My last post on tips that brands can use to build Customer relationship got some amazing feedback. So much so, I thought it would be a good idea to share some of it with you. Of course there are the comments below that you can see. When your using Social Media to get your message..aka content..Blog post out conversations can happen on many different sites. So here are some of them for your review. I will share them in list form, as people like lists.

-Rich Goldsmith, Senior Account Executive at Padilla Speer Beardsley:

Social media is an opportunity to not only listen in on what your customers are saying about your brand, but to also really establish a brand identity, even a persona. Taking advantage of that opportunity, however, has tripped up a lot of companies — most of them because they’ve either been dishonest in their approach, or shortsighted and fallen victim to the “it’s really cool” factor of social media.

Essentially, people need to ask themselves what they hope to achieve with social media, and then tailor their strategies and tactics toward those objectives. There’s a huge universe of potential activities associated with social media, and it grows every time someone does something new with Twitter’s API or develops a new iPhone app. But too many brands don’t take the time to craft a social media strategy that will actually move their businesses forward and improve their relationship with their customers in a meaningful way.

Do you want to improve customer satisfaction? Personalize the brand? Improve customer loyalty? Something different altogether? While these objectives can play off each other, each one requires a slightly different approach. Social media can do many things to improve brand equity and customer attitudes, but you have to know exactly what you’re setting out to do before you can be successful at it.

-Janelle Yates, Owner/Operator at The Little PR Company:

Use it to actually interact, not sell…I see it as a method of two way communications with current and potential customers.
I think it is also important to use it as a call to action for events, brand development research, PR/marketing campaign research and recognition of who your consumer base and target audience is.

Heather Whaling, Communicating … Connecting. Strategic, results-driven public relations, social media, marketing:

There are *lots* of ways companies can use social media to create stronger relationships with consumers. The answer to your question depends on the specific goals you’re trying to achieve. For example, if you develop a product, you can use social media to identify how people are using your product, what enhancements would be beneficial and general satisfaction levels. You can also use it to improve customer service through tools like Twitter or Get Satisfaction.
If you’re trying to position your brand as a thought-leader, blogging (on your own and guest-posting) can be very beneficial. Use this also as an opportunity to show some of the “inner workings” of your company — helping people relate more to the brand.

If you provide a service, you can develop relationships with people who might be in the market for whatever you’re offering. Also, monitoring tools can help identify people asking questions that you can answer, positioning your brand as a valuable resource.

Whatever your goal, it’s important to remember that social media is about conversations — between business-to-consumer as well as consumer-to-consumer. After you create your strategy, remember to keep your eye on the goal, but don’t forget to be personable as well. If you take a strategic approach to social media, take the time to listen, and understand the existing sub-cultures on the various networks, you’ll see that social media can be very beneficial.

Thoughts?

Posted under Blog

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.

-There is @nakedpizza who uses Twitter to bring in 15% of its daily business according to an Adage article titled “Twitter Proves Its Worth as a Killer App for Local Businesses”

-Rumors are that Google will now index Twitter

-There was even a NCAA Recruiting Violation on Twitter!

-Starbucks is going to start marketing on Twitter

-Oh and Patrick Swayze is not dead, no matter what tweeps on Twitter say

So my point. Twitter is big. Its getting bigger everyday.  Then there is this post from today: Social Media Fails To Manifest As Marketing Medium, Report Likens Twitter To TiVo: More Hype Than Reality Ill give you the take away from the article which is:

“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)

Nor am I saying this because I have the Peninsula Twitter and Facebook Meet-up for June 2009, that I have put together happening at the Four Season in Silicon Valley. (what another plug?)

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.

Okay let me put my soapbox away.

Thoughts?

Posted under Peninsula Twitter and Facebook Meet-Up, Shameless Plugs, Social Media

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)

-Relationships
-Better reputation
-Brand Awareness
-Sales

Random Questions/thoughts

-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

The cliff notes version:

-What is the purpose
-What is the reward

Posted under Uncategorized

I’m lagging.  Lagging in putting up blog posts. It has been a crazy few weeks and I am headed to SXSW tomorrow, which proud to be part of.  I hope to see many of you in Austin! Yet, before I did that, I wanted to get a quick blog post up before I left.

So one of the things I have been busy with these past few weeks is talking to people and clients about how they can get involved with Social Media.  The question I get a lot is

” What are the steps we need to take to get involved with Social Media?”

So, I went to my community to see what they thought. Here are some of the great responses I got:

Erica Friedman Publisher at ALC Publishing, President of Yuricon:

1) What is the goal of getting into social media?
2) What ROI are you looking for?
3) What message are you sending?

