Year: 2009 (Page 1 of 7)

So here I am, watching the beautiful snow fall and closing out 2009. Of course, I always do my New Year’s resolutions. As a family, we share ours and, of course, support each other in achieving the goals.

So for 2010, with all of you as my Social media family, I invite you to join me sitting at the fireplace for my Social media resolutions for this New Year.

1. Focus on my Tweeter associations. My holiday reading included blogs about how strong relationships were formed over social channels. Thus this goal: Pick out and strengthen 10-15 of my strongest relationships  from Twitter over the next year. Want to join me?

2. Really strengthen my Facebook presense. I love Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Flickr, but I never really talk about Facebook or leverage it. This year, I am going to find a great use for my Facebook page and presence. This B2B maven welcomes your suggestions.

3. Experiment with the new trends in social media, such as location-based services.  Given that things such as BriteKite and Foursquare might become breakout hits in 2010, I will experience location-based services. And I hope that these become integrated into Twitter, LinkedIn, and   yes, even Facebook.

4. Strengthen my content on blogs and tweets. Content is queen, and I want to deliver more and better content to all of you. This includes my content in keynotes and sessions such as those coming up at BlogHer and WITI 2010.

5. Give back through sharing more of my social media experiences. I was just on the phone with Carolyn Leighton, President of WITI, and Michelle Price, Social Media Maven. They shared with me trends on women wanting social media skills but needing training. Over Christmas, I taught my dad how to use Twitter, and a light bulb went off. I want to bring more people into using Social media with an ROI attitude, so I will train more people who want to use these tools.

6. Increase my use of the cool new WordPress features. With new features such as the Affiliate and Squeeze themes, learning how to make this blog even stronger. I love WordPress and just need the time to do more.

7. Write another book . I am just beginning, but I will share more my Social media more widely (closely related to resolution #5).

8. Leverage all tools in my social media tool box for my new IBM role as leader of Software Group Partners. I am pulling together my social media plan now to drive more connections and ease of use, as well as sales linkage for my partner community. New territory, for sure.

9. Start a series on my blog with other top SMEs (subject matter experts). I will start this in January and have a great line-up planned. What companies would you like to see featured and what leaders would be good to interviewe here? Do you know someone I should focus on? How about you?

10. Talk to members of the Digital Generation and learn more about how they think. For them, social media is life . I want to see more about how they use  sites and content and how they think. My cousin only sends texts; my dad is now on twitter. This is ageless and timeless, and I need to learn more about its potential.

I want to hear from you on this one. What did I miss? Will you help me meet these goals?

So I have been hooked on some of the videos on Sell like Steve Jobs, Pitch like Steve Jobs, etc.  So I decided I would do Blog Like Steve Jobs!

• Sell dreams, not products … It’s important to have great products, of course, but passion, enthusiasm and emotion will set you apart.
• Create Twitter-like headlines … If you can’t describe your product or service in 140 characters, keep refining.
• Introduce the antagonist … great brands and religions have something in common: the idea of vanquishing a shared enemy. Creating a villain allows the audience to rally around the hero–you.
• Stick to the rule of three … the human brain can only absorb three or four “chunks” of information at any one time …
• Strive for simplicity … It’s difficult to find 10 words on a dozen Apple slides. Most of Steve Jobs’ slides are visual–photographs or images … Jobs tells the Apple story; his slides complement the story …
• Reveal a “Holy Smokes” moment … There is always one moment in a Steve Jobs presentation that is the water cooler moment … These showstoppers are completely scripted ahead of time … everyone who watched it–and those who read about–seem to recall …
• Share the stage … Your audience craves variety. Give it to them. They also want to see teamwork. Show it to them.

On Nov 4-5, I was at the World Brand Congress! It was held in Mumbai at the great Taj Lands End Hotel. The World Brand congress is a group of some of the best marketing brains that gather from all over the world. Check it out here!

http://www.worldbrandcongress.com/index.html

I was reading CRUNCHGEAR.COM.

