Who do you listen to?

Social media is you and me!

Users consume it, define it and shape its future.

We learn by doing, gain “street cred” and share the experience.

WOM is not just about talking and making some noise! WOM is also about listening and believing! Are you the opinion leader in your group of friends? Who listens to you? Who believes what you say? Who do you listen to?

WOM is the way people gather information they can use to make decisions because it comes from others like them, people who they trust.

All it takes is one: one person to embrace that idea / product or service and believe that by sharing it with others like him / her will help others.

Before you know it a movement is created and others will follow – provided the leader has the right attitude – and soon enough a tribe is formed.

Generally speaking new ideas that challenge the status quo are rarely met with enthusiasm. They will, for the most part, be dismissed or ridiculed. It’s up to the leader to keep the flame burning and get “true followers” who will spread the word and make it all worthwhile. The followers, won’t do it for the leader or the movement, they’ll do it for their friends, family etc because they believe that an idea can help THEM!

Think of Twitter at its very beginning! Few believed in it and many did not see its purpose, classing it as “a waste of time” which will not provide opportunities or advantages for either individuals or businesses (nothing beyond the trivial status update that helps you keep in touch).

The market then shifted dramatically and Twitter is now a profitable platform for many businesses and freelancers, where they can leverage the Marketer-to-Consumer, Consumer-to-Consumer and Business-to-Business interactions within the context of a marketing objective.

In March 2009, at the SXSW, Foursquare was launched and the online world has seen similar reactions to this as have been experienced with Twitter in the past.

However, users are embracing it, proving once again the power of WOM and peer influence!

And Foursquare is leading the movement seeing a big increase in both the number of users and businesses using the service.

And now Foursquare has gone global. It will be interesting to follow how the use of this game based social network platform will evolve and how businesses will harness its power to build a brand and engage in the conversation with consumers.

Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare or any other social media platform out there, it all boils down to how much you listen and how you use what others are saying to continue the conversation and keep them engaged.

Using social media to tackle climate change issues

The United Nations Climate Change Conference is due to taking place, between the 7^th and the 18^th of December 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark and the online world has been buzzing with numerous news, articles, blogs, tweets and Facebook updates regarding climate change. Chances are you either received or seen a plea for signing an online petition which, presumably, will make a positive difference in the actions will the world leaders take on the matter of climate change.

Listed below are some of the, possibly, best known “calls to action” and some statistics on their online presence:

Initiative Description		fans	followers
On the 15th of October, bloggers around the world wrote about the issue of climate change in a unified attempt to raise awareness on the seriousness of the subject.They’ve all reached an incredible 18,085,076 readers!	13, 605 blogs registered from 156 countries	53	5,634
On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history	+ 5,200 worldwide events + 22,000 submitted photos	65,268	12,054
“the world’s biggest, most diverse mandate – showing our leaders that the world is ready for a bold climate deal in Copenhagen”	10,505,591	14,280	4,470
“the petition will serve as a reminder that our leaders must negotiate a fair, balanced and effective agreement in Copenhagen (…) that will benefit all nations and people”	438,681	10,249	12,877
Vote to add more weight to the worldwide mandate for positive action against global warming.	1,229,023 Votes in 207  countries	101,768	19,391

At first glance it all seems very impressive: over 10 million people expressed their support for this cause!

From the safety and warmth of our homes, sitting comfortably in front of a computer!

Dare I ask, how will this “passive digital activism” have an impact on what the leaders of the world will decide?

Are online petitions and social media tools truly effective in the attempts of organisations or individuals to gain support / fight for a cause?

The only example that I could dig up so far, was a group on Facebook that had a real contribution in the cancellation by the UK government of the vote on concealing MPs’ expenses. More than 10,000 people joined the group and sent thousands of emails to MP’s about this matter. The group stirred the online waters quite a bit and managed to get some media coverage.

I would love to know if there are cases out there where this type of approach triggered the change desired by those who “signed” the petitions or joined groups on social networking platforms. If you do have such an example, please do share it with the rest of us!

However, despite the fact that I’m basically saying that “seeing is believing”, I also feel that this type of online engagement in social causes (whatever they may be) can have a positive impact in terms of creating awareness and changing some aspects of our lives, by simply empowering or, perhaps, inspiring individuals to make a change themselves. And I think Patrick Ball – Director of Human Rights Program, Benetech perfectly described this issue by saying:

Internet plays a critical, amplifying role in any production, idea that has to get to the world

And if Sami Ben Gharbia, Advocacy Coordinator, Global Voices Online is right in saying that

Empowering the individual to make changes won’t change the world but it is changing some aspects of our lives,

then I’m asking you:

How do these campaigns influence you in taking action?

