How Not To Do The Social Network

GoAnimate.com: How Not To Social Network by Gearheadgal

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Understanding The "Media" Part of Social Media

If you put up a website a few years ago, and thought that's all you needed to do because you don't sell direct or don't expect much more from your website than to serve as digital collateral, you are probably one of the many marketers who has also yet to develop a social strategy for driving customers to your branded online destination.

The truth is, however, that once you posted the digital assets associated with your branded URL, you became a publisher. As a publisher, you need an editorial calendar, and a distribution plan for your content that goes beyond the HTML pages associated with your domain. The plan, which extends your own properties and connects with the communities of interest where your customers congregate, must thoughtfully design and inject digestible content bits into the social web which place your brand, products and services into the sometimes temporal but influential conversations that occur before someone considers making a purchase.

Social Media Optimization is the New SEO with Brian Solis

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5 ways social media will change your marketing plan

First published in iMedia Connection

Article Highlights:

• Campaign ideas will be deconstructed into smaller, more digestible messages
• Applications will continue to adapt to user behavior, leading to hyper-personalization
• User-generated content will influence marketing strategy

Reputation and relationship management skills are foundational to architecting an effective customer development strategy for both B2B and B2C enterprises; this will be acutely true in 2011. No longer just the responsibility of a community manager, social communication will be integrated into service and support experiences, product, point of sale, and commerce solutions. Because official spokespeople are no longer the sole purveyors of your company's message, social channels can be counted on to accelerate and amplify the conversation between customers and brands. Look for the following trends to drive changes to integrated marketing plans in the year ahead... read more here

Favorite Tweets of the Day

@businessinsider iOS Is Half Of New Enterprise Mobile Activations http://www.businessinsider.com/ios-enterprise-2011-1#ixzz1BvON9rD2

@greatestquotes "You just can't beat the person who won't give up." - Babe Ruth

Blogging is the democratization of publishing via @jeffbullas http://bit.ly/ajrvmW

Fascinating piece by @johnbattelle: Identity and The Independent Web http://bit.ly/eE7KhE via @fredwilson

Marketing in the Age of Social Media

I enjoyed this presentation by Edward Boches (@edwardboches), Chief Creative Officer at Mullen, recently named #3 in Ad Age's A List. So, naturally, I thought I'd share it.

Four Steps Toward Marketing in the Age of Social Media

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CES 2011 Video Moments

I hope you enjoy these two video montages of the sites and sounds of CES. It's a visual and auditory mashup, but so is walking around the show floor.

And, just in case you think it's all glam and glitter at CES, please see my post on Technorati, Ten Things I Hate About CES.

Can America Become The Comeback Kid?

If you ask the CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association what America needs to do to become as great as it used to be, he'll tell you the answer lies in two words - support innovation.

Gary Shapiro, head of the organization that annually mounts the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, believes America's position as a global superpower has been diminished by the federal government's immigration, education, broadband and tax policies which have dimmed our entrepreneurial spirit.

Shapiro feels so passionate that the country needed a strategic turnaround plan, he says he almost named his new book simply "The Plan." In an interview on the verge of opening the 2011 trade show to tout his short treatise "The Comeback, How Innovation Will Restore The American Dream," Shapiro said, "I created a SWOT analysis for the country, and evaluated our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats."

The CEO of the CEA was steadfast in his interest in speaking about long range vision, and was committed to the perspective that his job is to focus on federal policy. Downplaying the impact of the state government's role in fostering innovation, maintaining employment levels or managing immigration at our borders, Shapiro suggested that the economic situation California has gotten itself into is a local business issue that gets sorted out through competition among states for jobs and business. "Other states win when California makes bad decisions," Shapiro remarked. Despite insistence that innovation starts with federal policy, in his book, Shapiro compares the financial woes of California to the economic implosion of Greece.

Read more: http://technorati.com/technology/article/ces-can-america-be-the-comeback/#ixzz1AaSFwU00

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo On His "Technical Debt"

In this interview at the mini All Things Digital conference at CES, the Twitter CEO euphemistcally describes the "fail whale" and his plan to have us see it less.