“Social media” is no more a golden ticket to success than having a website was in 1996. ‘If you build it, they will come” does NOT apply to social media. You need to find the audience where they already are and address them in those spaces. If you’re throwing up a MySpace page, when your audience lives on Slashdot, you’ve just wasted gobs of money and time. Don’t assume that “audience” translates to “market.” 13000 followers on Twitter might not mean a single extra sale. You need to know what you’re doing and why otherwise, it’s just more empty promotion-speak.

Adam Ralph, Student:

1. Watch and Listen. Use Google Alerts – determine what the online community is saying about your brand. Try to understand the space before taking the plunge.
2. Consider how these communities operate and how your brand can join the conversation. Determine how joining the conversation fits within the overall brand marketing strategy and brand personality to ensure appropriateness of fit.
3. Join and participate – slowly. Start by responding to relevant posts about your brand. Gauge user response to your involvement. Always stay true to your brand – recognize that your customers, partners and boss WILL see the post.

Think JetBlue (http://twurl.nl/v5jtnj) not Ryanair (http://twurl.nl/z0nt5v).  Also, check out this post on Sponsored Conversations: http://twurl.nl/y2suiq

Ellen Friendland, President & Producer at Voices & Visions:

1. Request employees to set up pages on LinkedIn and set up a company page on LinkedIn.
2. Request employees to set up pages on Facebook and set up a group or cause page on Facebook.
3. Assign as the responsibility of a marketing/sales employee to be on top of newly emerging, relevant social media sites and to craft little status messages he/she can give the employees to include on their pages (eg, Person X is watching the Y Corporation video about the company’s new product…)

Michael Rosenfeld, VP of New Business at Mediasmith:

There are a number of reasons for participating in Social Media.
I have highlighted a couple quick gut check questions for you.
Answer the following:
1) Will participating in Social Media move your corporate agenda forward?
i.e. Will it sell more inventory, will it communicate your message in a relevant manner, will it create positive awareness of your product/service offering?

2) Is your target audience participating in Social Media in a way that you feel you can participate?
Are they sharing intel on Yelp, Twitter, participating in LinkedIn, FB and the like, are they active readers in community environments that you think you can message to?

3) If YES to the above:
Do you have the resources to support a SM practice internally or must you outsource? Do you have the time, effort, intestinal fortitude to create a twitter profile and then maintain it, upload videos on content distribution sites and tag and monitor replies, create a FB or MySpace group, profile, fan page and maintain it with relevant information that is compelling and again engaging. Can you do this in a manner that doesn’t derail your current marketing efforts?

The new frontier in digital media that enables customer response and interaction is not for the weak of heart, especially if you don’t have a plan or reason for existence. If you feel you need to have your company voice in Social Media have a strategy for success or at least milestones to check your performance. Any good campaign starts with a plan, “who do you want to talk to?” and “what do you want to say?” From there everything from creative ideas and communication platforms can be determined. There’s room for everyone and there’s plenty of opportunities to be successful you just have to do your homework and be prepared.

Alexandra Samuel, Social Media Strategist

1. Listen.

No matter what industry you’re in or how sensitive your organization, you need to be doing social media monitoring. At a minimum, set up an iGoogle page and add feeds from Technorati (to search for blog posts about your organization), Twitter search (for tweets) and delicious (to see what people think is worth bookmarking on your site or news coverage). Track the reputation of your company, brands/products, key leadership and industry, and discover where your strengths and weaknesses lie online. (Hint: no news isn’t necessarily good news!)

2. Think.

As a number of other respondents suggest, you need to think before acting. What are your key goals for social media, and how do they align with your other marketing, communications or business goals? What audiences are you trying to reach, what message do you want them to get, and where are they likely to receive it? What strengths do you have as an organization, and how could these strengths be leveraged or developed in new ways online?

Develop a coherent (if not complete and exhaustive) strategy, if only to establish the parameters under which you will or won’t comment on blog posts and other online discussions of your company or brand. Better yet, identify the key opportunities — the one or two social networks to focus on, the blog or online community you want to launch yourself — and develop a creative approach that delivers real value to your customers in those specific contexts.

This is also the moment to ask yourself: do you even want or need to engage with social media? Yes, everyone should be monitoring — but there are organizations that are not ready to speak for themselves in the rough-and-tumble of blogs and social networks. If you work in a sensitive field (e.g. law enforcement) or a highly risk averse organization, less may in fact be more (at least for now.)