What do political campaigns, film endings and social media strategies have in common?

Traditional media is not gone, but it is no longer efficient on its own. When magazines require companies to commit to an ad six months in advance, from the time you design your ad to when it’s finally out there for the public to see, you run the risk of sending the wrong message because the environment around your industry has changed. This can be because of economic factors, competitors’ offerings or any other change in your customers’ purchase and decision making behaviour.

Social media has obviously revolutionised the way companies interact and engage the customer, in that it offers a chance to engage in conversation with the customer in real time.

Running a social media campaign is a lot like running a political campaign. It needs to be monitored on a day by day or week by week basis, while constantly changing the message, adapting to the changes happening in the world of the customer, talking to the them while they’re making the purchase decision and watching what the competition is doing and engage in a coordinated effort to differentiate the offering.

At a recent conference I have attended, James Whatley of 1000heads said it’s important to put a real human message behind your social media efforts (or any marketing efforts for that matter). Make your message relevant to the customer and don’t end your story like the average love story film: boy meets girl / girl meets boy, they go through a series of unfortunate events that keep them apart, they come to their senses at the end of it and kiss to suggest that they’re finally together. The END!

Is it really? Seems to me this is only the beginning!

So when you do meet / engage / get a confidence vote from your customer just let them know that all the efforts you both went through to get to this point are just the beginning of the journey.

How does your story unfold?

Traditional artists and the online presence

The Art Fair 09 RDS took place this weekend. If you had a chance to visit you probably saw over 100 galleries and artists showcasing their works. All in all it was a good day out and a great event to familiarise yourself with artists (national and international) and different painting styles, ranging from traditional landscaping to abstract and experimental works. For those looking to buy art it certainly was the place to be this weekend with plenty of art pieces to choose from and prices for all pockets.

Leaving the actual event aside, though, I was surprised to see that most artists present at the event (not including galleries) were doing so little to promote themselves and spark an interest in their work.  I’ll highlight some of the things I’ve noticed:

• a handful of artists were interacting with the visitors stopping by their stands
• possibly around four or five present had more than a business card or a brochure to make their art known.
• I’ve seen one digital photo frame displaying images of their works and one or two laptops with an interactive gallery display
• most of them had “guest / visitor logs” on the tables or chairs; however very few made any use of them and apart from that they were not accessible requiring visitors to bend in order to reach down and fill in their comments
• two or three artists had a prize draw or some contest for visitors, in order to get them involved in their creative process or just to make them aware of their existence and out of those, only one interacted vividly with the visitors to attract exposure
• what was most surprising was that a great number of artists present (again not including galleries) only had an email address and a phone number on their business cards or brochures, that were left laying passively on the tables.

Apart from the obvious lack of interaction, which I would presume visitors would have enjoyed, do you notice anything missing?

The cards, brochures and flyers were missing any sort of online presence, be it a website address, a profile on social networking websites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Bebo) or a presence on an online art community (such as cgsociety.org, deviantArt.com, conceptart.org, behance.net) account or even a blog.

No longer is there a predefined path to access artist, they can take ownership of creating their own path through online tools (most of which they have complete control over, as opposed to being affiliated to a gallery and being obliged by the T&C of that gallery).

Galleries are only one venue to showcase art.

Placing works in coffee shops and restaurants may work too, but I feel it can never hurt to have a website next to your work. The coffee shop’s patrons may be in a hurry and just getting a coffee on their way to work – having an easy to read and to remember website address may just do the trick if they liked one of the works. As with any other product or service, I believe that making it convenient for the customer and easy to access you increase your chances of success.

I’ve met this brilliant artist yesterday, who paints the most extraordinary watercolour pieces about “the past in an attempt to define the present in sharp relief”. The canvases he uses are huge (some are 165 by 240 cm) and his paintings are inspired from “archaeology, pre-history and ancient art” as he defines his paintings on a simple flyer. His name is Adam White and the only way I could find him online was by entering the email address he had on a flyer he gave me. And I only find him here. To say that his presence, his very existence as an artist is at this time underexposed, is simply an understatement.

The internet has facilitated contact and promotion by removing the gateways between talented individuals and the world. The online tools, such as image blogging, can not only help artists gain exposure and but also understand what the audience wants, get feedback, engage the audience and get them involved in the creative process or make their art understood.

