective in the production, distribution, and ownership of goods, and the reason executives resist this model is that it flies in the face of their existing worldview which, quite frankly, has been pretty successful to date.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Most of us have a pretty big chip on our shoulders, attributing our career success to the years of diligence, education, ambition, delayed gratification and sacrifices we’ve made to reach the leadership levels we’ve achieved.  Therefore, the anti-capitalistic notion that my work and contributions would be homogenized with the uninspired masses, and that ultimately my value would be determined by the randomness of the collective is a jarring and unpalatable departure.  I want to control my company!  I want to control my brand! I want to determine my destiny!  It’s too important to leave it to chance (or simply be outvoted by the uninformed bourgeois)!  Unfortunately and tragically for us executives, the beauty and power of social media is only fully unleashed when we LET IT GO, and that, my friends, is the hardest thing for us to do (…and also explains why we hate checking luggage at the airport).

Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts

Okay, I promised that this would be a confessional, so here’s a shocker.  Over time, there is a tendency for CEO’s to get inflated EGO’s.  Now granted, a healthy ego can serve as a necessary defense mechanism to provide protection from the relentless attacks from subordinates, peers, and the media, but too much amounts to just plain pride.  We like to think of ourselves as a pretty smart bunch, and our position is such that even if we don’t completely understand something, we often project to our colleagues that we do.  A classic example of this phenomenon transpired during the Enron debacle, where ranks of senior executives refused to admit that they couldn’t comprehend the mechanics of this powerful conglomerate, until it was too late.  It’s the same with new advances in technology, which has accelerated during our careers from “hit or miss” to “mission critical,” going from bricks to clicks and from mortar to mindshare, while serving as a platform for everything from infrastructure, billing, and product development, to security, scheduling, and sales.  The rapid rate of change in digital innovation has caused CEO’s to feel EXTREMELY vulnerable around technology because it is something on which we have become VERY reliant, but which we understand and “control” so little, and this vulnerability leads to fear, and this fear to irrational decisions and suboptimal outcomes.  When CEO’s don’t have the confidence in their staff to delegate, or lack the humility to admit their ignorance regarding technology advances, they get defensive and act out in fear – or fail to act altogether.

Social Media: Justified Fear?

Executives justify their fear of social media by pointing back to a historic drumbeat of disappointment and unfulfilled promises.  They recall with vivid detail the never-ending parade of new online engagement vehicles and “paradigms” introduced over the past 15 years by turtleneck-wearing gurus with names like Kip or Seth, which were then propagated by self-proclaimed “New Economy” experts sporting titles like “Chief Innovation Officer” and “Director of Chaos,” and then championed by sideburn-wearing hipster foot soldiers who never metafilter they didn’t like.  In the 90’s, we were promised that customers would beat a path to our door if we created something called a “web page” and then “posted” it on this thing called the Internet or World Wide Web or something.  Then they convinced us to buy electronic lists and send out “Email Blasts” to our target markets, and next it was a website redesign, push technology, pull technology, exchanged links, partner intranets, eBusiness, eCommerce, blogging, webinars, podcasts, search engine optimization, YouTube videos, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, yada, yada, yada.  Each time they promised that THIS TIME it would be different, and that this new product/protocol/portal/potion would somehow (magically??) drive revenue, increase efficiency, and optimize utilization (or some other buzz word or invented metric).  You told me to blog, so I blogged.  You told me to Twitter, so I Tweeted.  What’s it going to be tomorrow – scan my body into a mashup simulator to create a hologram so I can telepresence myself into sales calls in Madrid via FourSquare using Flickr?  All I know is that I’ve spent a LOT of time and money on a series of disjointed initiatives and campaigns and so far NONE have performed as advertised.

