Archive for March, 2010

Remember Robert Mitchum, the great but scary actor in movie The Hunter? He had the letters L-O-V-E tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand and H-A-T-E tattooed on his left. Well, that visual is not unlike social media. It’s mostly good but it can BITE! Just ask Swiss-based Nestle.

The corporate giant had purchased just over 1% of its palm oil from an Indonesian firm that got its raw product from the rainforests there. Greenpeace International says that this production has potentially exacerbated global warming and endangered the indigenous orangutans. (NOTE: Nestle DOES NOT do this anymore.)

Environmental activists have taken their message to Facebook and YouTube, and Twitter is alive with bad PR for the company. The Nestle internet site has been deluged with comments decrying the action.

Nestle has reacted positively and apologized, adding that it was never Nestle’s intent to cause any harm. “We, like Greenpeace and many others, abhor destruction of the rainforests, and will not source from companies where there is verifiable evidence of environmental damage.”

“The difficulty with social media,” says Nestle’s spokesperson, is “to show that we are listening, which we obviously are, while not getting involved in a shouting match. Like all companies, we are learning about how best to use social media, particularly with such complex issues. What we take out of this is that we have to engage.”

Ahh… the power of social media. Remember: L-O-V-E / H-A-T-E

How early do they start texting? Learning starts at first blink. Behavior patterns form very early in life. Copying mom and dad happens before that first step. So, regarding texting, how does six-years-old sound? When the beep on my phone told me I had a text message, I read: “Hi papa I cant wate until u come I love u by rio” … my granddaughter, age six. She did it all by herself, mom told me. And this message, for me, defined the medium.

But if you look at the impersonal view, the medium really is the message… and that message: It’s a digital world baby. And it becomes even more-so with every new birth.

So is it any surprise that, with six-year-olds texting to begin their digital ‘baptism,’ religion would be there to cover the ‘last rites?’ Twitter.com/tweettheexodus is almost biblical in the world of tweets. In fact, it is everything biblical! Rabbi Oren Hayon felt the Passover story of the Israelites’ struggle to be free of the Pharaoh needed some spicing up. Not that the story is dull. If the plagues God unleashes on the Egyptians don’t catch your attention, then you are skipping parts of the Old Testament… but hearing the story year after year, it might get a little too mundane. “We’ve only been telling the story for 3,000-plus years,” says one follower who has, in the past, led his Seder guests in a game of ‘Jewpardy.’ It was time for a change.”

So Rabbi Hayon organized a ‘tweet-a-thon’ by recruiting fellow rabbis to act out the drama on Twitter, from March 16 thru March 29…  @*gallop*  *pant *  *gallop* Let’s get ‘em! Keep moving! @ will there be treats at the end?… @ bet you’ve never seen that before. Make those waters part! (Passover began March 30.)

While there are many ways Jewish families relive the Passover story to keep it as fresh as possible… and keep their children involved, this is the first digital version… and undoubtedly, not the last.

Remember a few weeks ago, I told you about God tweeting? (Actually, a contest… if God did tweet, what would that first tweet be? “Tweet others as you would have them tweet you.” was my favorite.) But what I’m saying here is that churches are using social media, not only to stay in touch, but to recruit the digital romantics.

The Church of the Later Day Saints (LDS)… aka the Mormons, has 47 Facebook pages with lots of followers. Scientology has its fair share. The Catholics are in there modestly… a little behind the social curve (as usual). But most are there… and those that aren’t, will be. Trust me… it is written. (And you just read it.)

I recently received a postcard addressed to ‘Occupant.’ Its enticement was the ‘Friendbook’ sermon series that was ongoing. The message titles were Status Bar, Friend Request, Wall Post, Instant Messaging and Send A message. The appeal is to the young, the wired and those just catching the digital spirit.

So yes, God really does text, tweet and Facebook. No YouTube yet, but won’t that be something?

Jerry Constantino, March 31, 2010

Jerry Constantino was President and Publisher of PJS Publications, a group of 20 special interest magazines owned by VS&A Venture Capital and later, Primedia. He now writes fiction and blogs irrelevantly at itsnutsoutthere.blogspot.com.

Note: Post not sponsored.

BrandFolium is only two-years old, but the recent launch of its Navid website could revolutionize the “interactive marketing” world.

Robert Mullin writes in “DEMO: BrandFolium offers onloine marketplace for social network ads” that Navid will bring together advertisers looking for publishers, whose audience fits the advertiser’s target market. After an advertiser provides Navid with some information, the site’s Match-Mapping engine will generate several options. That’s when the advertiser can initiate a two-way online conversation to negotiate a deal. Like many other companies involved in social media advertising, BrandFolium is anxiously awaiting details about Twitter’s upcoming advertising model. Yet, co-founder Guillaume Dumortier says they are “thinking beyond Twitter.” BrandFolium also has plans to set up geolocation-based advertising that will deliver ads from nearby restaurants and businesses, based on a customer’s location.

