Social Business Sandy

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

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Diving in Bonaire: 5 lessons of the coral reef & the Social Ecosystem! #ibmsocialbiz #socbiz

February 27, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Last week I was on vacation and finally got to dive in Bonaire!  We went with Bob from http://vipdiving.com!  They were great.  Even though I had a back injury, they helped me tremendously to dive safe and took us to 2 amazing dive sites!!!  I’d highly recommend them to you!!!!

So what did we see on these dives?   I saw tons of turtles, eels, barracuda, flounder, and colorful coral reef.    But my favorite was a first for my dives … I saw my first seahorse there!  He was a bit red, cool, and incredible.   Though I didn’t get a pic, here’s one from a pro that looks just like my sea horse!!!

Bonaire-CJE-2011-13603-Seahorse

YEA!!!!

But while I was diving I was thinking about the social ecosystem!!  (Folks like Dachis, Jeremiah Owyang in the past have done the same!!!)

A few of my thoughts:

  1. What I saw:   Seahorses hanging on for dear life like … many companies struggling with Social.   They cling to the past.   We need to see that social is now a part of the business system.  I’d love to help you embrace it!
  2. What I saw:    Schools of fish being chased like…consumers banding together in communities, being chased by companies!
  3. What I saw:     My guide searching for fish we had not seen like... companies approaching social in a focused way.   Adding value, searching not for the masses but those consumers that matter to their business.
  4. What I saw:      Tons of turtles having fun in the sea but working hard too.  (Did you know that that marine turtles actively, and intentionally, remove algae from coral reefs)  like:  a great social analytics engine to remove the “stuff” that doesn’t matter, and helps you identify what does!
  5. What I saw:    Lots of color and coral formed overtime like a great community platform (IBM Connections!) that enables the different social networks to form!  These tools are important and the security they provide enhances results!

Yes, I know many of you ask “do I ever stop thinking about Social?”   Ummmmm….no!!!

IBM’s Partnerworld is TODAY! Why should small businesses care about #socbiz?! #ibmsocialbiz

February 26, 2013 / / 2 Comments

Today I am in Las Vegas with a group of great partners and will be involved in a Social Business Boot camp for and all there!

Here are some interesting reasons why I am so passionate about helping my partners with social!

  • Did you know that 90% of small businesses are on Facebook, and roughly two-thirds post more than once per week?  Yet, only a quarter of all U.S. small businesses (20-99 employees) and a third of midsized companies say they use social media “to engage with customers and prospects in a strategic and structured way.” Another 20% of both groups say they use social media, but in an ad hoc manner. (eMarketer)
  • More than 80% of small to midsized businesses (SMBs) plan to increase their use of social media in 2013. Not suprising, considering that 87% of SMBs say that social media has helped them either somewhat or a great deal in th past year. Of those using this channel, social media accounts for 32% of SMB marketing activities. (Marketing Charts)
  • Still, not every small business should be using social media—or at least not using it as they are currently. 79% of small business owners on Twitter post just once per day or even less frequently, yet one out of three want to spend less time on social media. These business owners would be best advised to either spend their time on other tactics or hire someone who knows and enjoys social media to interact on their businesses’ behalf. No deposit, no return. (Leaders West)
  • Meanwhile, 55% of small businesses have a blog. (Leaders West)
  • Despite the growing popularity of local mobile search and social activity, only 3% of U.S. small businesses use geolocation services. (eMarketer)
  • Mobile marketing is “becoming mainstream” for small to midsized businesses (SMBs). 18% said they were “very likely” and 31% “somewhat likely” to incorporate mobile elements in their advertising and marketing efforts to reach potential customers in the coming year. Meanwhile, 7 in 10 plan to either maintain or increase spending in this area (Marketing Charts)

We will share our best practices on all of these areas So MoLo

  • Mobile
  • Social
  • Geolocation

Interested in this coming to you!  Let me know!

Social Tip of the Day! What is Social Currency! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ibmpartners

February 22, 2013 / / 2 Comments

What is Social Currency?  n. Value earned from the exchange of positive human interactions.  Usually measured by Trust.

trust

“Social currency” is replacing information as a key power driver of change.   The concept of earned influence is more powerful than paid elements like advertising.   Trustworthiness
is demonstrated by

  • Following through on commitments
  • Congruence in words and deeds – walking the talk
  • Acting with integrity and honesty at all times

Trust earns your Social Currency.   Remember social is about a relationship, not a broadcast or technology.   