Don’t Feed Me Another Fad

Look, executives aren’t that complicated.  While I can handle the many nuanced “grey areas” of business leadership, I prefer to see things in black and white; victories and defeats; profits and losses.   I don’t mind making significant, strategic multi-year investments and committing to enterprise-wide initiatives which will improve the future performance of my company – in fact, I ENJOY it – what do you think got me to the Executive Suite in the first place?  Just don’t insult me.  I don’t want to waste any more time or money on the hype of  “the next big thing” or the newest tool or toy, only to be disappointed when the latest flash-in-the-pan fad fades and goes the way of Harvard Graphics.  It’s not that I have a fear of commitment – frankly, it’s just the OPPOSITE!  I have a healthy fear and distaste for doing things randomly just to be doing something; or because someone saw an article in USA Today, or CNBC did a story on it, or out of fear that I’ll be the last one in my circle to “get on board.”  (Believe me, the things that keep me up at night can’t be solved in 140 characters or less).  The truth is, I would LOVE to commit to social media in a significant way, but so far nobody in my organization has stepped forward with a cerebral, strategic, multi-generational, integrated, systematic, and sustainable methodology and roadmap for synergistically capitalizing on this medium over the long haul.

Your Network is Your Net Worth

Executives are uniquely conflicted because we know better than anyone the power of relationships, and the truth of the old axiom, “Your network is your net worth,” yet we are inherently introverts, and gravitate towards solitude versus socializing.  We understand on an intellectual level that none of us individually are “too big to fail,” and that even the Lone Ranger had Tonto and Batman had Robin, yet we find initiating conversations and exchanges with others to be draining, distracting, and exhausting rather than invigorating and inspiring.  Hence we yearn; as a group we pine; for deep within our heart of hearts burns a great bright hope that somehow and in some way this social media movement or platform or culture or whatever could be harnessed and leveraged to cross that chasm and create valuable, authentic exchanges and relevant, real-time dialogue with stakeholders of all persuasions. If we could just develop an all-encompassing framework for how this would integrate into our enterprise-wide strategy, and manage it like a mission-critical project (complete with milestones, deliverables and accountability instead of fuzzy metrics like “buzz”), I am supremely confident that we could achieve escape velocity and – for the first time – truly establish and be able to articulate a synergistic, sustainable, and quantifiable strategy for leveraging “Best-In-Class” social media options to achieve desired corporate outcomes and maximize financial returns.

A Gift From Media To You

You know, it’s interesting.  Somewhere in the convoluted catharsis of composing this confessional, I came to a surprising realization.  Maybe I don’t HATE social media after all.  Maybe I just hate the Quixotic context in which most social media conversations exist, featuring a perpetually moving target, combined with an obsessive, cult-like worship of the default worldview, “If Something is New = It Must Be Good”, and where subjective criteria like “mindshare” and “impressions” are considered quantifiable deliverables and irrefutable barometers of success.

Come to think of it, maybe it’s high time that a C-level individual engaged this topic, and – once and for all –created a high-level overview and synopsis, crystallizing all of the strategic benefits and critical value streams, and distilling them into a language that speaks to executives everywhere in our native tongue – bottom line stakeholder value.  So here you go.  I’ve done the work for you.  What follows is an “Executive Summary” of my findings.

Social Media Value #1:  Unfiltered Feedback

As you already know, some of the scarcest (rarest) yet most valuable information a CEO can obtain is honest, unfiltered feedback.  Think about it.  You interact all day with managers, employees, and handlers working to keep the boss happy and therefore keep their job.  Sure, being surrounded by “Yes men” can be more comfortable, but it can also insulate you from the stark realities of your business.  If done correctly, social media enables CEO’s to hear raw, candid feedback from real people – people who aren’t afraid of being fired because they CAN’T be fired.  The truth is, leaders with their ego in check are already fully aware that they work for the customer – the customer is his boss – so if the customer doesn’t like dropped calls on their iPhone or the sauce on their Domino’s pizza, it’s their job to make it better.  Now, every customer is not always right (or wrong), but if 850 out of 1000 user comments say that the new Sketcher’s Sport shoe caused them to sprain their ankle, then something needs to be fixed – and FAST!  CoolCleveland’s Founder Thomas Mulready is a perfect example of a CEO with this customer orientation.  After emailing out his weekly eMagazine for 7 years, he decided that it needed to be updated, and set about introducing a new format with much fanfare.  In doing so, he also did something revolutionary – he asked all 90,000 of his readers for feedback on what they thought of the new style – and boy did they reply with scores of comments submitted over the span of a few days. But then he did something else revolutionary – he actually listened, modifying and improving the new site to reflect reader tastes and preferences.  Yes, it takes humility (“Who are these people to give ME feedback?  I invented this product! Don’t they know they can just click the links?) but the end result is an engaged audience who now feel genuinely empowered to provide even MORE feedback, emboldened by the knowledge that their  comments actually impact (and can improve) the end product.

