Erik Qualman's Blog, page 673

Chicago Book Launch Party 1/5 for Digital Leader

I will be signing copies of my new book Digital Leader at the House of Blues in Chicago on January 5th from 5-7 pm. Thanks to sponsor Brickfish for making this possible. Capacity is limited and we already have 275 confirmed. If you'd like to attend you need to register by clicking here. See everyone in Chicago (bring your scarf!) and thanks for the support of the new book!

[image error]

[image error]

39 Social Media Statistics to Start 2012

A kind and loyal reader reminded me I never posted a list of all the statistics in my Social Media Revolution 3 video which I normally do. Below are the statistics. Happy New Year to all of my readers and thanks for making my newest book Digital Leader already a top seller in 2012!

Stats from Social Media Revolution 3

Over 50% of the world's population is under 30-years-old
In 10 years over 40% of the Fortune 500 will no longer be here
Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
1 in 5 couples meet online; 3 in 5 gay couples meet online
1 in 5 divorces are blamed on Facebook

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
If Facebook were a country it would be the world's 3rd largest and 2x the size of the U.S. population
80% of companies use social media for recruitment; % of these using LinkedIn 95%
A new member joins LinkedIn every second
We don't have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it."
Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of North Korea, Australia, Chile…Israel, Sweden, Greece,
Over 32 million have watched the Volkswagen Darth Vader Kid advertisement on YouTube
Child actor has never seen Star Wars
Ford Explorer launch on Facebook more effective than a Super Bowl Ad
50% of the mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé – some universities have stopped distributing e-mail accounts
69% of parents are "friends" with their children on social media
eReaders have surpassed traditional book sales
Groupon will reach $1 billion in sales faster than any company in history
There were over 75 million more people playing Farmville than there were real Farmers
Social Gamers to buy 6 billion in virtual goods by 2013; movie goers only buy 2.5 million in concessions
The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
While you watch this 100 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube
If Wikipedia were made into a book it would be 2.25 million pages long
Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
25% of search results for the World's Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
Do you like what they are saying about your brand? You better.
90% of consumers trust peer recommendations
Only 14% trust advertisements
Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
90% of people that can TiVo ads do
93% of marketers use social media for business
We will non longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media
Social Media isn't a fad, it's a fundamental shift in the way we communicate
The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years
Babies have been named Facebook in Egypt

Social Media Statistics Sources:

Source: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/broker  http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/wor...  [roughly 52% based on table data] | 2010 U.S. 310,232,863 | 2010 World 6,814,609,654 | 30 and under: 3,548,760,268 / 6,814,609,654 = 52% http://sasweb.ssd.census.gov/idb/worldpopinfo.html
Babson Olin School of Business Advertisement, Fast Company April 2011, page 121. 40% of companies at top of fortune 500 rankings were no longer there in 2010
Source: Huffington Post
Source: Hitwise Intelligence Heather Dougherty http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-dougherty/2010/03/facebook_reaches_top_ranking_i.html
Michael J. Rosenfeld, Stanford University* and Reuben J. Thomas, The City College of New York; Meeting Online: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary,Page 46, http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/february8/rosenfeld-online-dating-02112010.htmlhttp://www.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_How_Couples_Meet_Working_Paper.pdf; Via: Adam Gorlik, "Forget Cupid. Online connections have valentines falling in love, Stanford researcher says," Stanford University News,

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/february8/rosenfeld-online-dating-02112010.html;

1 out of 5 is also supported by Match.com Blog: http://blog.match.com/2010/05/17/stay-up-to-date-introducing-the-official-match-com-blog/
Tony Cooper, "One in Five U.S. Divorces Fueled by Facebook, Social Media, Recent survey by AAML shows Facebook-related antics, extramarital activity burgeoning," San Diego News, http://www.sandiego.com/news/one-in-five-u.s.-divorces-fueled-by-facebook-social-media