SSN Take: Keep a close eye on BrandFolium and similar companies to evaluate whether your advertising budget should include room for the new wave of  “interactive marketing.”

David Hardt, March 31, 2010

Note: Post not sponsored

Social media has opened up new opportunities for less than honest predators.

Newsmaker.com.au recently highlighted the act of social engineering in their article, “Social engineering: Deceiving people, not machines.”  This new term refers to the exploitation of the human aspect of computers, i.e. the user, into giving up secure access information. The author shares tales of employees giving up information that seems impossible to believe with little effort. It isn’t that they are stupid or are intentionally attempting to fraud the corporation; they just seem to be too trusting. Instilling some level of paranoid about revealing secure information in employees from their very first day on the job is advised.

The SSN Take: Phishing emails have been reported in over 50% of users’ in-boxes. Corporations need to educate staff on proper procedures and to beware.

Melody K. Smith, March 31, 2010

Note:   Post was not sponsored.

WorkShop, “the creative work place,” is an affordable off-site meeting facility located in Louisville, Kentucky.

The company offers a playful atmosphere where an experienced staff can help teams find creative ideas and solutions. WorkShop’s team building experts work with you to design a program that challenges your team and addresses competencies like influencing, organization, prioritization and “people focus.” The workshops cover a wide range of topics such as strategic planning, conflict resolution and merger management.

One glance at the pictures on their website, and you will quickly see how the physical environment complements their philosophy of energizing participants and bringing out the best your team has to offer. Each uniquely designed room has comfortable furniture, a stereo CD player, games and other props to get the “creative juices” flowing. At the more practical level, the rooms are stocked with tools like whiteboards, a flip chart and wireless internet access, to record the flood of insights.

Stephanie Ringer is a co-owner, operations manager and team building facilitator of WorkShop. She draws on her experience as a motivational speaker and team building expert to design activities that best fit your needs. In March 2010, she was kind enough to answer some questions about where she wants to take her social media strategy. The full text of my interview appears below.

What’s your business?

WorkShop offers a creative meeting facility and team adventure site. You will find space that is different than other places. We are very colorful and have movable fun furniture, wall-to-wall whiteboards and lots of toys and props to bring out your creative side.

What are you doing with social media?

I am personally on LinkedIn and I upload our business newsletters, pictures and presentations on SlideShare. On my LinkedIn profile, you’ll find a discussion group and a blog. I am also on Facebook and have a fan page for WorkShop, the creative workplace. On the fan page, I post all pictures from our meetings and adventures, so that the participants can show others or download them. Twitter is my call to action. I drive traffic to what I want them to see with Twitter–any new information, posts, meetings, etc.,

Why?

It is smart marketing for businesses. Anytime you can market to the masses without cost is a bonus for small businesses.

How  do you measure the payoff?

More people attend our classes and I think it even helps get us some Google hits. We always ask people how they found out about WorkShop, and in the past year, we have had many more people say the Internet, Google, Facebook, etc.

What is the amount of time it takes you to keep your social media program going?

One should really do 30 minutes every morning and about 10-15 minutes at the end of the day.

What are the three lessons you have learned?

Finding out that Twitter is a “call to action” was my biggest “aha” moment. SlideShare was another great gift because it allowed me to share my newsletters without the email process. And probably the third lesson is it takes a long time to get people to comment on what you write, whether it’s a blog, group discussion or whatever. If you just keep writing and posting, you will get a comment here and there and it will eventually take off. I have faith.

What is the downside of social media?

People sharing every detail of their life, from where they are to what they are eating. I just don’t think they realize that criminals are able to use computers.

What is the benefit?

Word of mouth marketing has forever been the number one form of marketing. Word travels faster and stronger through the social media forum. Having a great product, great customer service and something unique, really gets people’s attention. I believe WorkShop is starting to be known in the city as a premier meeting place.

What’s the outlook for your use of social media in the next three months?

Now that we have moved to a new location, I am really going to have to use social media to get the word out. This business was in the same location for 16 years. Jenness Bunn and I bought it in 2007 and have moved it to a wheelchair accessible location with parking. We are going to have to announce it big that we are now wheelchair accessible and talk about The Pointe (which is our new location).

Any advice for a small business wanting to jump in?

Absolutely, get a LinkedIn page first and try to utilize what it has to offer. Get real familiar with that, then put your business on Facebook and start getting some fans. Finally, get on Twitter to drive traffic to your website, your fan page or your LinkedIn profile. Try to engage in one thing at a time so you can get a good feel for what it is and how you can use it. I would be happy to share my experience with other small businesses. I operate on the KISS principle, Keep It Simple Silly.

SSN Comment

Our environment has a great deal to do with how we think and interact. At WorkShop, team members are treated to an ideal meeting space and a dedicated staff of team building experts. The wide variety of classes cover both personal and professional enrichment. WorkShop’s goal is to provide a playful and productive atmosphere that will stimulate creative thinking. The classes cover areas such as strategic planning, product development, team building and training. After 16 years at the same location, WorkShop has moved to The Pointe and is now wheelchair accessible. If you belong to a group or organization that could benefit from an off-site meeting that can challenge, motivate and inspire team members, you may want to take a close look at WorkShop, a creative work place.

David Hardt, March 30, 2010

Note: Post not sponsored.

It’s no secret that Facebook has played fast and loose with your personal information; however, their latest maneuver is aimed at forcing advertisers to stop the barrage of poorly targeted advertising.

While some users don’t care for the omnipresent stream of ads on Facebook, others actually appreciate them–when they are relevant. It’s the intrusive ones like “Get A Free Laptop!” that have finally moved Facebook to action. Their ad business helped the social media company generate more than $1 billion in revenue last year, but now they are rolling out some new rules. In “Facebook cracks down on irrelevant ad targeting techniques,” Meghan Keanee observes that poorly targeted ads don’t just draw the ire of its users, they are just plain bad for business. To straighten aggressive marketers out, Facebook now has an evaluation program “to seek out and discard ads that utilize user data that is not relevant to the product or offer.” How effective this system will be at weeding out ads that play fast and loose with your demographic data, remains to be seen.

The SSN Take: If Facebook’s new ad policy wards off aggressive marketers, users may begin to welcome your company’s message instead of seeing it as an intrusion on their conversation.

David Hardt, March 30, 2010

Note: Post not sponsored

A Tweetup does not refer to the latest Twitter application, but rather an actual face-to-face meeting of Twitter users or any other social media community.

Whether the audience attends for networking or inspiration, the events are a win-win because the guest also benefits by bringing attention to his or her product or business. In his article, “How to Use Tweetups as a Marketing Strategy,” Conrad Hall describes how Kelly Olexa organized a Tweetup through Facebook. She is now well-known as the person responsible for bringing social media maven and best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuk to Chicago.

The two prerequisites for a Tweetup are a local crowd (a couple of hundred is fine) and of course a common interest. Although the event can be organized through any social network, Twitter is a favorite. With its array of applications, you can easily target an interested local crowd. In addition to launching your company into the spotlight, Tweetups can establish you as an influencer of opinion and a source for getting the word out about a product or service.

SSN Take: Taking advantage of Tweetups can satisfy your customers’ desire for in-person networking and boost the credibility and reputation of your company.

David Hardt, March 30, 2010

Note: Post not sponsored

Perhaps no ‘published-on-paper’ magazine has reached deeper into the digital pocket than Esquire in its attempt to broaden its reach and influence beyond print boundaries.

Yes, there are e-papers and e-magazines worth a look (and we will)… but these products are finding their unique audience entirely on the web. It has been the printed-on-paper magazines and newspapers that have been struggling to hold an audience that is smitten with digital magic. No medium wants to become passé or irrelevant to a trend.

Esquire’s 700,000-plus monthly readers are predominantly “well educated, urbane and affluent men,” it says, with a median age of 43.6 years. Will they always read (and pay for) printed-on-paper words or will the digital ‘sirens’ call’ bleed that number ever lower? Newspapers’ struggles have painted a fearful picture of declining readership… and there is reason for concern as upcoming prospective readers have not ‘cut their teeth’ on non-digital news and entertainment.

David Granger, Esquire’s Editor In Chief, says the magazine “has been doing a lot of experimenting with the way magazines are made. We’ve been messing with the basic elements of a magazine—paper and ink—and we’ve been using newer technologies to enhance what magazines are capable of.”

For the magazine’s 75^th anniversary issue… yes, that many… Esquire’s cover was printed on electronic paper (technology similar to the Kindle and other e-readers) that allowed for a section of the cover to ‘blink’ “The 21^st Century Begins Now” message to every perspective newsstand buyer. The industry called it a ‘silly gimmick’ but applauded the forward thinking.

Esquire followed up with two issues featuring origami-like doors on the cover that opened to multiple images of George Clooney, Justin Timberlake and Barack Obama. Yep… still experimenting.

The latest experiment, the piece de resistance to date, is the December ’09 AR (Augmented Reality) issue featuring scanable codes that bring the magazine ‘live’ to your computer. (Reader has to download a small, free ‘app’ first.) The cover, for example, showed Robert Downey Jr. sitting on a black and white ‘cube’ which, when put in front of your web-cam, had Downey talking directly to you about the delights of this digital effort.