Social Media Value #2:  Authenticity

Hand-in-hand with the unfiltered feedback above is the ability to leverage social media to authentically communicate with your employees, partners, customers (and non-customers), investors, and media, directly engaging ALL of your brand ambassadors efficiently and economically.  Rather than layers of staff, spokespeople, and sterile press releases, social media now offers an elegant and effective medium for disseminating information either “straight from the heart” or “straight from the horses’ mouth” depending on your preferred idiom. Dan Gilbert’s recent LeBron James “rant” would qualify as both, capturing the owners’ anger, frustration, and competitive resolve just moments after James’ announced his departure.  As you’ve probably noticed, NOBODY can tell the company story and embody the company brand like the CEO (think Steve Jobs) and by offering the ability to immediately and directly engage stakeholders – whether on a typical day, during a product launch, and/or especially during a time of crisis – social media provides an invaluable medium for maximizing brand value and minimizing potential brand degradation.  Social media helps firms “Keep it real” but couches it in a positive brand-reinforcing context.

Social Media Value #3: Six Sigma (Low Cost)

In case you were wondering, executives LOVE things like Six Sigma because, 1. It reminds us of our Greek fraternity days in college, 2.  The other soccer Dad’s don’t understand Value Stream Mapping, and 3. Six Sigma and lean processes are all about SPEED and COST SAVINGS, two of our favorite topics.  By its very architecture, social media is positioned to leverage firms’ Six Sigma orientation by expediting interactions, exchanges, customer service, feedback loops, product launches, marketing, and advertising, AND enabling it at a fraction of the cost of traditional media, to a much more targeted audience, and in a far more nuanced and contextual value exchange.  Social media options allow your message distribution format to evolve from shotgun to sniper, from billboard to message board, and from broadcast to narrowcast.  PLUS, it takes your marketing posture from a one-way, blanketing, bullhorn approach to a more intimate, just-in-time interaction; offering the opportunity for a more detailed, valuable and more PROFITABLE conversation and connection with your audience (and you don’t need a Black Belt to do it).

Social Media Value #4:  Balancing Transparency AND Privacy

The only thing worse than NOT using social media tools is using them in the WRONG way.  Your firm could very easily invest time and money on social media, and then end up spending even MORE time and money doing damage control because you did it wrong the first time – talk about a lose-lose situation.  With social media, there’s a “right way” and a “wrong way” to do things – so if you’re GOING to do it, do it RIGHT.  Remember, anywhere-anytime-anyone social media channels must be handled as the “nuclear options” that they are, with the capability to destroy your brand value in a single Twitter, email, or YouTube video that goes viral.

With great power comes great responsibility, and a healthy respect for the global reach and impact of social media must emanate directly from the CEO, who knows better than anyone that the same programs allowing firms to connect and influence the marketplace can also be turned against you to alienate them.  And just as social media can provide the market with a transparent window into the soul of your company, it can also showcase you at your worst, doing more harm than good.  Let’s face it, your firm is ALREADY dabbling in social media as it is – so you might as well manage your risk and liability by codifying corporate expectations, establishing specific ground rules, and educating your stakeholders regarding proper use of these seemingly innocent yet powerful tools.

Social Media Value #5: Supporting Statistics

Executives rely on market research to support and substantiate any designated course of action, and devour facts, stats, and data-points like shrimp at a wedding reception.  Summarized below are a few statistics buttressing the explosion of this social media trend, and detailing how Corporate America is leveraging it to realize significant revenue and market share growth going forward.

