BIZTECHBUZZ in the world of social, cognitive, IoT and startups

Month: December 2009

My 10 Social Media Resolutions for 2010!

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?

Blog like Steve Jobs?!

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.

World Brand Congress — In Mumbai India

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

The meeting was unlike any that I have been to before! The award evening brought people from multiple countries. It was jazzy and focused on the value of marketing. The energy was enough to last a year!

There were some great sessions including the use of Radio in India (millions and millions of listeners!) and other sessions included Brand Valuation, top trends in consumers in India, and marketing in the down economy!

Interesting on consumer trends in India! Here are the top 10 that I took down and it is interesting to see how many are relevant WW not just in India!

  • Sandwich: Today’s generation is caught taking care of kids and parents
  • Focus on what’s best for their children. not that the cost of school for one child increased at 2x the rate of inflation in India with some families spending over 50% of their income on education.
  • Age as an identify. “60 is the new 16”
  • “I” dentity switching to “E”dentity with the new focus on social media.
  • “me” culture
  • Self perservation
  • Time is #1 currency
  • No frills chic
  • Having enough is always ahead of you!
  • Don’t share kids lives, they live it!

A Big thanks to Dr R.L Bhatia who was a wonderful host of the conference! Thank you for your honor that you bestowed on me as the brand leader of the year along with my peers! It was amazing!

Americans Consume 34 Gigabytes of Information per day

I was reading CRUNCHGEAR.COM.

The article I was intrigued by was about all the information that we consume. It was put together by the Global Information Industry of the University of California at San Diego.

It was based on 2008 data, exploring US consumers and consumption of social media data as well as TV , newspapers, etc. The key take aways for me were:

1. Americans consume about 34 Gigabytes of information a day.

2. We spend about 12 hours a day

3. Old media (TV, newspaper etc) makes up 60% of the information.

4. The average person spends 2 hours a day on the computer (ummmm….)

5. 100,000 words are read each day.

 

 

 

 

Q interactive study – Virtual Gifting

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.