The cover ‘blurb’ read: “…A LIVING, BREATHING, MOVING, TALKING MAGAZINE? For instructions on how to use that thing Downey’s sitting on, see pg. 21 and visit Esquire.com/AR”.

There were scanables throughout the magazine that opened other digital windows, including a regular feature, ‘Funny Jokes from a Beautiful Woman’ where the model tells a favorite joke… and, if you repeat this action after midnight, she tells another. There was a clever fashion feature, a photo feature, a jazz article and yes, a scan for an advertiser, Lexus. Can you imagine how impactful that ad, featuring its new hybrid, was? Papa John’s Pizza used the issue but put the scan on its pizza boxes. Now there is another dimension… and a win-win-win… advertiser to buyer to prospective new reader.

Esquire is a ‘with-it’ product… good features and sidebars, tongue-in-cheek humor, great graphics and enough balance of interests to appeal to its reader base.

According to Granger, “For the last fifteen years, all the hype has been about laying new pipe to facilitate the dissemination of ideas. We’ve watched, awestruck and credulous, as AOL, and then Google, and then YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have given us new ways to move information from one place to another on all sorts of new machines. These are the technicians of the new media world. These are the pressmen. It’s the equivalent of Gutenberg’s press that’s had us mesmerized, rather than the words and ideas that were suddenly given life because of it…

“We’re enthusiasts, and this is the most exciting time to be in creative media. As technology changes, we intend to harness that change to augment and expand this paper-and-ink creation. But what you are holding in your hand is not incidental to the Esquire experience; it is essential.”

It almost goes without saying that Esquire has a monthly downloadable ‘app’ in both free and $2.99 versions… the free gives a good preview of the issue, the paid puts the whole issue-plus extra material on your iPhone.

Esquire is a Hearst Magazine product and within the last month, Hearst has committed itself to the development of ‘apps’ for today’s digital media… lots of ‘apps’… more than 1,000 and counting.

Everything changes, and if publications on paper can’t adapt, they will wither. Many, however, are proving ‘up for the challenge.’ And while they may be the old guard in the new world, they have a distinct advantage… they have been providing reader-desired content for a long time. Not a lot of new media have that experience or depth… yet!

Jerry Constantino, March 30, 2010

Jerry Constantino was President and Publisher of PJS Publications, a group of 20 special interest magazines owned by VS&A Venture Capital and later, Primedia. He now writes fiction and blogs irrelevantly at itsnutsoutthere.blogspot.com.

Note: Post not sponsored.

In the rush to get imbedded into social media to improve your business’ marketing, you could be leaving yourself dangerously exposed.

Mashable’s article, “Chatroulette Founder Working to Preserve User Privacy,” recently detailed how this online phenomenon may be putting its users at risk. The site works to randomly connect two unknown people with audio and video chat. But a recent addition, blending the site with Google Maps and showing where each chatter is located, may have crossed a line. Without a way of opting out of the map, users clearly could be putting themselves at risk for stalking, identity theft or worse. Remember, this danger is not simply limited to Chatroulette.

The SSN Take: Do your research on privacy settings and don’t be in such a huge hurry to reap the benefits of social media that you get into unsafe situations.

Patrick Roland, March 29, 2010

Note: Post not sponsored.

A new model in fundraising has grown out of social media and is proving to be quite successful.

The word “tweet-up” may not currently be in your vocabulary, but watch and see – it will grow on you. The Case Foundation recently reported in their article “What Twestival can teach nonprofits about engaging volunteers and donors”  how these events are not organized by the nonprofit but in a grassroots effort by the donors and volunteers. This is quite the phenomenon to have those you seek to reach – reach out first. Could this have happened without social media and the communities it creates? When people feel connected to their charity and specifically where their donation might go and what it might do – there is no end to the power of passion.

The SSN Take: Social media continues to be the front runner in setting new precedence. Even for-profit businesses can learn from this situation.

Melody K. Smith, March 29, 2010

Note:   Post was not sponsored.

In the Business to Business (B2B) market, buyers are more frequently seeking out reviews and comparisons online.

Tradtionally, sales reps did quite a bit of hawking, vying for buyers’ attention and distributing loads of literature. But things have changed, and buyers are “actively using social media in many steps along the path of the purchase-making decision,” writes the author of “Social Media Affecting BtoB Buying Behavior.” Citing a recent study on B2B buyers, more than 20% of them connected with a supplier directly through a social networking channel. 37% posted information on social networking sites looking for advice for answers to questions. It’s because of this that companies marketing to other businesses can’t ignore the force of social media. While that avenue has become a spring board for marketing to consumers, companies need to be aware of the larger audience – purchasers looking for a solution. Having good content online is key.

The SSN Take: A solid focus on SEO, weblogs, and social media is integral to creating an alluring presence for purchasers.

Samuel Hartman, March 28, 2010

Note: Post not sponsored.