• In the last 7 years, Internet usage has increased 70% PER YEAR. Spending for digital advertising this year will be more than $25 billion and surpass print advertising spending (forever)
• Lenovo has experienced a 20% reduction in activity to their call center since they launched their community website for customers
• Blendtec quintupled sales with its “Will it Blend” series on YouTube
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
• Naked Pizza set a one-day sales record using social media: 68% of their sales came via twitter and 85% of their new customers
• Software company Genius.com reports 24% of social media leads convert to sales opportunities
• Dell has already made over $7 million in sales via Twitter
• 37% of Generation Y heard about the Ford Fiesta via social media BEFORE its launch in the US and currently 25% of Ford’s marketing budget is spent on digital/social media
• 71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40%
• A recent Wetpaint/Altimeter Group study found companies that widely engage in social media surpass their peers in both revenue and profit

(Sources for Statistics: meyersreport.com lenovosocial.com George Wright Blendtec Mashable.com econsultancy.com businessweek.com )

Getting Your Board On Board

Lest we forget, even the Boss has a Boss – they’re called the Board of Directors – and these are the people that recruit and hire CEO’s for the purpose of serving as a charismatic and visionary leader of their organization.  And so I urge you, don’t disappoint them when it comes to leveraging social media within your organization.  The “Bang for the Buck” value proposition is too compelling to ignore, and the fact is – your competitors are already entering this arena and establishing new service baseline norms and minimum threshold expectations – so standing still amounts to losing ground and therefore is not an option.  What you need is a plan.

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

My associates and I are going to go out on a limb and try something a little crazy, something we’ve never done before.  We are going to offer senior leaders an exclusive, live, invitation-only Executive Briefing entitled “Maximizing Your Social Media Strategy” and presented by the top brass at DemingHill.  This executive-to-executive webinar will feature a deep-dive into the ROI and business case for leveraging social media, and will allow participants to ask questions and interact real-time with the authors of this article. (Because there is no charge, we must limit this event to executives and/or members of their management teams. Held August 10 & 11th).



Do I STILL hate social media?  No, BUT I’m only going to embrace it on the “executive terms” that have served me so well to this point in my career and they are, “If you’re going to do something, go ALL IN and do it right.”  From now on, all social media, social marketing, and social networking will be discussed in the context – not of a CAMPAIGN (which starts and ends) – but as part of an ongoing, strategic, and systematic DIALOG with our stakeholders and marketplace.



Executives have the focus and vision to roadmap strategies playing out 3, 5, and 10 years into the future.  But, we’re also “plodders” and are comfortable with short, measured, consistent steps – day in and day out – as long as we know that they are aligned with reaching a desired goal.  When we discuss your social media strategy, the focus will be on consistency and sustainability over the long haul.  Remember, executives don’t have the ego needs, risk profiles, or the TIME to be on the bleeding edge, or even the cutting edge.  We just want it to work.



I can confidently predict that every month for the next 100 years there will be a new “Must Have” application, portal or community that one of your employees will discover, and then try to convince you that your company will implode if you don’t immediately join, link, or Retweet.  In five years, all but three of these ideas will probably be forgotten.  During our meeting, we will discuss how to frame out an enterprise-wide social media strategy, predicated on the foundation of proven tools and that have stood the test of time and offer “Best-In-Class” results, so that you will be empowered to handle these conversations proactively in the context of a larger roadmap, rather than reacting to these weekly ambushes in a dismissive defensive way.  Remember, our goal for social media is not a lark, but a LIFESTYLE, and work-shopping a strategy which builds on stable, scalable tools, yet also affords the flexibility to address unprecedented “Black Swan” technology developments, provides you with a welcome buffer from being whipsawed by a weekly website.  Between the two of us, we’ll finally take that reliable “80/20 Rule” and apply it to social media, and then spend time focusing on the 80% of stakeholder value that can be extracted with 20% of the effort (while knowingly and purposefully ignoring the remaining 20% of value which takes up 80% of the effort).