Opinion, not a statistic
Source: U.S. Department of Education Study
Facebook and world population data
Source: Jobvite Social Recruitment Survey
LinkedIn press centre and SysComm International
Personal Quote
Source: Twitter & World Population Data [Pulled 4/14/11: Gaga 9.2 million, Bieber 8.8 million, Spears 7.47 million] – note it's not the combined populations of the countries listed
YouTube
Today Show Interview with actor and mom 2/1/11
eMarketer http://www.emarketer.com/mobile/artic...
Source: The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/feb/08/facebook-rise-mobile-web-use
Source: Metro Commuter Newspaper
http://www.mamapedia.com/voices/placeholder-liberty-mutual
Amazon's Kindle E-book Sales Surpass Sales of Paperbacks http://worktogo.blogspot.com/2011/01/amazons-kindle-e-book-sales-surpass.html
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/entrepreneurs-groupon-facebook-twitter-next-web-phenom_3.html
2008 number of US farmers: 1,522,033: http://www.ers.usda.gov/statefacts/us... | 80 million Farmville Users http://www.allfacebook.com/farmville-...
social gamers bought $2.2 billion in virtual goods; Predicted to increase to $6 billion by 2013. (NPD Group) | Movie goers buy less than ½ this in concessions (source: http://www.hoovers.com/movie-theatres...)
Source: TGDaily
Source:  Mashable by Ben Parr http://mashable.com/2010/03/17/youtub...
If Wikipedia were made into a book it would be 2.25 million pages long – that would take you over 123 years to read (50 pages per day x 365 days). (Karen Valby, "I'm Diderot…Bitch.," Fast Company, April 2011, page 106)
Opinion, not a statistic
Source: ClickZ Stats SES Magazine June 8 page 24-25 Chris Aarons, Andru Edwards, Xavier Lanier Turning Blogs and user-Generated Content Into Search Engine Results
Source: Marketing Vox and Nielsen BuzzMetrics SES Magazine June 8 page 24-25 Chris Aarons, Andru Edwards, Xavier Lanier Turning Blogs and user-Generated Content Into Search Engine Results
Opinion, not a statistic
Source: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/global-advertising-consumers-trust-real-friends-and-virtual-strangers-the-most/(90% trust peer recommendations)
Source: "Marketing to the Social Web," Larry Weber, Wiley Publishing  2007
Source: "Marketing to the Social Web," Larry Weber, Wiley Publishing  2007
Source: Starcom USA-TiVo
93% of marketers use social media for businesshttp://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2011/
Opinion, not a statistic
Opinion, not a statistic
Opinion, not a statistic
Socialnomics.com

[image error]

10 Best Entrepreneurs of 2011 Infographic

Will you be one of the top entrepreneurs in 2012? Learn from the below and you can become a Digital Leader!



From: BusinessMBA.org

Also from BusinessMBA.org:

Do a quick search for important entrepreneurs. Do you see any wrinkles on those faces? You sure don't—some of them might even still have baby fat. Inc. does a yearly list of the top 30 entrepreneurs under 30. Business MBA decided to find out how ten of these young adults are making huge impressions on business and on the world.

Matt Mickiewicz, 99designs Co-Founder—27 Years Old

Mickiewicz's business partner, Mark Harbottle, is 37
Founded 2007
Located in San Francisco and Melbourne
27 employees, with plans to double that number over the next year
No official revenue released—"eight figures"
99designs is a hub for businesses to find graphic designers without having to do all the searching themselves
Recent acquisition of Series A funding from venture capitalists Accel Partners—$35 million
According to Matt, the United States is home to 74,000 graphic designers
99designs lists 100,000+ graphic designers
80% of the company's business comes from word-of-mouth
77,000+ projects completed so far

 

Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowski, Dropbox Founders, 28 and 25 Years Old

Founded 2007
Located in San Francisco
50 employees
No official revenue released
Lets users access and share files from nearly anywhere using a file sync cloud
3 months in, landed $7.2 million in funding from venture capitalists and individual investors
The how-to video posted on Digg boosted beta waitlisting from 5,000 to 75,000 people in a few hours
Available in English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese
25 million users
1 million files saved every 5 minutes
Plans up to 100 GB of storage

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, Instagram Founders—25 and 27 Years Old

Founded 2009
Located in San Francisco—Twitter's old office, to be exact
4 employees (yes, 4)
No official revenue released
Allows photo editing in an app, along with location sharing
After it launched in the App Store at midnight on October 6, 2010, Instagram had 10,000 users in just a few hours
Now 7+ million users
150+ million photos uploaded in the first 9 months
1.3 million photos per day
15 photos per second
Flickr didn't even reach 100 million photos until nearly 2 years after launch
16 options for photo editing
$7 million funding from Benchmark Capital
Plans for revenue: paid extra filters, exclusive accounts, advertising