Favorite Tweets Of The Holiday Weekend

@kenradio Why Bing "Likes" Facebook, Facebook should give Microsoft an edge against search rival Google -http://bit.ly/g6CJQ4

@bgershon Ad Execs Gaze Into 2011 Crystal Ball - Great overview.... http://tumblr.com/xsb16mkrnd

Social Media in 2011: Expect a Big Dose of STFUhttp://networkedblogs.com/cvGB1 from my pal @BigGuyD

Great article from @Jabaldaia to start the new year, Design Thinking and the courage to do things http://bit.ly/gTboJu

RT@quirkyinc The NY Times Pogies celebrates product features which are "clever twists that make life just a little bit better" http://qrky.co/hwMqe3

Can You Define What Makes An Influencer?

INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.

A Socially Syndicated Dessert Idea

On my first day in my new office, one of my R2Integrated colleagues brought in a freshly baked batch of phenomenal cake pops.  When I asked her how she managed to poise such a quaintly designed, icing covered ping pong ball sized piece of moist cake on the end of a stick, she proceeded to give me detailed multi-step process which I instantly knew I’d never have the patience or skills to execute.

Undaunted, I remained fascinated by the incredible portability and convenience of the dessert-on-a-stick concept, and set out to execute something decidedly simpler to conquer at a recent dinner party.  I began with the most child-friendly of recipes, a Rice Krispies treat, and melted a bunch of chocolate chips. Inserting the sticks into chunks of the treats, I coated them in thick layer of chocolate one at a time. It maybe took half the number of steps as those yummy cake pops, but they looked pretty darn good.

Standing at attention on the serving plate before my guests, the Rice Krispies lollipops screamed both neat and gooey all at the same time. It was then I realized that the essence of that original ball of red velvet cake on a paper stick lived on, at least in a small way through how I re-packaged the value I got from the initial idea.  Someone else who was more of a cake fan than me might have immediately thought of other interesting ways to serve cake after seeing a cake pop and extended the idea further (perhaps cake in a cone?); I only thought of what else I could serve on a stick that’d be less effort than that cake recipe seemed to be?

Great ideas, re-packaged, are still great ideas.  The idea, re-presented, still has merit but it is amplified by its extension.  In putting my own spin on the novelty and utility of the dessert poised on a stick, I added the simplicity of the new recipe, as well as the nostalgia of a favorite childhood treat, and broadened the opportunity to pass it on.  In advancing what was important to me, I syndicated those features which my own capabilities could carry forward.

New media marketers need to recognize that re-packaging is a natural part of sharing.  When ideas are syndicated, they don't always get re-transmitted in their original form or with the same emphasis.  What's perceived as the most important meta-message by a marketer may not be the "thing" that the audience hears and carries with them.

Gearhead Gal's Favorite Things Giveaway

If it is good enough for Oprah, it's good enough for us. Here at The Consumer Matters, we just love books and giveaways like the Big O does. (Okay, to be clear, we're not giving away an iPad or taking everyone to Australia like Gayle's best friend.) Sure we love our Kindle and iPad to read ebooks, but we also love to own the real pulp and glue smelling thing. To thank everyone for following us over this past year, and in honor of the season of giving, we're offering our readers a chance to get a fresh, shiny new copy of some of our favorite business bibles. And, if this goes well, we might move from gifts to gadgets.

All you have to do is "Like" The Consumer Matters on Facebook, and add a comment on that page telling us why you are interested in a specific book listed below. If you want more than one, you'll have to work for it - provide three separate posts to plead your case. We'll give you some time to write a pithy, compelling, or needy post on our Facebook wall.  And we'll even give you a few days to be creative.  Next Friday, aka Black Friday, we'll pick the lucky winner, and then as an added bonus, you'll also be able to tell all of your friends that you nailed your first holiday gift without having to get up early and wait in line.

Our first book is Cynthia Rabe's "The Innovation Killer."

Next up, we're offering Jeffrey Hayzlett's "The Mirror Test."

And finally, our last selection is "Customer-centric Product Definition" by Sheila Mello.

So start the Like-fest and check back here and on Facebook next week for the lucky winners.