The Bottom Line

In the Forward of Geoffrey Moore’s bestseller “Crossing the Chasm” Regis McKenna writes:



“Fundamentally, marketing must refocus away from selling product and toward creating relationships. Customers don’t like to be ‘owned’ if that implies lack of choice or freedom. But they do like to be ‘owned’ if what that means is a vendor taking ongoing responsibility for the success of their joint ventures.  Ownership in this sense means an abiding commitment and a strong sense of mutuality in the development of the marketplace. When customers encounter this kind of ownership, they tend to become fanatically loyal to their supplier, which in turns builds a stable economic base for profitability and growth.”

While there will always be a “me” in media – social media, social marketing, and social networking tools were designed to work best as a conduit for enabling information exchange, establishing a dialog, and creating a two-way conversation with your audience.  At the end of the day, social media is simply about creating and maintaining relationships – and even and executive can do that.

So what do you think? Share your feedback.

To register for our Executives Briefing on Social Media Strategy or learn more, REGISTER HERE.

To discuss with DemingHill Social Media Solutions for your company, CONTACT US HERE.

About the Authors:

Douglas J. O’Bryon- MBA
Chief Marketing Officer VendorCert
dougobryon@gmail.com
Executive & Startup specialist with 20 years in B2C & B2B . Nathan Kievman- MBA
Chief Executive Officer DemingHill
nathan.kievman@deminghill.com
Business Owner & Executive for the last 8 years in B2C & B2B. Randy Schrum
Executive Vice President DemingHill
randy.schrum@deminghill.com
Business Owner & Executive for over 15 years in Sales & Marketing in B2C & B2B.

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United Breaks Guitars: The interview from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Musician Dave Carroll’s advice to companies: Respect your customers

Asmart company these days understands that everybody has a voice. So the best way to avoid a public relations nightmare is to give great customer service right out of the gate. “It’s a bad day when a customer’s upset,” says Dave Carroll, creator of the viral three-part musical trilogy United Breaks Guitars.

Click to see full-size ad

I met Carroll just after his keynote at the annual conference of the Society for New Communications Research (I’m a senior fellow). Carroll gave a funny and wise blow-by-blow of the PR and customer support blunders by United Airlines after baggage carriers broke his Taylor guitar.

The incident has gone down as perhaps the ultimate self-inflicted customer relations screw-up by a major corporation in the social media era of empowered customers. The original video has been seen 8.8 million times since it went live a year ago and is the 12th most-watched video in the history of YouTube.

“I was almost out of options but I wasn’t because social media allowed me to express myself in a creative way.”
— Dave Carroll

“Companies providing poor customer service can’t ride out the situation as in the past,” Carroll says. United ran Carroll through the bureaucratic ringer for 9 months before giving him a definitive answer about his compensation claim: No.

“I was almost out of options but I wasn’t because social media allowed me to express myself in a creative way,” he says.

Watch, download or embed the interview on Vimeo
Watch or embed the video on YouTube

In the interview, Carroll discusses his take on the idea of “a market of one” — the notion that today there are no statistically insignificant parts of the marketplace. “The market of one is everybody,” he says. Incorporating good customer service should be part of a holistic approach to a company’s business processes — not because it’s right but because it makes sense from a competitive business standpoint.

A Taylor guitar

As for Carroll, his viral hits on YouTube have helped juice his career as an independent musician and, now, a public speaker. CD sales are “through the roof,” he says, and he’s fielding offers to play gigs and to write songs. (The trilogy has taken on a life of its own: see Taylor Guitars’ video response and UBG Song #3.)

All in all, great fun — and definitive proof of how social media has shifted the balance of power toward customers and away from arrogant multinational corporations. (For another example, see Greenpeace’s takedown of Nestle this past spring.)

JD Lasica works with major companies and nonprofits on social media strategies. See his business profile, contact JD or leave a comment.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

United Breaks Guitars: The interview from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Musician Dave Carroll’s advice to companies: Respect your customers

Asmart company these days understands that everybody has a voice. So the best way to avoid a public relations nightmare is to give great customer service right out of the gate. “It’s a bad day when a customer’s upset,” says Dave Carroll, creator of the viral three-part musical trilogy United Breaks Guitars.