Hussein Fazal and Kristaps Ronka, AdParlor Founders—29 and 24 Years Old

Founded 2008
Located in Toronto, Canada
15 employees
No official revenue released—"tens of millions"
After Facebook's 2007 API, the pair began designing apps for fun
Along the way, they noticed Facebook didn't have any solid ad networks
Ronka dropped out of school as the pair began coding and started AdParlor
One of fewer than 100 companies with access to Facebook's ad API
Over 100,000 ads daily on Facebook
Over 500 million impressions

Alexa Andrzejewski, Soraya Darabi, and Ted Grubb, Foodspotting Founders—27, 27, and 29 Years Old

Founded 2009
Located in San Francisco and New York City
10 employees
No official revenue released
An iPhone app allowing people to search for food by dish, not cuisine, while seeing photographs of the meals and getting the locations of the restaurants serving it
Grubb was a programmer, but knew nothing about app development—so he learned in order to create Foodspotting

He programmed the prototype app in a tent in the wilderness!

In the beginning, Foodspotting was 1 of just 6 location-based apps in the iTunes App Store
$3 million in angel funding after highly successful run at Start-up Weekend in SF
600,000+ foods now "spotted" on the app
101,615+ follows on Twitter
Partnering with The Travel Channel and Zagat

 

Jason Baptiste and Andres Barreto, Onswipe Founders, 25 and 24 Years Old

Founded 2010
Located in New York City
12 employees
No official revenue released
Provides mobile website optimization for all levels of publishers
Content becomes interactive, customizable, "app-like"
Received over $6 million in funding from companies like Spark Capital and Lightbank before platform launched
Invented a WordPress plug-in specially for the iPad
Now, a deal with WP has Onswipe running 18.6 million blogs for iPad
Barreto is also a founder of Grooveshark and PulsoSocial—"TechCrunch for Latin America"

Siamak Taghaddos and David Hauser, Grasshopper Founders—Both 29 Years Old

Founded 2003
Located in Needham, Mass.
50 employees
No official revenue released
A voicemail/call routing system using its own phone number
Began with existing software, but developed their own proprietary software
Plans for all sizes of business: $9.95 to $199.00 per month
Grasshopper Group founded in 2010: will produce many products for entrepreneurs
May 2010: Created and circulated petition for National Entrepreneurs Day

President Obama one-upped them and made National Entrepreneur Week in November

Growth of 1,983% in 2007
Growth of just 5% during the worst part of the recession
However, Grasshopper is due to grow 20% on top of 2010's revenue, with more than $15 million

 

Matthew Corrin, Freshii Founder—29 Years Old

Founded 2005, with seed money from his parents
Based in Chicago, with locations around the world—first location in Toronto
50+ locations in 4 countries—United States, Canada, Austria, and UAE
500+ employees
No official revenue released—est. $50 million
Custom fresh food—salads, soups, wraps, bowls—made affordable
A calorie, fat, sodium, cholesterol and protein counter tallies each online order's total by ingredient
Aim to open 700 more stores—½ corporate, ½ franchise—in the next 5 years
To open a franchise: $30,000 up-front, 6% royalty, 3% advertising fees

Typical start-up fee: $250,000

Corrin had never worked in food service or retail before opening

Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp, Birchbox Founders—27 and 28 Years Old

Founded 2010
Located in New York City
25 employees
Projected revenue for 2011: $7 million
$10 per month for a shipment of 4-5 samples of beauty/cosmetic products to customers' doors
At launch, Birchbox already had 660 members by word-of-mouth!
A beta test e-mail was sent to 40 friends in March 2010—and resulted in a waiting list of about 3,000
Currently about 45,000 members
Just 1 month after launch, $1.4 million seed
Accel Partners and First Round invested
Cosmetic giant Benefit was the first to join the project

Daniel Gomez Iniguez, Solben Co-Founder—20 Years Old

Founded 2009
Located in Monterrey, Mexico
15 employees
Revenue for 2010: $1 million
Projected Revenue for 2011: $3 million
An alternative energy project begun for a high school senior project
Sells technology for making biodiesel out of algae and plants, as opposed to cooking oil or animal fats
2010 GSEA Global Social Impact Award Winner
1st Place Entrepreneur Award 2010 in the Mexican Stock Exchange




[image error]

The Ultimate News Resource Guide to Social Marketing: 55 Top Marketing, Technology and Social Media News, Analysis and Trends Resources

