Plugs..Links..Shout Outs..OH MY!! There is no avoiding it, let me just be upfront and honest. This are straight out shameless plugs and such. So let me skip the witty banter and get right into it. I will do it in list form as people like lists!!
-Tomorrow June 24, 2009 I will be having the Peninsula Twitter & Facebook Meetup For June 2009 at the Silicon Valley Four Seasons Hotel starting at 7:00 pm poolside. Please join the 150+ people, LSF Interactive and myself for this free event!
-On July 8, 2009 I will be speaking at the International Association of Administrative Professionals in San Jose, California.
-On August 13, 2009 I will be speaking at Marketing In The Oilfield Conference in Houston, Texas.
-Some of you have asked if we can connect on Facebook, Linkedin, etc. So since this is shameless links here are some places we can network
I have noticed a trend lately in the social media space. Well there are several trends right now in the space.
Jennifer Van Grove of Mashable pointed out the top 5 for Twitter. Such things as:
-Real Time Search Engines
-Verified Accounts
-Sponsored Tweets
-Well you can just read Jennifer’s great post…
One trend I see picking up is what I am going to call “Social Media For Good”. Now before you say, “Dave using Social Media to do good things has been around for every.” True, but with all these different social networking sites and instant communication tools, things are changing.
Let me share with you a few different sort of ways people are using these tools to do good things. By good I don’t mean “helping me get 16,000 friends in 90 days on Twitter”. Nor will I ask you to join a Facebook Cause. I will share this with you in list form. People like lists:
Drew, who I have known for several years was diagnosed with cancer in May and.. , instead of me explaining I will post what he wrote on the page:
“Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer. Ever since that day, Drew has blamed everything on his cancer. Losing his keys, misplacing his wallet, Twitter being slow, the Phillies losing, etc. Why? Because you have to beat up on Cancer to win… and you can help out. Blame Drew’s Cancer for anything you want by tweeting with the hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer and it’ll come here. We’ll keep a tally and when Drew beats Cancer, our sponsors will donate a dollar for every participant to the American Cancer Society and the Make a Wish Foundation.”
Sophie Azouaou is “the interior designer who gives back” as well as the 7X7′s Community Impact contributor where she gives tips on giving back that “put your mind and your wallet at east”. She is what Change Starts At Home calls a “Change Maker”. Currently she is working on “Touching Hearts” a TV show that will look at philanthropy and The Real Stories for NBC Bay Area. They have just started a donation campaign to help their show get off the ground and make a difference. It will air right after Monday Night Football in the fall. If you want to get involved or donate, which gets you a credit on the show, contact Sophie direct or go the the Touching Hearts site. Her goal is to use all aspects of Social Media to get the show off the ground!
The Twestival. In February 2009 about 200+ cities around the world held these events. All with one cause, to help let people know about Charity:Water. When all was said and done they raised about $250,000. The key here is that thanks to Twitter it from a local event, to a global event. Come on, that’s pretty cool…
In January of this year David Armano asked people to help a woman and her children who wanted to get out of a domestic abuse situation. He simply reached out and asked people to donate. No big party. No big event. Just do what you can. Well that request raised almost $17,000 for Daniella’s Apartment Fund!
So there you are people using the Internet, social networking and sites for good. To do good things.
Yes, its true. I give. You win. It is time for me to buy an IPhone.
If you have been reading my blog for a while you may recall this post, I wrote called “The New IPhone Is Coming And I Don’t Care..”at my old site. So does this make me a hypercrite? Knocking the IPhone last year and now going out and buying one? Well, I would like to think not. I made a bad call. I have been known on occasion to make bad calls. You know, pick the wrong horse. Go “All In” with the the wrong hand. Some notable wrong moves I have made are (I’ll share them in list form, as people like lists.”:
-Loved the Arch Deluxe ( hey the lettuce was crisp and cold, and the hot was hot)
So that being said you get that I have been known to make some slight mistakes.
I plan to atone for this by getting a 3rd gen IPhone on Friday. I need to get involved with “applications”. They are just too powerful for me to ignore. I want to start using them. Making my life easier. I want info at a touch…. and to watch “The Office” while I am at the kids baseball games.
So, the point of this blog is not to share with you that in the ’80’s I was eating an Arch Deluxe, drinking a New Coke and watching Howard The Duck. It is to ask for your help.
As a “newbie” to the IPhone, I need to know what applications I should be using. What applications are the “Got to have”? Some applications I have been told to consider by Jeff Podraza are:
Tweetie - 1 of 2 great Twitter apps $2.99
TweetStack 1 of 2 great Twitter apps $2.99 (This is my favorite works with Tweetdeck if you use it)Skype for iPhone
Beejive - costly (15.99) But love the instant message interface.