Q Interactive’s just-released study of 2,000 women and their use of virtual gifting and virtual goods.

Key findings include: 57 % believe virtual gifting is as meaningful as real life gifting Women are “actively engaging with brands” through virtual goods Respondents enjoy the presence of virtual goods during social gaming Furthermore, 74 % of women started using social applications and virtual goods because they saw or heard about a friend playing.

I thought you’d be very interested in this, if you have not seen it already. It has fascinating statistics on the ubiquity and implications of social media today!

As I have traveled around the world, I am seeing the following top Social Media Trends. I’d love your thoughts on these as core topics! I call them my crazy 8’s!

1) Mobility and social networking are biggest (most influential and highly visible) emerging trends related to Internet usage. The bar is now set as basic communications like voice or internet access and other than voice growing faster outside the US as far as I can see. The US runs the risk of being left behind in this core market since growth of mobility and user expectations are being set outside of the US!!! Safety and security are large reasons why the up-and-coming Tweens users are increasingly accessing mobile devices since their view security and privacy issues in social media environments.

I predict that key to mobile, social networking, and cloud will be security, and location based services like I saw in Japan. As walking downtown Tokyo, my cell lit up with coupons and offers based on stores I passed. Location awareness will increase in importance with the rise of mobile Internet and mobile social networking applications.

2) Social media is on the rise especially outside the US. Some of the most rapidly growing countries are South Korea, Brazil and the Philippines. In fact, when the power went out in Brazil, I used Twitter to find out what happened and if my hotel had a generator. In general, there is a youth movement driving much of the initial mobile Internet and social networking usage (particular in mature markets).

3) Mobile-friendly websites are required to leverage the power of the mobile Internet. Pictures are worth a 1000 words and therefore online video has a meaningful impact on purchase decisions. I believe the future of video is on mobile devices.   Most of the world is ahead of the US in mobile.  (P.S. I’d love some social mobile case studies!)

4) Continuation of a focus on relationship.   The best in class companies will not place the focus of social media on the bottom line revenue but focus instead on building relationship and continuous improvement. One of the biggest influences on purchases will continue to be colleague word of mouth — which as we know, grows exponentially with social media.  I see countries like India and China will a focus on this relationship element vs just ROI. 

5) WorldWide,  I continue to hear the biggest fear from all size companies on how to protect their company’s brand. Reputation management is an increasingly important trend.  Social media drives concerns related to brand management as well as implications for personal information.

6) Resume 2.0. And speaking of personal information, I think that the majority of resumes will be links to facebook, linkedin, podcasts, youtube, etc. The U.S. is leading this trend right now but I see other countries following.

7) Keep up the pace with search engine optimization. I predict that search engine optimization will continue to evolve. For instance, twitter will be searchable and will impact the search ratings and more changes will be coming WW.  I see this impact changing the way companies in multiple countries do business.

8) Cross pollination will accelerate in the future starting in the US first. In the future, there will be more linkage between social media tools. Using Twitter to drive reads of blogs, LinkedIn to facebook, for example… add the blog link application so your posts are prominently displayed on your LinkedIn profile.

So this is my view from visiting about 58 countries.  What did I miss?

“Wake The Beast” — OK, well, I just got around to writing this since my trip to Ireland a month ago!!!

I think the Honda Civic campaign called “Wake The Beast” is super cool!

Did you see it?   It was launced in Ireland — where I just was for a meeting in Dublin with partners!  I saw it on a  large billboard featuring Honda Civic R image with a tagline  ‘Wake the Beast’.
The beauty of this campaign is that people can  send a sms message “Text START to the short code 51500″ to start interactions with the bill board advertisement, this call to action (sending sms) will trigger the lights on the car to light up and smoke to billow from the exhaust of the car on the poster while user gets a link to Honda Civic R Mobile website so they can browse for more information and can receive the ring tone of engine roar.

Below is the video showing, how people can interact with the billboard display:

This is social media at its Max!   It is a way to ENGAGE the user, CONNECT with the texter, and CREATE a new image for Honda!

I love it!