As we embark on 2012, the team at Awareness, Inc. consulted with the best and the brightest in marketing, strategy, technology, business and social media to help us identify the top news, analysis and trends resources for social marketing and social technology.  Our industry is among the most dynamic, with many voices reporting, analyzing and advising on social technology, social media developments, successes, and best practices. To help you navigate the active social news space, we compiled this Ultimate Guide to the Top Marketing, Technology and Social Media Resources.  This guide aggregates resources quoted by leading strategists such as David Meerman Scott, Brian Solis, Erik Qualman, Jason Falls, and Jay Bear, top analysts and influencers Jeremiah Owyang, Debi Kleiman, Laura Fitton, David Berkowitz, brand leaders such as Ekaterina Walter, Michael Pace, and Pam Johnston, and agency visionaries Steve Rubel, Mike Troiano, and Jonas Klit Nielsen in our free report on 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions, to name just a few.  The Ultimate News Resource Guide also contains the collective input from over 300 marketers from a cross-section of industries, company sizes and levels of social marketing experience (we recently polled these marketers for our upcoming annual report on the State of Social Marketing to be published in mid January) and asked them about their top information resources and their sources of inspiration.

Here it is – the 55 Top Marketing, Technology and Social Media News, Analysis and Trends Resources in alphabetical order:

AdAge @adage
AgencySpy @agencyspy
All Things Digital @allthingsd 
Altimeter Group @altimetergroup
Around the Net in Online Media
Around the Net @aroundthedotnet
Awareness, Inc. @awarenessinc
Big Think @bigthink
BoingBoing @BoingBoing
Brian Solis' Blog @briansolis
Bull Dog Daily Reporter @BulldogReporter
Business Insider @SAI
Chris Brogan's Blog @chrisbrogan
Convince & Convert @jaybaer
Customer Collective @yourcustomers
Darwin Awareness Engine Blog @darwineco
Direct Marketing Association @DMASocialMedia
Editors and Publishers @EditorPublisher
eMarketer @eMarketer
Exploring Social Media @JasonFalls
FastCompany @FastCompany
Forrester @Forrester
Gartner @Gartner_inc
Harvard Business Review @HarvardBiz
Jeremiah Oywang  @jowyang
Lifehacker @lifehacker
Mari Smith @MariSmith
MarketingProfs @MarketingProfs
MarketingSherpa @MarketingSherpa
Mashable  @mashsocialmedia
Media Post @MediaPost
MediaGazer @mediagazer
Newsmap @Newsmap
Pulse @pulsepad
ReadWriteWeb @RWW 
Robert Scroble @Scobleizer
SmartBlog on Social Media @SBoSM
SmartBrief on Social Media @SmartBrief
Social Commerce Today @marsattacks
Social Media & Marketing Daily
Social Media Examiner @smexaminer
Social Media Times @socialtimes
Social Media Today @socialmedia2day
SocialMediaMakerting.com @socialROI
Socialnomics @equalman
Summify @summify
TechCrunch.com @techcrunch
Techmeme @Techmeme
The Next Web @TheNextWeb
Trendsmap @Trendsmap
Venture Beat @VentureBeat
WSJ Media Marketing @WSJMedia
WSJ Tech @WSJTech
Wired @wired
Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) @womma

Besides these top resources, today's marketers heavily rely on their Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook feeds to get to the top news and developments in our industry.  You can follow these Twitter lists to easily get the latest from some of the top experts, and from our top resources, listed here. If you are looking for the top CMOs using Twitter, then look no further than this list of Top CMOs on Twitter.  You can also read about how CMOs are engaging with Twitter. And one final Twitter tip – if you want to know when your top journalists are tweeting about your brand or relevant industry terms, use this new handy tool from Muck Rack.

And as David Meerman Scott reminds us, some marketers also get their insights from their peers – they make it a conscious effort to attend industry events and conferences where they get first -hands insights from their colleagues on what works and what's in store next.

Don't be shy – let us know if we missed some of your favorite resources. Experts and marketing leaders you follow not on this list? You have our word – we will update this top list based on your feedback. You can also download our free report 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions, containing insights and predictions from 34 business strategy and marketing experts. Connect with us on Twitter #AwarenessSMM on Facebook at Social Media Marketing Best Practices and Social Media Marketing Mavens Pages or LinkedIn at the Social Media Marketing Mavens Group.

Mike Lewis

@BostonMike

[image error]

Olympic-Size Decision on Social Media for 2012 Games in London

[image error]With the 2012 Summer Olympics just around the corner next summer in London, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has made sure that it gives both officials and athletes a gold medal review of the proper usage of social media before and after the big event.

