@petra1400 on #140Conf in 6 Points

I thought the 1-week anniversary of #140Conf in San Francisco was the perfect opportunity to follow up with some takeaways from the conference (that’s another way of saying I’m soooo late!). Being in high-tech corporate America, what I loved about this event is the wide range of perspectives presenters from different industries brought to the table. We heard stories from how the transportation segment in Helsinki is leveraging real-time data on the web to provide riders up-to-date status, urging us to demand making the same data available in the US to how an up-and-coming star in the music industry, Quincy Brown (@quincy) is harnessing the power of Twitter to increase his fan base. And of course, this roundup would not be complete without the secrets behind the Old Spice Campaign and some good legal advice. So what were the main points that spoke to me?

1. Engagement Is Critical for Success

There are two people at VirginAmerica that keep social media alive for the airline. Now, that’s commitment! A big shoutout to Jill Fletcher and her partner in crime (@VirginAmerica). They mentioned a funny story about Guy Kawasaki who was tweeting on his flight from his seat that he wanted a Coke. VirginAmerica tweeted back “"Guy, why don't you just ask the flight attendant for a Coke.”

Besides being funny, this example reveals another crucial point: use Twitter to connect and engage with people, not to constantly market to them.

2. Be personable. Be social

This is always a good reminder, especially if you work for a BtoB company. This tip actually came from HP’s Social Media Manager, Mia Dand (@MiaD). In the BtoB world, we have a tendency to push business content. Mia reminded attendees to embrace the personal side of social media by making only 80% of your content work related and 20% personal. It's ok to do so even if you're a business.

She also urged practitioners to move beyond listening and start responding to people. So be social on the social web.

3. Legal Issues in the Real-Time Web Are Real and Growing

I loved Franice Ward’s (@francineward) thoughts on the legal implications of your actions in social media. Obviously don’t post anything that can get you fired. “It’s not blogs that get people fired, it’s people that get people fired”, she said. It was also interesting to hear her mention the increasing number of copyright issues in social media. She cautioned the audience to only put out content that they’re ok with others sharing because whatever you put on the social web can be used by others without your prior approval. However, I should add that it’s good practice to give credit to the person you’re borrowing from.

4. Making money on and off the social web – you haven’t seen anything yet

My colleague Autumn Truong has put it nicely in her blog “There will be increasing ways to turn small amounts of data such as tweets on Twitter, to dollars. For more information, check out Dom Sagolla’s (@dom) book, “@thebook 140 Characters”

5. Women in Advertising: Women in Exec Positions vs. Making Purchase Decisions

Katherine M. Gordon (@katgordon) gave her thoughts on why she thinks many advertisements don’t work today. She pointed to an imbalance between the number of women executives in the advertising industry (3%) and the influence of women in making purchase decisions (80%). Therefore, she believes that encouraging women to climb the leadership ladder in the advertising industry is critical. To help with this effort, she has created “The 3% Conference” (@3percentconf). By the way, men are highly encouraged to attend this conference.

6. The Future of Commerce: Relationship Commerce

Ted Rubin (@tedrubin), the Chief Social Marketing Officer at #OpenSky talked about the shift from traditional online buying to a new online purchase model which 1) creates revenue sharing opportunities for bloggers and influencers that connect people with products and 2) helps eliminate middlemen. The basic idea is this: you often ask your friends and family for their advice before buying something. So why not have the people you trust become part of the value chain? In this model, bloggers identify products they like and want to let people know about and then connect with people they think would enjoy that product. In essence, they act as “referral agents”. Anyone can sign up to be a blogger or a vendor as deals are executed by the various people that come together to move products. Ted's famous last words were: “Social media should not be measured in terms of ROI. It should be measured in terms of Return on Relationships, or ROR.”

Explore Social Bookmarking in 11 Questions and Answers

Social bookmarking is often considered the stepchild of social media. To a large extent, this is due to the fact that social bookmarking is not as flashy and hip as a game or a contest and many people don’t understand the benefits of this technique. It’s still an afterthought. However, when used properly and consistently, it can positively impact content consumption and SEO. Here are some things we’ve learned on our social bookmarking journey thanks to David Deans of Cisco Service Provider Marketing who has pioneered this initiative for us. Hey, I’m just one of the people who StumbleUpons David’s (and other) articles. But he is the man behind the scenes who makes this program happen time after time. Find out how he does it.