LinkedIn
Lonely Planet San Francisco City guide normally 15.99 free during WWDC so grab it fast. (still free as of the 15th)
Searchme - this is a visual and media search engine
Evernote - great way to save information and sync with a desktop application
i.TV - I like this as you can integrate your Netflix account and Tivo
One Connect from Yahoo
Google
Yelp
Amazon (I use it a lot for price comparison)
Sea food Watch - from Monterey Bay Aquarium
AOL Radio - I love the comedy radio stations and 80’s stuff
Pandora
Shazam (hold it to a radio, when you want to identify a song)
Reader by Enormego (2.99 but allows for Google reader importing)
ABC News
Huffington Post
The Weather Channel
Ny Times - allows for offline reading
USA Today
Wall Street Journal
NPR
Public Radio
Flight Control - best 99 cents I spent on a challenging but simple addictive game
Lexel word - game was free but worth paying for if not
Kindle for iPhone - From Amazon
eReader - From Barnes and Noble
What IPhone applications do you recommend and can not live with out? Are there some on this list you disagree with?
First, about 2 hours ago Facebook announced they will be giving vanity urls starting his Friday June 12, 2009 at 9:01 am. This is a great thing for branding, marketing and companies. This got me thinking. There are several features I would like to see on some social networking sites. So let us step into……
In a world where I get what I want. In an imaginary place where companies listen to their customers/users.. there is one man who hopes that the: CEO, President, Community Manager, Guy Who Makes Sure Everyone Is Happy Manager listens.. ME! So listen up Facebook, Twitter and all you others.
This is a list of things I want. Okay maybe it is more of a, wouldn’t be nice if? Kind of thing. I will share it with you in list form as people like lists!
- Facebook I want a little button at the bottom of a persons profile where I can click “Add them to a friend list?” You click it, a drop down menu lets you pick the friend list they are added to. Its easy, quick and will make my life easier. (cause its all about me!)
-How about a mouse over feature that says “Did you know?” or “Other ways to do this!” Look if you reading this post, more than likely you are pretty familiar with the “Online World, Social Media, etc (insert hot buzz term here). Great, but we are the minority here. Most people do not know you can send pictures to Facebook via email or text. Nor do they know they can update their status the same way. After they do an upload, update, etc. give them a “Hey non power user did you know?” Heck all the parents at my kids school would thank you!
-Hey Twitter. I’m talking to you. I want a friend list option on your site. It needs to work like the facebook one I listed above. Get on that.. please and thank you.
-oh, how about the option to post hyperlinks with text? That way I have a better idea what they are about!
-Since I got on the subject of the whole mouse over thing. Sure would be nice..no make that GREAT if I could put my mouse over a persons pic and see their important stats. Oh, Oh, Oh… I know let’s do that with the whole “@joeblow” thing too. I want to mouse over that and see stats in the text box.
-Linkedin, here is what I want. Now follow me on this. Every now and then I will use the “check your email” feature. I email a lot. What happens I will do a lot of group emails with people. Some I do no know that well. So it would be great if you could find a way to display the emails to pick from by “email a lot all the way down to emailed once”. Then I can pick if I should add them. Also, find lets have a filter/fuzzy logic on emails with words like “support, craigslist, etc” I dont want to add Support@huggies.com”
So what features would you like to see on some of these sites?
First, I wanted to make sure everything is good with you. I know its been a while since we have chatted. Actually, we have really never chatted. Though you did have Technorati reach out to me in early March 2009. It was just before SXSW 2009. You probably don’t remember, I know your a really busy company. Well with E3, your Samsung LCD venture, and of course that exciting announcement that Sade has an album coming out for the first time in like 9 years No offense but waiting 30 years for that album would of been better.(I’m just saying.)
So what I wanted to share with you is an update on the partnership you did with Technorati just before the SXSW 2009. I know with everything going on you don’t remember it. Let me try to jog your memory.
You were kind enough to send myself and 9 other bloggers these really kick ass Webbie HD video cameras. All you asked is when we use it at the conference was to tag photos and pics with the hashtag #webbiesxsw. How could any of us say no? (Look we both know Julia Roy sure wouldn’t! I think she tried to steal mine, so she could have two.) So with my trusty Webbie HD I mad amazing, educational, social media videos like this:
Pretty great huh? Fine, I suck at video taping. I get it. Okay, so Sony you may wonder, “why is this guy writing this letter to us almost 4 months after the fact? We aren’t sending you another free camera and you cant have a free PS3 either, so move along.” Do not worry. I do not want any free stuff, though if I were to hit you up for something it would be the PS3 Slim.