On the official side, the IOC announced recently those candidates for its next presidential election will be prohibited from using social networks in efforts to lobby their candidacies on the Internet.

The rules, given the go-ahead recently by the IOC executive board, come into play right away and encompass any potential contenders to succeed Jacques Rogge as president in 2013. The deadline for members to enter the race is three months prior to the election, which will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Sept. 10, 2013.

The new ethics code claims that candidates are allowed to turn in a written campaign platform to IOC members, but are prohibited from using the document for any promotional or communications purposes.

The provisions include: "The promotion of a candidature for the IOC presidency shall exclude any form of publicity, including the use of new media or social networks."

According to some reports, many IOC members — aside from the younger athletes' members — do not use Twitter or other social networks anyway, so there may not be a tremendous impact with the social media ban.

Meantime, the IOC released a memorandum of precise social media guidelines for athletes who will be taking part in the Games.

According to the guidelines, athletes are encouraged to blog/tweet regarding their experiences but not 'report'. In this case, that translates into athletes only using the first person when it comes to tweeting or blogging.

According to the IOC, it will monitor each and every social media activity by athletes, and those who fail to comply with social media guidelines could be sanctioned or prohibited from competing.

The guidelines include:

* Any postings, blogs or tweets should be in a first-person, diary type format and should not be in the role of a journalist – i.e. they are barred from reporting on competition or comment on the activities of other participants or accredited persons, or disclosing any details confidential or private in relation to any other person or organization;

* Postings, blogs and tweets must always conform to the Olympic spirit and fundamental principles of Olympism as noted in the Olympic Charter, be dignified and in good taste, and not produce vulgar or obscene words or images.

* Athletes are prohibited from posting any video and/or audio of the events, competitions or any other activities which take place at Olympic Venues.

* Pictures of the athletes themselves or other accredited persons in the Olympic Village can be posted, but if any other persons appear in the photo, their previous permission is required for the person posting such photo.

So, do you think the IOC is doing the right thing in regards to its social media policies for both officials and athletes, or has gone a step too far?

Photo credit: london2012tickets.net

[image error]

5 Mobile Apps to Help Keep Your 2012 New Year Resolutions

Have a list of New Year's Resolutions? Need some help staying organized? Well there's an App for that, of course. It may be easy thinking of resolutions to start in the upcoming new year, especially after the indulgent holidays…but not always as easy staying committed. Check out these Apps to tackle your resolutions a little more smoothly…

1. New Year's Resolution List and To Do's: An app called Resolutions 2012 allows one to record each resolution, identify what needs to be done in order to complete those resolutions (change of behavior, etc), and in turn track success by recording actions taken in the course of the new year. Cool features include being able to set custom motivations and rewards (recall Billy Madison preparing for an exam with his teacher) in order to stay motivated for noted resolutions. Customization is key and this app allows you to use your own photos, and more. For only .99 it may be worth the "splurge."

[image error]

2. Stay Organized with Notes: Ever take notes on one device, say your computer at work, but get home and realize you don't have them on your laptop? It happens to the best of us, but with the help of Evernote, you can worry less and always have all your notes on any of your devices whether it be your multiple computers, tablet or smartphone! Best features include that you can even import emails, pictures from the web, and more. Save it to one device and it automatically saves to your other devices via the cloud. How much easier can it get? Being organized never seemed so sexy, than with Evernote.

[image error]

3. Blog Easily and Frequently: So you have been slacking on your blogging but wish you could do it more easily and under those pesky time constraints. My new favorite way to blog, simply, yet effectively is through Tumblr. It allows you to share valuable content and even while you're on-the-go. Imagine this…you have a great idea, but don't want to wait until you get home to write about it. Write a quick post via your smartphone, have Tumblr post via the mobile app, and have it automatically share to your Facebook Friends/Fans and Twitter followers. Why wait, when it's that easy?

[image error]

4. Document more memories: Speaking of easy and awesome, Instagram allows photo enthusiasts to be unique through their mobile phones. So you're walking through the city and take that perfect picture, add a cool twinge to the background (ex. toasted), then share to your Tumblr blog (See above), which then shares to your Facebook and Twitter. Geeky? Yes. Awesome? Definitely.