David, why are you using social bookmarking?
We have two essential goals, and both are related to content consumption. It enables us to attract new followers that are interested in the content that we produce and publish. It also positively impacts our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) objectives, by adding new backlinks to our Preferred Landing Pages (PLPs) and associated content assets on those Web pages.

Why did you get started with social bookmarking? What was your hypothesis?
We primarily were focused on improving the discovery of our content. Web analytics reports exposed that much of our content was rarely being viewed by site visitors. Many of our PLPs were not ranking well in SERPs for common search phrases. Our target stakeholders simply weren’t finding our content. In my experience, a systematic social bookmarking campaign is a key ingredient in a comprehensive plan of action -- to rectify those types of problems.

What platform(s) are you focusing on? Why and how did you pick those?
Primarily, as a team we use StumbleUpon on a regular basis. I also use Business Exchange and I’ve included LinkedIn Group link postings to my bookmarking routine. Our platform selection was based on extensive usage experimentation and then monitoring the results over time. We apply the tools that consistently improve the discovery of our content assets and also contribute to our SEO objectives. Periodically, I’ll try a beta platform to complement our efforts. I’m experimenting with Google Lists and a few other new tools.

How were you using social bookmarking when you started out?
My initial applications were very basic and were all intended to promote a new blog site that I created. I registered on about 15 of the most well known sites (Digg, Delicious, Reddit, etc) and discovered their strengths, and weaknesses. I learned the benefits of making your bookmark list “public” and which platforms didn’t handicap your links with No-Follow tags – which is very important for SEO.

What was the biggest challenge when you got started, and how did you overcome it?
In the beginning I didn’t realize that some platforms were much better at reaching my target stakeholders, than most others. By studying the available analytics reports I was able to identify trends. That experience made me more aware of the need to better monitor the outcome of my activity. Social bookmarking can be a very labor-intensive exercise; that is, until you’re able to focus your efforts on the activities that are proven to deliver the optimal results. I now use bookmarklets and browser plug-ins to save time and increase my productivity.

What challenges are you facing today?
Reporting on the meaningful results of these activities is problematic and incomplete. As an example, we have to aggregate reports from different platforms in order to gain all the insights we need to measure performance – the process is manual and time consuming. Also, I’d like to be able to track stakeholder influence and the resulting impact on sales related activities. That would require a sophisticated closed-loop scenario for data capture, where we can better identify the cause and effect of activities on sales-related outcomes.

How has your use of social bookmarking evolved since you started?
Well, in the beginning I was performing these tasks in isolation – the activity seemed like “busy work” to anyone who wasn’t informed about the inherent value. Now, more members of our team participate, so the positive impact is greater and typically achieved in less time. Of course, demonstrated results has given us the ammunition we needed to increase that overall momentum. That said, we could achieve so much more, if others were actively involved.

What has been the business impact to date?
Our online exposure and stakeholder influence has risen as a direct result of these activities. As an example, StumbleUpon is second only to Twitter in driving new visitors to our Cisco SP360 blog posts – it’s more effective than Facebook. Slowly, but surely, we’re also seeing improvements in SEO results for some of the keyword phrases that we previously identified. The majority of our new visitor traffic continues to come from Google keyword searches, so the fact that our bookmarking has (in aggregate) attracted more than a third of the overall volume is significant progress. We’ve gained many “followers” that have engaged with us and our content assets. Clearly, when we curate and expose the best content for those followers we’re providing a valuable service – that’s very gratifying.

Are there any side benefits of bookmarking that you didn’t anticipate?
Absolutely, there are several. The bookmark lists we create are helpful to our internal constituents – we use our own lists to find content assets quickly. Bookmark click-through results can help you identify trends – regarding the types of content that people are seeking most often. I didn’t expect people to reach out to me and thank us for making it easier to find content that’s of interest to them. I personally found people, that I’ve never met, that share common interests with me -- and so I now chose to follow them.

Did you have any a-ha moments? Something that really surprised you?
At first I was skeptical about the immediacy of the SEO benefits of bookmarking. Most search-savvy web site publishers will tell you that increasing the number of backlinks to their content is a constant challenge. Bookmark lists on public pages will improve your Page-Rank, sometimes I’ve seen results in a matter of weeks. Also, gaining influential followers and having them share your bookmarks (totally unsolicited) with others is a progressive form of content syndication that I hadn’t considered before. We refer to that phenomenon as Exponential Marketing.

If you were to give one piece of advice to marketers looking to get into social bookmarking or already using it, what would that be?
Invest the time to understand the needs of your target audience – the people who potentially will become your loyal followers, via these social bookmarking tools. The tools are merely a means to an end objective – don’t lose sight of that ultimate goal (since this activity can be a distraction if not used wisely).

And the final words of wisdom from David: "Find the time to experiment on a few new beta platforms – in an attempt to learn something new about this rapidly changing field. And, above all else, be prepared to earn the respect of online followers – lead by demonstrating that your ongoing bookmarking activity is worthy of their time and attention."

How are you using social bookmarking today?

12 Tips to Get Noticed in Social Media: Let the World Know You're Out There

In early June, I posted a blog about how to add social media to your events. As a follow-on to that post, here are some tips on how to let the world know you're in social media. Seems easy, right? Even though it does, I'm finding that a lot of groups, in the B2B segment at least, are not yet fully connecting the dots and leaving some opportunities for publicizing their social media presence on the table. Many B2Bs out there still tend to think in silos: "this is the advertising team's job", "this falls under marcom", etc. But if we take a step back, we can quickly find some unturned stones that can make a difference with relatively little effort. This is only step 1 in our quest for social media proficiency. The next challenge is to maintain the momentum we've built here.

On a personal note, the Lost in Iceland T-shirt featured in the below presentation is real and is mine. I bought it in Iceland during my visit 2 years ago. My heart goes out to all the people in the country and I sincerely hope that mother nature will show more kindness to them. Best wishes to all.

Get Noticed in Social Media: 12 Tips to Let People Know You're Out There

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Just for Fun: Social Networking Site Logos That Look Like Yoga Poses

I'm sitting in yoga class and enjoying the benefits of the Cow Face pose. The person in front of me gets up and excuses herself from class for a few minutes. I can see myself in the mirror now and a random thought rushes through my head: this pose look like the letter "i". Even though I'm supposed to empty my mind and focus on my breathing, I decide to make the rest of the class an experiment: How many yoga poses look like the logos of today's popular social networking sites? Weird, I know. Regardless, I had a ton of fun with it during and after class. Those of you, social media fans out there with an appreciation for yoga might find this post amusing...and feel free to add more examples!

Cow face pose and wheel pose (source: yogajournal.com)

Flying bow pose (source: yogadork.com)

Boat pose (source: mystrangemind.com)

Bridge pose (source: yogajournal.com)

Side bend (source: deccanchronicle.com)

Extended hand-to-big toe pose (source: yogajournal.com)

Bow pose (source: yogajournal.com)

Headstand (source: yogalifestyle)

Bikram series (source: bikramyogapbg.com) 

Scorpion pose (source: about.com)

This may require some explanation. I've picked this pose because it reminds me of the curves found in the letters "S" and "U"  in the logo.

Full one-legged king pigeon pose (source: about.com)

And what else is similar? Yoga can be just as addictive as social media. Hope you enjoyed this little experiment.

Namaste!

Ten Intriguing Twitter Moments: From Funny to Bizarre

Unless you live under a rock, you'll admit that whether or not you are a fan, Twitter has a huge impact on how we communicate and share information today. Yesterday's news about the passing of 104-old Ivy Bean, the world's oldest person on Twitter, has sparked a series of questions in my head. We have all seen stats on the size and growth of social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter and the like, but I thought it would be fun to look at how else Twitter is shaping our lives. So I started experimenting with some random words to find out what connection (if any) they have to Twitter. Here is my top 10 PG-rated list of funny, interesting or weird Twitter use cases - on and off the web.

10. Twitterize your pet
I'm not surprised to see all the gear mentioning Twitter. Shirts, hats, shoes and aprons (I mean, really?), bags, mugs, buttons, the whole nine yards. I must admit some of the T-shirts are flat out hilarious. Zazzle offers a wide range of clothing items and office and home supplies but nothing beats their pet clothing. Seriously? A Twitter shirt for your dog? Not my cup of tea but if it's something you fancy, hey, more power to you...and to your dog.

9. Twitter cats with more followers than you
Ouch! That hurts. Check out the cats on Twitter that have a bigger following than you. I'll be sure to borrow some tips from them.

8. Come on baby, let's do the Tweet
It was just a matter of time before Twitter songs started popping up on YouTube. My favorite Twitter anthem is "I'm Tweeting". I'm a die-hard ballroom dancer so anything with a good beat will captivate me. You can't go wrong with updating a classic song with super creative lyrics so kudos to iJustine, you rock! The other one that has captured my attention is the one by Chris Thompson. Awesome man! But what's up with that Twitter dance? I certainly hope that the choreographers on Dancing with the Stars or So You Think You Can Dance will not be borrowing these moves for their next dance routines...

7. Tweet My Bumper
According to Rich Whittle's blog post, "Tweet My Bumper helps Twitterers recruit new followers by targeting one of life’s few remaining captive audiences: drivers in traffic." Go to the Tweet My Bumper website, enter your Twitter ID and some other basic information, and Tweet My Bumper will send you a bumper sticker with your Twitter ID and the "Follow me in traffic. Follow me on Twitter" tag line.

6. Tweet and Drive? Not so much
Remember the Nate Robinson case? He was live tweeting after he got pulled over. Not such a good idea. While it was a PR nightmare, at least he wasn't tweeting while driving. Actually, tweeting and driving may not be as far away as you may think. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that the 2011 Ford Fiesta had been modified to be able to send tweets as it drives. I'm curious to see how this strategy is going to work for them. Best wishes to Ford!

5. Tweet and burn calories?
I'm waiting for the day that somebody proves that tweeting can help lose weight. Well, adding a Twitter spiel would definitely bring pizzazz to today's late night weightloss commercials. Just kidding. For now, however, we may just need to try TweetCalories, an application that counts how many calories you may burn by tweeting.

4. Live tweeting while...
I'm a big fan of live tweeting but there are some real-life situations that I think should stay exactly where they happen: offline. I can't wrap my head around why anybody would want to live tweet a funeral or an abortion. It's simply beyond what I can fathom but if it works for them...

There are some other eyebrow-raising circumstances I wonder about. Is tweeting really the most important thing they can think of at THAT moment? Apparently so. We've heard about the couple that updated their Facebook status while at the altar, but have you heard about the people that got engaged and married on Twitter? Live tweeting while giving birth seems to be on the rise since Erykah Badu gave up-to-the-minute reports on the birth of her daughter in early 2009. But the example that really caught my eye was the article on surgeons sending tweets from the operating room. I get the concept, it's cool...I just would not want to be the patient on that operating table. I'd really like to have my surgeon and nurses pay attention to me rather than the Twitter updates. But that's just me.

3. World's first street named after a Twitter account
This may sound bizarre at first but when you read the entire story, it is really inspiring. The street name "@arjanelfassed tweetstreet" can be found in a Palestinian refuge camp and was bought for $140 by Arjan El Fassed, a Dutch-Palestinian gentleman. Proceeds were donated to support cultural after-school programs for children in the camp.

2. Do you know your best man?
This can be a funny or embarrassing story, depending on whose side you're on. I'm not going to elaborate on how one British best man got back at his friend, just read this post. The conclusion: make sure you REALLY know your best man or don't do anything stupid to tick him off.

1. Somebody help! It's an emergency
And that's exactly what happened in Japan when a man got stuck in a public restroom without any toilet paper. So he sent out a tweet to the universe and 20 minutes later, he was a happy camper again. Wow, Twitter does work!

And that's how we roll with Twitter today (no pun intended).

Facebook Questions: A Gold Mine for BtoB Marketers?

Can the introduction of Facebook Questions become the catalyst for a shift toward more business engagements? From what I've seen, many still use Facebook primarily for personal reasons and it's been a challenge for BtoB companies to create high-quality engagements on Facebook. Typically, we see lots of "Likes", some fun posts and from time to time, we see more serious comments, but I'm yet to see a BtoB page on Facebook that can show the existence of on-going and deep conversations (if you know of one, please do share!). Note the emphasis on the words "on-going", "deep" and "conversations". Now, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora or your own community platform can become more like that today if used properly.