3. Engage!

Once you’re clear about your fundamental strategy and key opportunities, it’s time to get your feet wet…without getting up to your neck in criticism and conflict. Whether engagement looks like commenting on the occasional blog post, or launching your own full-scale social media presence, be sure to plan for a variety of eventualities: from public criticism to (far more common!!) apathetic uptake.

Start your social media engagement in a form that will be robust in the face of limited success: launch a blog that works great even with few comments; leave encouraging comments for those customers who take the time to say nice things about you online. Build your level of engagement over time as your confidence and experience grows, and make sure you leave yourself the resources (dollars, staff, attention) to not just hope for success, but ensure it!

There you go! Some great responses from some great folks!

What do you think the steps companies need to take to get involved with Social Media?

Posted under Blog

(This is the crazy story on how I got involved in Social Media. It is too long to tell in great detail, but here are the key points to the history. If you are totally confused, check out the video below.)

It is true. Are you done laughing? Yes, I a 38 year old married father of 5, used to pretend to be a 26 year old bombshell on the ‘net. Want to  know the best part? It worked really well for networking and building my brand. Yep.  I would do my social networking under the name: Britney Mason. Here meet Britney-

Britney Mason

Yep, she.. I mean I was a female avatar.

So at this point your totally confused, I know. Let me just tell you the story from the beginning, as I can best recall it.

In August 2005, I was up with my new born twins around 1:00 a.m. Doing my part so my beautiful wife could catch a few winks. I was reading TIME magazine learning about this new virtual world called, Second Life. (I’m not going to get into all the details of SL in this post, you can read more about it here.)

The first thing I was asked to do was pick a last name from a list and create my own first name.  As I looked down the list, the only semi-normal last name I could find was, Mason. As for a a first name, I had US magazine next to me with Britney Spears on the cover.  At that moment it all came together for me, Im going to pretend to be a girl in SL.

(Weird? Yep! Odd? For sure! Do you want to make all kinds of jokes at my expense right now? Yes, you do.  Done? Great)

Now I spent about 3 months in SL trying to figure out what the point was, what I needed to do to have fun, etc, etc. In the end, I got bored. I found really nothing interesting to do there.

Fast Forward to early 2006, I had been listening to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code podcast since 2005. On one show Adam had mentioned his discovery of Second Life and how he was so excited about this new way to meet and interact with people. He went so far as to invite people to meet him in world, giving out his Avatar name of  “Adam Neumann”.

I thought to myself, why not log in and meet Adam Curry. Well that is exactly what I did.  Adam quickly responded to me, going so far as to invite me to his home. Over the next few days I would meet Adam “In World” and help him build out his avatar, Curry Castle and share tips and tricks. Now, Adam asked me point blank if I was really a woman.  I immediately  replied “Yes, of course!”

At the time Adam’s podcast was truly daily, so everyday he would mention something about SL, what we were up doing, who else was in SL.  As, we spent more time in SL and he updated listeners on his podcast, something interesting started to happen.  A community started to form around us.  I would get Instant Messages from people looking for Adam, or just wanting to chat. It was really exciting.

Then Adam approached me about a Second Life deal. What if we partnered up for a “Virtual Business”? A 50-50 deal.  He would fund it and I would run it. SL was just starting to grow by leaps and bounds, Real Life companies were starting to come in like Home Depot, Sears, IBM, and others. I was all in!

Now, a few other things were happening at this time. All sorts of Podcasters and also joined SL. They all would hang out at Curry Castle or maybe at a piece of virtual land they purchased nearby. There was Cali Lewis, Anji Bee, The Rumor Girls,  among many, many others. They in turn would go and talk about their experiences on their  respective podcasts.  The number of people joining the community just grew and grew because of this.

Seeing that we needed something more organized, I spoke to Adam, who agreed, it was time to purchase our own virtual island, PodShow Island. Podshow was Adam’s company which would later be called Mevio.

PodShow Island, in my opinion was a success when it launched. The sim was nothing but hustle and bustle.  Eventually many of us lost interest and moved on to Twitter. The island closed in March 2008

Yes, I have missed a lot of the details. Think of this as the cliff notes version if you will. So, please do not nit pick.   I wanted to give you this history so I can refrence it in future blog posts, when I discuss communities, networking and online branding. Oh, its also fun to go reminisce of where it all started for me!

Oh, so for those of you who are totally confused and wondering what is the point, check out the video below.

I think this video I did for CNBC somes it up really well.  Questions? Feel free to ask!