[image error]

5. Run those calories off: So now you're organized, on top of your resolution list, got some blogging and memories soaring through the cloud…but what about those pesky few pounds you gained over the holidays? With Runkeeper you can run, walk, bike or whatever suits your fancy. With this nifty GPS app, you can track your distance, calories, burned, and more. And did I mention you can connect it with your social apps so it keeps you accountable?

[image error]

Next step? Download away. And get started! Although there are plenty more apps out there for your resolutions, these may get the inner geek in you started on some pretty nifty, helpful, and inspiring ones. Please feel to share other apps you love in the comments below!

[image error]

Infographic: Every 60 Seconds on the Web

Every 60 seconds there are 100 new LinkedIn Users, 370,000 Skype Calls, 70 new Websites….

[image error] [image error]

2nd Image: Infographic by- GO-Gulf.com Web Design Company

1st Image: Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

 

 

 

[image error]

Best Practices for Engaging the Social Customer from Adam Metz of The Social Customer

On our quest to understand the state of social marketing dynamics, we invited author and marketing strategist Adam Mertz (@theMetz) to share his insights about what's at the heart of social marketing – the social customer.  In his book The Social Customer: How Brands Can Use Social CRM to Acquire, Monetize, and Retain Fans, Friends, and Followers, Adam explains the advantages of socially-minded companies, which proactively manage the social customer. We were excited to have Adam offer an hour-long webinar on the principals covered in his book – watch the webinar here.

Let's start with who the social customer is. Adam defines the social customer as anyone who uses social media at least once a month. Others like Michael Brito (@Britopian) have gone as far as defining six types of social customers.  And if you've read Brian Solis' (@briansolis) recent blogpost The State of Social Marketing 2011-2012, then you know he talks about the social customer as "someone who first goes to their social networks of relevance to learn about products and services".  If you are wondering how many of your current customers are social customers, follow Adam's recommendation and use this free Social Technographics Profile Tool from Forrester Research. Forrester's Josh Bernoff (@jbernoff) and Ted Schadler (@TedSchadler), using methodology they developed in Empowered, have created this free tool to helps brands classify their consumers into seven levels of social technology participation. Brands can easily add demographic data to determine the percentage of social customers they service, along with their customers' corresponding levels of social engagement.

Once you have established the size of your social customer pie, you can then tackle the next step – that of determining if your company is well suited to play the role of a "social object". A "social object" status for a brand is the brand's ability to create content and messages that people can actively discuss, interact with, and share via social media channels. A Lady Gaga song, for example, is viewed as a social object once it's mimicked, re-recorded, and posted to YouTube by thousands of fans.  Brands need to be willing and open to be ogled, "liked" or disliked, or else they may as well stick with their traditional toolset. Here are a few of the "social object" qualifiers brands need to embrace to engage successfully with their social customers (For those interested to learn how to position their company or brand to achieve the social object status, download the first two chapters of The Social Customer for free):

Your company wants to talk directly to your customers one to one
Your company wants to talk to customers on a day-to-day basis
Your company is willing to monitor social conversations and is able to turn them into actionable items, pronto.

If you believe that these qualifiers align with your company and brand, then consider the following use cases that help give your brand the social spark. Adam's work is based closely on the research by Altimeter analyst Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) and Constellation Research CEO R "Ray" Wang (@rwang0) first published in Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management.  Building on their work, Adam defines 23 use cases for social customer relationship management. Here's a peak at Adam's social marketing use cases that will help you to enhance your social customer engagement efforts:

Social Marketing Insight – Build your customer social profile; know where your customers are spending time online.  When integrated into your marketing strategy, this knowledge is invaluable. It allows your marketing team to be incredibly effective by delivering highly targeted messages.
Rapid Social Response – Monitor real-time conversations; make sure that you know what people are saying about your brand. Thanks to social monitoring technology, marketers can monitor the social landscape for hiccups about their brand and triage accordingly.  Adam uses the example of the Bank of America's Google + brand jack incident this past November, where someone created a phony Bank of America account and was posting about "freezing all assets."  This is a great example of why you should be monitoring your brand. Give yourself the opportunity to act quickly and save face.
Social Campaign Tracking – Use social media to test your marketing campaigns or product enhancements. The social customer is often a prosumer – part producer and part consumer, who will offer feedback for free! Polling your Facebook fans could save your company time and money. For instance, marketing agency 360i advised their client Velveeta to poll their customers on two different packaging designs.  The poll generated significantly more activity than their typical posts and ultimately affected Velveeta's design decision
Social Event Management – Enhance attendees experience; by leveraging social technology and platforms, you can help attendees make more connections. Adam's example is Google's Cloud Conference, Atmosphere 2011. This event attracted over 350 CIOs including Flint Waters, CIO of the state of Wyoming, Bryson Koehler, SVP of Global Revenue and Guest Technology at IHG, Michael O'Brien, CIO of Journal Communications, and Christine Atkins, VP of Group IT at Ahold, among others.  These CIOs came together to share business strategies and efficiencies for collaboration in cloud.  The attendees kicked off the conference by downloading an app, which asked a few questions around specific connection preferences. The app then matched people and let them connect with each other on-premise. Be useful by focusing on the needs of your customers, use face time most effectively to make lasting connections.
Social "Pull-Through" – Empower your customers to fight for your brand; it's all about supply and demand and a happy social customer will become your brand ambassador, influencing your partners, suppliers and prospects.

To get the full advantage of Adam's insights, watch the webinar here.  You can also visit Adam's blog, where he provides tools and offers free classes, audio chapters, and more. To add to your understanding of the social customer and get additional insights on how to best engage them, you may also consider the following resources: Here's What People are Looking at on Facebook Brand Pages for insight on how consumers look at brand pages; How to Turn Fans into Brand Ambassadors to learn techniques on how to empower your social customer to promote your brand, and The Rise of the Social Consumer and the State of Social Marketing 2011-12 to learn about the current state of the social consumer and their decision making styles.

How do you engage your social customer? Do you have a prosumer success story?  Have you caught a phony in real time? Has your social following paved the way for a product? Let's continue the discussion in the comments below, on Twitter at hashtag #EngageAwareness, on Facebook at Social Media Marketing Best Practices, or LinkedIn at the Social Media Marketing Mavens Group.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a healthy and prosperous New Year,

Mike Lewis

@Bostonmike

 

 

 

 

[image error]

Tebow Fans Slam HBO & Mayer over Idiotic Tweet

[image error]

Tim Tebow Tebowing

Tim Tebow's fans jumped to his defense following Bill Maher's scathing tweet of Tebow's subpar performance over the Christmas weekend . Tebow threw four interceptions in the Broncos' defeat to the Bills. Bill Maher tweeted this about the religious NFL quarterback.

"Wow, Jesus just [screwed] #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere … Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler "Hey, Buffalo's killing them." Bill Maher Tweet.

HBO's Maher is a proud atheist. Eric Bolling of Fox News called Maher "disgusting vile trash," among other things.

Tebow didn't bother responding to Maher, but plenty of his fans did. Some called for a mass cancellation of HBO subscriptions over the offensive tweet. HBO hosts "Real Time with Bill Maher."

Tebow is so popular that "Tebowing" has become a  popular recreation. Similar to "planking" individuals have their pictures taken in unusal locations while kneeling in a Tebow-esque position (see below).

My newest book - Digital Leader - released this week discusses how to be a positive force of good . It behooves you and society to be more of a leader like Tim Tebow and less like Bill Mayer.

[image error]

Tebowing: An individual "Tebowing" on a busy street

 

[image error]

Social Marketing: The Spokes to the American Cancer Society Hub, Interview with Karen Rose

I recently connected with Karen Rose, Social Media Strategist for the National Home Office of the American Cancer Society (ACS), based in Atlanta, GA, as part of our interview series on effective use of social media in driving thought leadership, awareness and lead generation. Awareness could not be more excited to be the social media marketing platform partner of choice for ACS – there are a few national brands that have elevated their social media presence and engagement to the ACS levels.  It was great to get a deeper perspective on ACS' approach to Social Reach (read about key social marketing success metrics in our free eBook The Social Funnel: Driving Business Value with Social Marketing), their take on the increasing importance of social marketing, and ACS' unique ability to listen, engage and educate their passionate followers.

A bit of social media overview for ACS first.  Besides their National Home Office, there are 12 regional divisions of ACS, each managing their social marketing independently, with social media agendas and strategies of their own. At the National Home Office level, ACS uses primarily Facebook, with its Fan Page counting close to 250,000 members, and Twitter approaching 200,000 followers. ACS can be found on MySpace and too. The ACS team actively publishes content which includes supporting multiple blogs such as Dr. Len's Cancer Blog, authored by Dr. Lichtenfeld, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the National Office of the ACS, Expert Voices, authored by experts who discuss timely cancer topics, and the Choose You blog, encouraging women  to put their own health first.