So back to my point of this letter. It must of taking some good faith in Social Media for a big company like you to the Webbie SXSW/blogger promotion. Not being able to directly measure the ROI for this campaign. Not knowing if it helped sell these devices. No doubt you could see the chatter on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and the other thousands of social networking sites. Yet, it is hard to measure if that chatter turned into sales.
Well, I have some good news for you. Social Media works. What you did worked. Let me give you some examples. I will do it in list form. People like lists!
-In the past 30 days 5. Yes, 5 families have bought the Webbie because they have seen me using at my kids school. Scary part is they all got the same color as me. So, now I have to put my initials on the bottom of it.
-At least 8 people have emailed me directly in the last 90 days to ask me about what video camera I use. Of that I know of 4 people who have bought the camera.
-Facebook..where do I start. When I upload a video it has that HD logo in the corner. The number of people who have commented on the quality of the video and sound is crazy. I can not say I know exactly how many people have bought the Webbie. I do know that there have been a lot of comments and questions about it on my profile page and fanpage.(yes, I have a facebook fanpage stop laughing at me.) Done laughing? Here is a Facebook video example that got the parents fired up about the Webbie:
So, there you go. I can confirm at least 14 sales of the webbie as well as several more potential sales coming your way!! That is not a bad ROI for sending a blogger a $200.00 video camera. We do not even know how many sales the other 9 bloggers generated. This is what I would call a success story, as well as a great case study showing that Social Media and Word of Mouth marketing do work.
Oh in case anyone at Sony sees this or who knows, maybe even reads my blog. No, I was not paid to do this. Yes, I got a free Webbie from Sony. There is your full disclosure at work!
So the following comments are my own personal thoughts regarding the 140 The Twitter Conference. They are impartial and not biased. You may think they could be biased due to the following things, which I will share in list form, as people like lists:
-I got to stand on stage! Here is what it looked like from my point of view:
Okay, so disclaimer is out of the way, now back to the review of the conference.
So instead of me typing up a review about what happened who did what, etc, etc. I thought I would try something different. Ill let the links do the talking…
Here a Twitter. There a Twitter. Everywhere a Twitter. It is like you can not avoid the the tweets posted by those who tweeters. . I mean some may have tweetaholism and become tweetaholics. Im not going to be tweepish about this, nor should you when you the tweeple who twead this. Twitter is not for the the tweepish nor a place for tweerboxes. So let me tweet-back to my point.
Well I think you get might point, Twitter is everywhere and being used by everyone. Let me give you a rundown of observations I have made just in the last 24 hours. I will do it in list form, cause people like lists.
-I watched a Desperate Housewives episode on Hulu and Tom Scavo could not get a job cause he did not know what Twitter was.
-There was a post by Domino’s Pizza asking how they can get their brand name on Twitter as someone else has both Domino’s and Dominospizza i.e squatters.
“Social media has reached critical mass, with 83% of the Internet population now using it - and more than half doing so on a regular basis - according to new research being released today by Knowledge Networks. But for all the media industry’s hype and buzz surrounding social networks, microblogs, and other social networking platforms, the genre has failed to become much of a marketing medium, and in the opinion of the Knowledge Networks’ analysts, likely never will”
I’m not buying it. Not because its what I do to feed my family. Nor am I in denial because on May 26th I will be speaking on a panel at the 140 |Twitter Conference in Mountain View with @ijustine and @missrogue. (like how I did a plug right there? Use discount code: int140tc)
Look people are watching less tv. If they are they have DVR’s to go past the commercials. There are mp3 players, satiellte radio and sites like Ilike.com that are replacing radio. Newspapers are dying when you can get your news online.
Look, maybe something better will come down the pipe that will blow social media out of the water. Sure, but it is not going away anytime soon.
So you want to create a successful marketing campaign using Social Media. I cant say I am shocked as Forrester Predicts Huge Growth for Social Media Marketing. It seems every brand wants to get into the social media and mobile area as these areas are growing like wildfire.
Now, if you came here looking for the exact secret ingredient into a hopefully successful social media campaign, your at the wrong place. If I knew what that was, I would be rich and famous. Oh and living on the beach with lots of Kindles, super fast wifi , Iphones, and.. sorry back to the blog. My point was that this is a document I created that has many items that need to have answered, so I can come up with a campaign that is hopefully putting out the right message to the right people. It is made up mostly of questions I want answered by myself, my team or the client. This helps me figure out what the campaign could possible be.
Feel free to suggest items that should be added, removed or tweaked in the document. (as it is far from perfect)
1. What is the goal?
-Reputation Management
-Brand Awareness
-SEO rankings up
-Increase site traffic
-Increase sales
-Other
2.Who is the demo/target we are after? In regards to the demo:
-. Who is likely to be most interested in the content?