If you’re a painter you can show a step by step video of your creative process or just take a photo of your work every day (also known as time-lapse photography) and get viewers to comment on it or even suggest the direction the painting should be headed. If you’re a writer, record yourself reciting poems and share them on different platforms.

The Internet has made it so much easier for anyone to draw attention to their art, service, product or even themselves and, with the advent of social media, it has never been easier to spread the word about whatever we are passionate about.

And then I ask: why did I see so few artists at yesterday’s fair who had an online presence?



Marked as private

One of the blogs I found recently and absolutely love it, asked this question: Is anything private anymore?

I would say that once you enter the world of online communication / sharing and connecting, one should openly and consciously acknowledge that  the online world is a private as the information one chooses to share on this medium.

Despite my age and despite not fitting into the “less tech-savvy” category, I was one of those people who believed that what you put out there (whether in the form of information about yourself, comments on different blogs or forums ) is the ultimate measure of how people will judge and see you (which is why I waited so long to even open a blog). To a certain extent I still believe that (i.e. this comment will instantly generate an impression of me for whoever chooses to read it and they may like it or not), however in this day and age everyone has an opinion about everything and while some may agree with what you’re saying, others will not.

It’s just a fact and users of online tools must learn to accept that as long as they’re online they’ll probably have as much privacy as a fish in a bowl.

On the other hand, privacy is definitely an issue and users cannot be expected to automatically know what to post online and how to protect themselves. An article published  on the irishtimes.com was debating this exact issue:

Presenting a keynote address at the RSA conference in London, People Security’s chief security strategist Hugh Thompson said that while posting on social networks has grown, “there hasn’t been a commensurate education about what information we should be sharing”.

A good example of this lack of education and knowledge among users,  is the photo blogging site launched in February of this year – www.dailybooth.com - which already has approximately 6 million active users.

This new trend of blogging attracted various groups of people specially teenagers that uses pictures to express themselves instead of words. Amazingly, others responds also in their photos as a reply. Though you can also reply in written comments.

The majority of its users are women between 15 and 25 years of age, who posts photos and comments about their daily life in pictures.  Therefore, despite the fire Facebook came under regarding the privacy of the photos users post online that were used without their consent by 3rd parties, users don’t seem to mind posting their webcam photos on dailybooth.com. The issue here is that, although the site does offer users some privacy settings, is it  really educating its users enough in the issues involved in “Documenting and sharing their lives with others”? Or is it expecting users to know what it’s involved?

Superfreakonomics

If you liked Freakonomics , by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, and loved it, then you will be happy to know that “They’re back!” with Superfreakonomics – unusual facts of life from the economists’ perspective.

Open your eyes to make connections between seemingly unrelated things in everyday life.  Click here to see the teaser video for the book.

I’ve read their first book and found it to be fascinating, funny and illuminating.  I would probably never have made such connections on my own and I certainly did not see them in any other books (although, to be fair, The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford was an enjoyable read).

I like that the authors talk about things as they are as opposed to how they should be, and this gets you thinking, allowing you to draw your own conclusion.

This sequel sounds like a very promising read so far. However, I’ve read some of the reviews and, apparently, some readers thought the last chapter of the book about climate change made the freakquel less satisfying than the first, as it seems to be disconnected somehow from the rest of the content.  Not to mention that the chapter sparked a debate online about the solutions suggested by the authors.  For now, I’m going to ignore these reviews and even criticisms and keep an open mind.

Hello world!

This is my first post… I guess I’m a blogger now! It feels awkward at the moment, but I’ll put that down to being inexperienced. Hopefully I’ll get the hang of it soon enough. For my first post I can’t think of a better topic than the meaning and steps of setting up of this blog.

I started thinking about this some time ago and I though it’s just going to be as straight forward as setting up an email account, however as I went on to read about how to set up a blog . It took me quite some time to choose the name of the blog (partly because some of the other names I wanted were already taken and partly because I needed something that will state or, at least, indicate what will it be about).

Since everyone in marketing is now talking about the new form of marketing – namely moving from relationship marketing, to value based marketing – and everywhere the question floating in the air is “how do companies engage the savvy, demanding and sophisticated customers in this economic climate?”, this blog is going to look at this sort of issues, without claiming to either know or provide the answers. Hopefully, what it will provide is more of an overview of existing theories and methods being applied out there.

And so, d gr8 adventure of blogging begins… BRB

BTW my name is Sabina Piter. I look forward to chatting / blogging with you…