I started by asking Karen about ACS' social philosophy and the role social plays in the organization's overall marketing mix. ACS has embraced the social web as one of their most impactful marketing channels – "we really just need to be where the people are", Karen put it simply. Karen and her team started to track conversations about cancer in the "early" days of social media. They quickly realized there was a lot of inaccurate information and misconceptions about cancer being published and shared on a daily basis. "Our team had to intervene", Karen shares with passion, "we needed to provide sound medical advice and offer ACS's vetted resources to help patients and their loved one cope with the disease".

It is not surprising that Karen and her team are maniacally focused on responsiveness. "We use the Awareness social marketing hub and have incorporated our national call center with the Hub now", comments Karen. ACS monitors discussions on their Facebook and Twitter channels 24/7- yes, including nights, weekends, and holidays. By listening to conversations and responding to people in real time, ACS can influence discussions and direct people to the variety of ACS web resources where information and advice are vetted and clinically sound.

"We want to inform people about the many ACS resources we have so they can stay well and get well ", continues Karen. ACS's goal is to inform and educate about screenings, guidelines, support groups, and medical resources. "ACS uses social as the spokes of our hub to pull people back to our web properties", comments Karen.

It was quite revealing to hear Karen talk about ACS' selection of social media platforms and their strategy for building presence on social networks such as Facebook.  The ACS main Facebook Fan page –  American Cancer Society, focuses on cancer, cancer-related topics, survivorship, and care giving, and serves primarily as an information and educational resource.  Other nationally managed Facebook Fan pages, such as Making Strides Against Breast Cancer and Relay For Life, are event-based. The Relay For Life Fan page, backed by over 110,000 passionate followers, exists in support of a fun-filled overnight event, celebrating survivorship, and to raise money for research and various programs coordinated by ACS. The ACS More Birthdays Facebook page, with over 300,000 Fans, was created to celebrate birthdays and  survivorship. The Choose You Fan page is directed towards women, who want to have their own conversation about prevention. ACS' approach to building multiple targeted pages on social networks such as Facebook based on users' needs and passions was validated as a best practice in our recent analysis of over 100 customers using the Awareness social marketing publishing platform. Our analysis showed that best-in-class companies have at least 13 Facebook Fan pages and 10+ Twitter accounts, allowing them to better target the needs of niche communities (you can download our free eBook The Social Funnel: Driving Business Value with Social Marketing for more details).

With such deep and engaging presence, I asked Karen to share some of ACS' social successes.  One of the most impactful campaigns for them is a  More Birthdays campaign, which started a few months ago. ACS had several artists and musicians create special art pieces, music and videos, to help ACS followers celebrate birthdays. The artists' collective body of work was then used to create "Happy Birthday" messages delivered to cell phones and as e-cards. The campaign became so popular that a number of fans responded by submitting their own "Happy Birthday" video responses. "The reaction and sharing of these video messages is phenomenal", comments Karen. This viral response prompted the More Birthdays team to launch a user-generated artwork contest, including song and video submissions, with the winner to be featured on the More Birthdays Facebook page next to the established artists. At the time of the interview, the contest was still underway, but based on the initial response and number of submissions, I can tell this campaign is off to an amazing start. Karen attributes the success of the campaign to the fact that ACS has given their audience a great outlet to share their stories. "The More Birthdays campaign opened it up for people to allow them to honor a loved one or tell their story". And in the process, every video and artwork was connected to an aspect of work being done by the American Cancer Society, tying birthday songs to important cancer facts. "In a sense, we have empowered our followers to help us tell our organizational story", continues Karen. "This can be truly powerful and long-lasting".

Karen's advice to today's hesitant Chief Marketing Officers who are still not sure social is relevant for their organization? "Do it", she says," People are out there, they are talking about your brand, they want to interact with you," she adds. "It's important to be there to represent yourself and your organization the way you want to be represented."

So to any of your marketing skeptics, we join Karen and her team in saying: do it, embrace social to its full potential.  Empower your customers to share their stories and see how they weave your own brand DNA into them.  And for those of you who actively use social in your marketing – please don't be shy.  Share your successes with us and our community of savvy social marketers by commenting on this blog, on Twitter, Facebook at Social Media Marketing Best Practices and in our LinkedIn Social Media Marketing Mavens Group.

Mike Lewis

@Bostonmike

 

[image error]