Click to see full-size ad

I met Carroll just after his keynote at the annual conference of the Society for New Communications Research (I’m a senior fellow). Carroll gave a funny and wise blow-by-blow of the PR and customer support blunders by United Airlines after baggage carriers broke his Taylor guitar.

The incident has gone down as perhaps the ultimate self-inflicted customer relations screw-up by a major corporation in the social media era of empowered customers. The original video has been seen 8.8 million times since it went live a year ago and is the 12th most-watched video in the history of YouTube.

“I was almost out of options but I wasn’t because social media allowed me to express myself in a creative way.”
— Dave Carroll

“Companies providing poor customer service can’t ride out the situation as in the past,” Carroll says. United ran Carroll through the bureaucratic ringer for 9 months before giving him a definitive answer about his compensation claim: No.

“I was almost out of options but I wasn’t because social media allowed me to express myself in a creative way,” he says.

Watch, download or embed the interview on Vimeo
Watch or embed the video on YouTube

In the interview, Carroll discusses his take on the idea of “a market of one” — the notion that today there are no statistically insignificant parts of the marketplace. “The market of one is everybody,” he says. Incorporating good customer service should be part of a holistic approach to a company’s business processes — not because it’s right but because it makes sense from a competitive business standpoint.

As for Carroll, his viral hits on YouTube have helped juice his career as an independent musician and, now, a public speaker. CD sales are “through the roof,” he says, and he’s fielding offers to play gigs and to write songs. (The trilogy has taken on a life of its own: see Taylor Guitars’ video response and UBG Song #3.)

All in all, great fun — and definitive proof of how social media has shifted the balance of power toward customers and away from arrogant multinational corporations. (For another example, see Greenpeace’s takedown of Nestle this past spring.)

JD Lasica works with major companies and nonprofits on social media strategies. See his business profile, contact JD or leave a comment.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

Related posts:

1. 35 tips for getting started with social media
2. United will let you email — for a price
3. Watch iPod videos on United soon

Change the world with social networking from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

 

A chat with Deanna Zandt, author of the new book ‘Share This!’

At Personal Democracy Forum last month I got a chance to sit down for a few minutes with Deanna Zandt, who spoke on the main stage minutes beforehand. Her new book, Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking, just came out.

“Empathy is the building block for any kind of social change,” she says in the interview. “It’s leading us away from apathy and isolation.”

While the new social tools are empowering, she called on people to go further and to “rearrange power relationships” and to “dismantle hierarchies.” That can be achieved, Zandt said, through “three easy tasks”:

1. to be authentic by sharing pieces of ourselves;
2. to diversify and cross-pollinate across barriers. For instance, tech conference speakers are generally white and male. “I want to challenge people to find people who don’t think like them or talk like them.”
3. to take that empathy and put yourself in others’ shoes.

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

AlterNet is hosting a book launch party for Deanna tomorrow in San Francisco. Details:

What: Book launch for Share This! See invitation page on Facebook — 45 confirmed attendees so far

When: July 20, 6–9 pm

Where: Bender’s Bar & Grill, 806 S Van Ness Ave., San Francisco

From the book’s site:

As social media becomes increasingly present in our everyday lives, a major democratic cultural shift is underway. Through the power of relationships, sharing of experiences, and organizing online, previously marginalized voices are pouring into and shaping public conversations like never before.

But serious change will not happen on its own. Despite the increasing presence of a diversity of voices and faces, the Internet isn’t fulfilling its disruptive potential; more often than not, it’s simply replicating and amplifying inequality and segregation. The good news? The fundamental building block common to every social movement is the power of the narrative. Your story… and your willingness to share others’ stories with your networks… can mean the difference between progressive change and perpetuating the status quo. We need you here, building and mapping your relationships, sharing your experience and creating pipelines of empathy and trust that will change the world.

This book is a blueprint for understanding why and how this medium of exchange works, and how our personal stories and daily experiences comprise a profoundly political picture that leads to social action and social change.