Posted under Uncategorized

So, I was thinking this morning, I know scary. Okay, enough with your jokes.  I was thinking about  online communities  and how powerful they are.  In this ever changing world of technology and social media they are becoming more and more powerful. I truly believe companies need to start embracing them more than ever.  As I have mentioned before Barack Obama built his own online community to get his message out, which became a key to his win.

What is an online community?

Glad you asked.

I define it as:

- A group of people that mostly interact with each other via some form of online communication. This can be anything such as a social networking site, newsletters, virtual worlds  online video, online audio, instant messaging or a combination of those.

When a company or person puts out a blog, Facebook application, online video or online profile, they need to build an online community around it. This community becomes they way to build buzz and an online brand. All which help get the message out.  What are the traits and keys that make it successful? Glad you asked!  Let’s take a look at a few. Why don’t we do it in list form? People like lists!

-  There is an Online Community Manager. The short version of what a Community Manager does is keeps an eye on what is going on in the community. This person keeps it clean and safe for all. As well as helping users with problems, moderating the site, starting and ending conversations. I will get into a lot more detail in a future post. Needless to say this person should be worth their weight in gold.

-The members of the community all have something in common. What it is maybe very hard to say. Yet, they are all part of this community because they have a common interest in the subject matter at some level. It could be as simple as a model train building  club,  people who eat Angry Burgers.. there I go again, (sorry) to college professors sharing information. The possibilities are endless.

- These members need to be made up of some who know a lot more on the subject then you do. As well as members who know a lot less then you do.  This allows the flow of information as well as great conversation back and forth. If people are not getting something out of it, it won’t work.

-Members must be made to feel comfortable in the community, as well with the technology they are using within the community. This can be done with ease of communication (whatever the platform may be) as well as a good Community Manager.

-Make sure people are having a good time. Basic I know, but I have seen it get lost in the development. If members are not having fun, it won’t work.

What are traits do you belive a successful online community needs to have?

Posted under New Media, Social Media

Dear KTVU,
First I need you to know, I have been watching Channel 2 since I was like 5. Heck I remember the old theme song you know “There is only one..two!”, hear I don’t sing well, listen to it yourself:

Boy that was catchy back in the day. You ought to think about bring… sorry I am off on a tagent.

Look I am sending you this letter, not because I hate you, dislike you..though it would be nice if you played more MASH reruns, I do like MASH… sorry back to the point. In this day of people watching less tv, reading less newspapers, companies like you need to do whatever you can to stay current and go where the people are. I get that. So I was thrilled when I found out KTVU was on Twitter!

I thought how cool! I can send messages to the newsroom, get interesting info about stories your working on, what Ross is up to. I did love him on People Are Talking  back on KPIX.

Whatever happened to Ann anyway?

So imagine my dismay when I went to your Twitter page and saw this:

It is just links to videos. I can see this on your site or heck the 10:00 news. It is well..boring. There is nothing interesting here.  No, there is no rule that you have to be intresting or exciting, you can do what you want on Twitter, as Eric Rice kindly points out. Let me give you a few pointers though. I will do in in list form as people like lists:

-Do not just post links it well to quote Mike Mcallen it is “spammy”

-Give us some behind the scenes information, stories your working on. Funny things going on. Tell us something we can not see on the broadcast

-This is important, interact with other twitter followers. I said “Hi” to you yesterday and you never replied. Heck DarthVader says Hi, and he is a Sith Lord.

-Learn from NBC’s Today Show mistakes on Twitter. They did exactly what you did with nothing but links, now check it out. They answer peoples questions on Twitter and interact, heck they make funny comments and everything!

-Act like your part of the community. See NBC’s Today Show above.

-Try getting Twitter involved with your news team. Ask for leads, read users responses online. Take polls. The Twitterverse is yours for the taking.

So please dont take this the wrong way, I am on your side. I just want to help you with the learning curve! I know you can do it.. cause well there is only one two..

Hope to see you on Facebook!

Dave

Posted under Blog, Open Letter

Today a friend reached out to me.  She works for a very big, well know company. She asked me a simple question.

“How do we monitor our brand online?”

My response was “You guys get it!”. She responded with a very puzzled tone (as my wife does to me a lot) : “We do?”

“Yes, you do” Your company is taking the first step of looking into what people are saying about your brand online and learning how to deal with brand monitoring”

Okay, so enough of my little cut scene from a conversation. Let me give you some links to tools and resources that help companies monitor what people are saying online about them. We will do it in list form, as people like lists:

-Twitter Search which use to be called Summize before Twitter bought it. You simply type in keywords and you can see people who have used that word in a tweet.