Understanding The Relationship Between Social Networks And Social Media

Despite the title that's overlaid on this frame, the video is not about a circular argument. It's worth the three minutes to listen to Matt explain the consumer intelligence that has grown through the creation and maintenance of trust and admiration networks, technical networks, and advice networks.

All I Want For Christmas Is...

Postcards From The Open Mobile Summit 2010

Open Mob

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Update on Friday, November 26, 2010 at 10:37AM by Gearhead Gal

Enjoy our audiocast of the Open Mobile Summit Panel: Beyond the digital living room: Entertainment Anywhere

This panel explores the changing face of the digital living room in a hyperconnected mobile era, and asks

• How can we deliver a seamless user experience across multiple platforms?
• Games, music and movies: Managing access to content in the cloud
• Apps, mobile web, social and more: Quick wins and long term prospects
• Which revenue models have seen success to date, how big is the cross platform advertising opportunity, and how much does mobile contribute to the revenue mix?
• Who owns the door to the home and how is the partnering landscape changing as environments open.
• PC, TV, phone and tablet: The digital living room in 2011-2015

Speakers:

• Kinsey Wilson, SVP, NPR
• Terry Fitzpatrick, EVP, Sesame Workshop
• Tim Connolly, VP Mobile, DISNEY /ESPN / ABC
• Brandon Lucas, VP, Black Entertainment TV
• Tom Conrad, CTO, Pandora

What A Panel Looks Like As An Infographic

Today I moderated a panel for the Open Mobile Summit entitled "Beyond the digital living room: Entertainment Anywhere." The design firm, Fjord, had a "visualizer" onsite who, in real time, illustrated the salient points of the discussion in a mind map on the ballroom wall.  Here are snippets of the mural that reflected our discussion.  All I can say is that it was interesting to see the totality of the conversation in graphical form.

Graphics by Fjord

Favorite Tweet Of The Day

RT@profhamel What's important: in a (consumer) value theory of #innovation http://bit.ly/9RjS5y (via @timkastelle) 

The State Of The Blogosphere

Over the last year, since I started this blog, I have learned a lot about social media. One thing I learned is how content syndication helps attract more eyeballs.  I set out to understand what syndication opportunities existed for nobodies like me, and one of the channels I discovered was Technorati. When I joined the team late last year, the company was looking for original content to maintain its SEO ranking and develop a robust advertising model. The serendipity of my timing helped me get exposure for my writing, and awareness for my blog, and helped Technorati adjust to Google's changing page rank algorithm and grow it's ad revenue.  

Like a lot of things in social media, the effort hasn't yet made either of us an abundance of wealth. That said, at least from where I sit, on balance it has been a win-win, which seems like a reasonable goal for activity on the new frontier of media. 

This year, Technorati's annual State of the Blogosphere report focuses on women who blog, like me. One "important trend is the influence of women and mom bloggers on the blogosphere, mainstream media, and brands. Their impact is perhaps felt most strongly by brands, as the women and mom blogger segment is the most likely of all to blog about brands." Hear here!

"In addition to conducting our blogger survey, we interviewed 15 of the most influential women in social media and the blogosphere," Technorati reports today in its introduction to the multi-part series. 

I am honored to be a part of the 15 women who Technorati deemed worthy of interviewing for this series, which I am told will be posted on Friday. In the meantime, you can access a great video interview with Charlene Li, a woman on the forefront of social media trends, whom I met when she was an analyst at Forrester. 

Read more: http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/#ixzz14GKo4qcU

A Few Of My Favorite Tweets

RT@punchcut 5 considerations for #Tablet UI: "Not a Phone, Not a PC: Why Tablets Must Be Different" http://pnch.it/cJLFDG #mobile #ux

RT@om: If You Are a Startup Founder, You Need To See This http://bit.ly/b93MEM

RT@harrymccracken Denying the existence of Android fragmentation is the technological equivalent of being a Global Warming unbeliever.

RT@profhamel webinar w/Berkeley's Hank Chesbrough, the world's leading expert on "open innovation." (Nov 11)http://bit.ly/bXLnlw