I won’t be able to make tomorrow’s event but I’ll be there in spirit. Good luck with the book tour, Deanna!

JD Lasica works with major companies and nonprofits on social media strategies. See his business profile, contact JD or leave a comment.

One of my favorite Web 2.0 collaborate production sites of all time is dotSUB — tagline: “Any video. Any language.” I’ve been bumping into Michael Smolens, CEO and founder of the innovative startup, for the past couple of years at video and social media conferences on both coasts.

dotSUB is a Web-based tool that enables the subtitling, or captioning, of Web videos into other languages using human translators. The videos can be subtitled through volunteer crowdsourcing or restricted to professionals hired to complete the task for a business or project.

The genesis for dotSUB was Michael’s realization that English-only independent and documentary films, TV programs and videos could have a powerful, transformative effect if made available in dozens of other languages – and the same could hold true of foreign works shown in the U.S. with English subtitles. The service’s early years relied on the Wikipedia model of crowdsourced translations: Anyone could begin subtitling a film into his or her own language, and others could come along afterward to tidy up.

Apart from open, collaborative uses, dotSUB more recently has been used as a closed platform where businesses, media and entertainment companies and other organizations that don’t trust the open community could hire a team of professional translators to provide captions of CEO speeches, corporate videos, training videos and marketing or advertising messages in multiple languages. And this, no doubt, is where dotSUB generates the bulk of its income, given that it can accomplish this task at a price considerably below traditional methods.

One can easily imagine multinational corporations that use video as part of its marketing, public outreach or branding strategies turn to dotSUB as an end-to-end solution for translations into its non-English markets.

One can also imagine the educational uses of dotSUB in the classroom from elementary school to high school, from universities to graduate level programs.

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

dotSUB is helping to put the issue of access and language on the radar screens of major corporations and smaller organizations. In the last couple of years, dotSUB has partnered with TED, Pop!Tech, ICANN, Brightcove and SDI Media, among others. For example, dotSUB is powering the translations of thousands of TED videos into scores of languages.

“Anyone in the world can volunteer to translate any TED talk into any language,” Michael said. “This is the first time these remote languages will have something like TED talks available in their own language.”

He also cites the example of Iranian bloggers who used dotSUB to translate cell phone videos about the Iranian street demonstrations from their native Farsi into other languages, including English. And Michael said he and Wikipedia are discussing the use of dotSUB as an enabling tool for the videos starting to appear on the site.

Amazing.

Michael and I chatted during the last Open Video conference at New York University. Not sure if I’ll be attending this year’s event, Oct. 1–2, but anyone interested in the use of open tools to propagate video far and wide should consider going.

Cross-posted (with different emphasis) to Socialbrite.

JD Lasica works with major companies and nonprofits on social media strategies. See his business profile, contact JD or leave a comment.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

Companies taking a serious look at using Social Media are facing key internal challenges to their efforts. This is just a short list, but these are ones I find in my discussions with executives on a weekly basis.

  

Measurable

  
How do we measure social media? In other words how can justify using social media as an additional ingredient. One of things executives are running into is a lot of start up firms not understanding the B2B/ B2C sales process; however they have a strong grip on social media. Without an understanding of both, many executives find start up marketing firms along with long standing ones not truly understanding the need and basis for measurables.

 

 

Scale

 

Scale is a huge challenge once you realize the validity to a strong social media strategy. Who is going to administer the strategy? Who will oversee it? How many people will it take? Do we outsource? These are all valid questions. Scale can be easily overcame with the right tools and delegation along with alignment with the proper social media firm.

 

Humanism

  
At the end of the day, social media may generate leads and engagement, but it still comes down to bringing it to a conversation. Social Media should always be viewed as an extension and ingredient of your marketing and engagement efforts. It should not be treated as a way to re-write basic interaction and engagement. It is just an ingredient to help facilitate much more interaction with your target market. So do your company a favor, be real and authentic when using social media.

 

 

Want to learn more? We work with B2B companies in developing and managing their social media strategy. You can contact us to learn more.

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