-Social Mention searchs Google blog search, Delicious, FriendFeed, Digg, Twitter, Youtube and such and puts it into a nice package for you.

-Google Alerts An amazing tool by the folks at well, Google. Put in keywords and it will send you alerts when people use those words. This searches Google so we are talking about anywhere on the web that Google indexes, which is well, almost everywhere.

-Backtype allows you to search blog comments.  Users need to register and it will monitor the url you put in the chat. Then pulls all the comments back to one place for you to search.

-Yacktrack monitors lots of different social networking sites and allows you to see which sites your brand is being mentioned on vs another.

These are just some of the several tools that are out there. If there are some I have missed, please post them in the comments so I can add them to an updated list.

I used the term brand and keyword when writing this post. What is it you should be monitoring when following your brand? I think you should look at:

-Company Name

-Your Product

- Competition

-Your Company Executives (and your competitions)

- Clients

All right now, get out there and see what people are saying about you!

Posted under Blog, New Media, Tips & Tricks

Would you pay good money for:

-Something you can not hold?

-Something you can not touch?

-Something you can not smell?

-Something you can not take with you?

What’s that? No? Me either. Yet we do it all the time. Let us review it in list form, people like lists:

-In Facebook people can give virtual gifts to friends by  paying real money for virtual credits.

-In Second Life people make a living by creating virtual clothes and goods. People also pay real money for virtual land.

-In World Of Warcraft there  is a whole secondary market where people who have set up businesses  selling virtual gold coins to people so they can buy virtual goods in the game.

The list goes on and on… crazy right?

This is bigger then playing games on line or networking with friends. Companies need to start thinking outside the box and starting embracing these new ways that people interact and consume products. Brands need to do more then buy  a commercial on tv, a radio spot, or a print ad. Consumers are more then ever interacting with brands directly and in different ways. People are spending real money on virtual items and spending real time in virtual environments with brands

Lets look at some examples of how companies use virtual goods and worlds to increase brand awareness and/or generate more revue:

- On top of the monthly fees World Of  Warcraft users are spending up to $10.00 extra for a limted edition virtual pet to use in the game. They sold out.

-Facebook users sold out limted edition virtual New York Times newspapers that had the headline of Obama Wins.

-Club Penigun has created its whole business model around kids paying a membership so they can earn virtual coins to buy virtual goods to decorate their virtual homes..(follow that one?) It is so successful Disney bought them. They paid with real money, not virtual.

MTV has created entire virtual worlds around their tv shows. Even though MTV airs the same episodes 8 times a day, users want to spend more time with the brand. They log into a virtual world based on the show. They cant get enough. It is so successful they now have over 5 virtual worlds based on their tv shows.

Wells Fargo Bank create an entire virtual world and active community to help educate youth on banking called StageCoach Island This includes a community site and blog. It has been so successful it has been around for over 2 years.

So have I made my point? Let me say it again. Companies, brands, businesses, etc need to think and market in new ways. Virtual goods and virtual environments is one way to do it. Wheather they are spending money to buy virtual goods that represent a brand or logging into a virtual world to spend more time with the brand, it is another way to build brand loyalty.

Posted under Blog

Thought I would try something different and share what I have been reading, researching, working on, or just excited about.  Since I have been lagging with my Facebook and Twitter posts.  Of course I will do this in list form because people like lists!

-The Social Media Expert Question How do I become a Social Media Expert? I get the question a lot Here is CC Chapman’s response to the term. I thought he nailed it very well

-Do Brands Belong on Twitter? Here is a very different take on the question.  I don’t agree with all his points, especially banning them altogether.  The author makes some great points though.

-10 Tips For Getting New Twitter Followers His tips are excellent and right to the point. Its worth a read.

-General Mills’ Pssst…is a Weak Stab at Branded Community GM gets a gold star for trying, but its a swing and a miss. Trying to build an online community is not as easy as it seems. Check out Paul’s review.

-BlogWorld & New Media Expo Now One Super Huge Event! About time! This is a great move for both! This makes me fired up to go. Some of you may remember my review of New Media Expo , on my other blog. It got some interesting feedback.

-SXSW is coming. Its one of the biggest and the best. Are you going?

-Community 2.0 is a great conference coming up in May 2009 you may want to check out. I am thrilled to be part of it.

Let me know if you like this Week In Review format. If so, I will do my best to keep doing it. It is always good to try something new!

Have  a Great Weekend!

Posted under Blog