I'm not saying we should pull the plug and leave Facebook alltogether. No, that's not the point. Facebook has a place and a purpose in BtoB marketing. But the recent announcement by Facebook Questions might make BtoB marketers wonder if this feature will have the power to infuse more high-quality business engagements into Facebook. The company did state that this feature was not intended for advertising or self promotion so for now, let's put that question aside.

Where I can see this feature having an impact is on community engagement. Companies should look at their community strategy on 2 levels:
1. Participating in your own community
2. Plugging into applicable "guest" communities (i.e., communities you don't own or manage)

Depending on how Facebook Questions is set up, this might just provide another avenue for BtoB marketers to engage in Community conversations. Why should they (at least) consider this as an option? Because they could...
1. Get exposure to and get exposed to people with similar interests (potential leads or partners, or brand advocates anyone?)
2. Help increase brand image and perception as a thought leader
3. Learn real-time about what's going on, what the pain points are and/or where the confusion is (can you smell the potential for ideation, new features, functionality and/or business models?)

However, there's always 2 sides to every story. I suspect that once widely available, "Facebookers" will experiment with this feature. And it is possible that as more users and marketers engage, the nature and depth of conversations could reach new levels. But for now, we just need to sit tight. I can't wait to see what it will look like, how it will work and how it will help enhance business engagements over time (because I'd like to think that it will have the potential to do so).

While we figure this out, I'm going to put another challenge on the table.
A 2010 B2B Customer Engagement Study by SPSS, an IBM Company, and summarized by MarketingProfs.com reported that about half of the interviewed companies said they were poor or very poor at mining insights from social media and only 19% thought they were good or very good at it. Translation: we, BtoB marketers, need to get better at this, otherwise Facebook Questions will remain just another thing to check.

Behind-the-Scenes at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics: NBC and Cisco Team Up to Show the Power of Collaboration and Social Media

Recently I had the pleasure of working with Zoya Fallah, Social Media Marketing Manager at Cisco, on a case study that shows the partnership between NBC and Cisco at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Zoya, the one-person powerhouse behind Cisco's social media engagement for the Games, shared two pieces of good advice when I interviewed her. "COLLABORATION is key. SOCIAL is key. You cannot do one without the other. The more social channels that you can leverage, the better reach you will have. I truly believe that companies will benefit by understanding the importance of leveraging internal social media channels and other companies’ social media channels", she said.

Then she went on to explain how the collaboration between the 2 companies was born and what it entailed.

What were the key components of your event strategy?
We wanted to share behind-the-scenes footage from fans, journalists, and athletes with the public so that they could have an opportunity to experience the games virtually and to really get to know the athletes on a more personal level. The public wants “real” footage and not highly produced footage anymore. NBC distributing Flip cameras to US athletes, journalists, etc. created a perfect opportunity to obtain user-generated content while reducing that production time and cost.

What were the challenges you were trying to solve?
We wanted to extend the reach of the 2010 Winter Games beyond NBCOlympics.com as well as help speed up the delivery of online video content while reducing production cost.

Focusing on the social media aspects, what did you do to promote the Winter Games and what worked or didn’t work?
Cisco and NBC collaborated and leveraged each other’s social media channels. NBC displayed a Twitter Tracker on NBCOlympics.com to share these tweets with the public. The Flip footage was distributed via social channels with direct links. Without the use of NBC and Cisco social media promotions, the public would have to search for Flip footage on NBCOlympics.com.

Did you have any big surprises, or a-ha moments? If so, what were those?
Besides all of the amazing footage that we received from athletes, Brad Blanks captured Queen Latifah via Flip at the Games. It was very exciting to live the Games online and really be able to get to know the athletes personally.


If you'd like to learn more about this program or find out the 7 things we would do differently next time, take a look at this SlideShare presentation.

Case Study: 2010 Vancouver Olympics Behind-the-Scenes Story: NBC and Cisco Team Up to Show the Power of Collaboration and Social Media

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Congrats to Zoya and her counterparts at NBC on a social media program well done!