My recommendation is that you take your great relationship skills online.  Focus on conscious, purposeful, mindful approach to managing relationships.  Relationship is 2-way!  So talk and listen, but listen first!!!

Ways to listen: 

  • Tweet scan
  • Friend feed
  • Technorati
  • Backtype
  • Boardtracker
  • Google Alerts
  • Google Blog Search
  • Talkdigger
  • Bloglines

What’s your social currency?

Coach — Crowd Sourcing with Social Media – Know of anyother great examples?

July 23, 2009 / / 3 Comments

The Coach team crowd sourced its product development of a Tote while holding onto to their brand.  I heard from Vanessa Flaherty, Jamie Dicken, and Stephanie Rohlfs on Coach at BlogHer!

.

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A Simple, crowd sourced campaign.

Coach wanted to reach a new and younger market. They wanted to engage the younger generation in a new way. They wanted the consumer to put their DNA onto the next bag. They launch a “design the next Coach tote” contest. It was a completely viral campaign. They received 3200 entries in less than 6 weeks.

People were spending the whole night on designing bags. They replaced focus groups with the natural language. They were about the distribution not the destination. They wanted everyone to use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. It traveled across 8000 URLs in 6 weeks.

BrickFish’s Viral Map:

Key bloggers wrote about the contest. There were over 30 blogs that constantly commented on it . The image was that Coach Cared about what their clients wanted. Brickfish Tracked a viral map of each entry and where all the interactions happened with the brand.

They generated over 6M customer images over 6 weeks! On average people spent 7 minutes on the site and each person influenced over 1,729 people with the viralness of the campaign.

Coach was brave in the way they allowed people interacted with the brand. They ended up on the front page of Google.

They sold out this bag in all stores (small runs!) and the designer’s name is inside the bag itself!

Is this long lasting?

Is this novelty or long lasting? I think that people like to co create. We are now in the Generation C world. Generation C is different than the baby boomers, and gen x. Generation C wants to co create, collaborate, etc. I think this will become more important important in fact, perhaps being the primary form of product development.Others doing this?

Do you know of other co creation case studies?

  • IBM with development of its WebSphere sMash product.
  • NFL football on their advertising.
  • aDiasas on their viral campaign with University students
  • WD40 on their work on a product for women.

Check it out here!

http://www.brickfish.com/fashion/Coach?tab=overview

BlogHer — Fiskar’s Use of Fiskateers!!! Great social networking case study!

July 23, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Fiskars! 360 year old brad is the second case study at BlogHer. Three talented women spoke: Angela Daniels,
Carrie Woodward, and Suzanne Fanning

How did social media start at Fiskars? They started with what do people think of when they think of the brand Fiskars. They wanted to build an emotional bond with Fiskars.

They decided to go after the passion about scrapebooking and sharing their lives. Fiskars used Brains on Fire to find 5 people that are passionate about scrapebooking. It was kind of like like American Idol!

They found 5 top women and brought them up to Fiskar to teach them about Fiskar’s products. They met with all the key folks there and they were able to “play” with the materials for scraping! We got to see our business through their eyes. These women were so excited to see the building, the development, and it was that moment of seeing their excitement that I knew we had done the right thing!

Now, they paid their advocates because of the amount of time they would spend on this project of blogging about the Fiskars products. They paid them for 20 hours, but they loved it so much they did more than 80 hours. They were clear in their disclosure on the blog itself. They are not paid to positively blog about the company. They are paid to plan contests, crafts, and projects.

Interesting point to this case study. They created Fiskar- Teers! They gave these cool and different scissors — so that even when someone didn’t want to talk about the Social Network and Blogs on Fiskar, people would ask…where did you get those scissors? (Note over 60K comments about the coolness of the scissors!!)

The Fiskateer site launched in 2006! They wanted 200 people to talk about their products. They had 200 within the first 24 hours. 1100 by the end of 2006 and today they have over 6417 active Fiskateers — 70 countries and all 50 States!!!

Gallery of pictures gets 11K comments, and 7K uploads of pictures of the work itself.

Fiskar increased their brand image a lot! 600x mentions in other sites outside their own site!!! WOW!

Fiskar started this as a PR action. However, now they use the information in product development, marketing, and service and support.

Another great case study! Stores that had Fiskar participants had 3x the sales for the company!!

They are using as well in some of their other areas. Examples included teacher community but not a special group.

Their best advice…they did this from the grassroots effort. They did a countdown to the FiskarTeer launch! They had 24K visits in the first day! What did they do to get people there? They did a grass roots effort. They reached out to those who were excited about their program.

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