- Who does the brand want to communicate with and why?
- What are people currently saying about the brand or business?
- Which type of person is likely to purchase the product or service?
- What tools or online services does the target audience use?
- Which websites does the target audience frequent?
-What dot he target audience have in common with one another?
- What sites are most popular?
- Where is the brands audience now?
- What is the conversation about the brand now?
3. What are the channels we will need to use?
-We need to take the dynamic content to set up multiple channels that direct traffic and attention to the brand. By doing such things as:
-blog
-Twitter
-Fanpage
-youtube
-digg
-stumbleupon
-Can we use people of influence?
-etc
(This method can work well along side SEO/SEM)
4. What is The Big Idea?
-Is it relevant
-Is it easy to distribute
5. What does the end user get? (why should they join/interact/engage/spread the mess) It could be:
-Knowledge
-relationship
-laugh
-prize
6. What is our ROI? (may not always direct/immediate)
-Why will people spread the mesage? WOM/talk about the campaign/brand? Is it same as what they get out of it?
-You need to be transparent (the best you can)
-Who will manage it?
-Who is the person who will manage feedback, interact, be the face on sites? They will need to interact on customer/target level.
social media visibility = brand awareness + word of mouth = new customer
Yep..its another one. Hey, it has been about a month since the last one. Just so much to share and too little time to do it. So you get it all in one nice post! So here is information and self promotion with links to things I want to share,people to thank or think you may find of interest. If your not interested, that’s okay, you can always look for my spelling errors and give me a hard time.. I make a lot.
Scared yet?
So away we go…
- Starting today I am “test driving” the 2009 Ford Flex. I get to use the car until next week. Let it be known, I am so not a car guy. I know nothing about them. What I am is a gadget guy. The built in media center brings me to tears, its amazing. Get this, its all voice activated. Ill need to take some pics of that and post. Here is a short video and a pic:
-On April 23rd I organized the Peninsula Twitter and Facebook Meetup. It went really well. There were roughly 115 people who came throughout the night! Here is some video. I will be putting together some sort of event page shortly for future meetups.
Discount Code of in140tc for 140 Twitter Conference 2009
- Do not forget that ever week you can listen to the Social Media Club Editorial Board come up with a question of the week for everyone to comment on.
Yes, Im part of the board. (Come on its shameless plugs right?)
-Because this if for a Thesis for Roskilde University and he asked really nice, I thought I would pass this on. Aleksander Sonderof Copenhagen, Denmark is doing a quick survey regarding the Corporate Use Of Twitter. The data is updated and open to everyone here.
-A big thank you to Techcrunch for putting on a Star Trek Screening tonight here in Redwood City. They are giving up to 4 tickets per person for $2.00 each with popcorn and a drink! Oh you also get bragging rights to have seen the movie early! So myself and my sons will be there when the doors open!
-As always I update my Twitter Feed with articles/info I think worth passing on and my other random posts if you just cant get enough of me.
Okay, hope I did not miss anything…. Live Long and Prosper! (yes I am a geek.)
First let me be clear, I know people have died from the Swine Flu. I am in no way taking that lightly, this is a serious issue. Nor am I an expert in the subject of the Swine Flu or anything similar to it.
That being said I was doing some beta testing today on a search application for a friend and decided to use the keywords “Swine Flu”. I was blown away by what I found. Let me share some of the observations I made. I will do it in list form, as people like lists:
-By my estimate the term it is being used an average of 50 times ever 5- 10 seconds on Twitter
-Twitter has more updated, current and correct information then any news source…. or does it?
According to posts I have read, the Swine Flu is in:
Oregon
Florida
Washington
North Carolina
and almost everywhere
(I was going to repost these tweets, but decided sharing them would be passing on possible incorrect information)
How accurate is the information we are getting, sharing and posting on Twitter? Better yet how about any social networking site?
Now for the states I mentioned there was no link back to a major news source, like CNN, ABC, Fox, etc. I did check a pretty cool map thing on USA Today that did not show any cases of the flu there as of this post be written. On top of that these posts were being retweeted. A retweet is when someone passes on your post, to share with others. Is Twitter, are we, passing on incorrect information and causing people to be misinformed? Is Twitter causing things like the swine flu to become bigger then they are? Are we using social networking sites to increase panic, hype and worry where there is no need?
I know Im getting deep and ask more questions then I have answers to.
What are your thoughts? Am I way off and should just chill out?
For what its worth, I do follow the CDC Emergency Twitter, which I believe to be official. It gives links to sites and information that comes from the CDC official webpage.
UPDATE April 26 10:30ish : Before I put this post up on Tuesday afternoon, CNN posted:
