Articles in Consumer Generated
This is an insightful presentation from TrendsSpotting that convey’s a selection of Social Media Influencers predictions for 2010.
Each prediction is presented as a “tweet” or in less than 140 characters.
For Example Adam Broitman suggests that “Consumers will un-friend all brands that don’t add value”
Worth a read.
Most Contagious 2009 is a presentation full of inspiring content that covers digital marketing, viral, outdoor as well as integrated campaigns.
Be viewed in full screen mode or Download the PDF here
Sweden is known for it’s innovation which not only expresses itself in design, but also in creative campaigns.
Agency Forsman and Bodenfors decided to use one of Facebook’s built in features of “Tagging” to get the word out about Ikea’s Malmo store opening. First, they created a Facebook profile for the store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Then, over the next two weeks, uploaded images from of IKEA showrooms to his Facebook photo album.
Trendhuntertv has created this interesting report which highlights 20 top trends that are emerging for 2010.
The list of the top 20 includes
- Personalization
- Unservice
- Peacocking
- Rental
- Culture
- Prodependancy
- DIY Healthcare
- Nostalgia
- Crowdsource
- Emotionology
- Simpletising
- Ecopolitan
- Greenpliances
- Nomadabodes (portable living spaces)
- Pop-uptailing
- Life-swapping
- DIY Decor
- Next Besting
Be a Football Hero allows you to create a personalised audio commentary.
Select your name, country, and age, and then listen to the professional soccer (football) commentary of yourself performing the ultimate football heroics.
If you like what you hear, you can order the soundtrack as a CD for 14.99 pounds.
The soundtrack is very realistic, and you get to hear your surname and age as you score the match winning goal in the dying minutes.
Having spent time working within Knowledge Management within the Mars corporation, I Social Media and Knowledge Management are integrated.
Social Media and Knowledge Management (presented on Aug 19th, 2009 at the KM round table conference, at Melbourne Zoo).
Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? 
Welcome to the World of Socialnomics
Qualman defines socialnomics as “The ability of social media to generate exponential returns for individuals and businesses”.
They have released a video which showcases some of the social media statistics that describe the social media revolution, and how it is changing the world.
And this revolution has only just begun !
Most of you would have heard of the “Will it Blend” videos, that do a fantastic job of promoting the Blendtec blender.
Today, I came across an interesting cross promotion featuring the founder and star of Will it Blend, Tom Dickson and one of the Ford Fiesta Movement agents, Ryan Dembroski.
The Ford Fiesta Movement has been one of the pioneering social media PR programs, which had over 4,000 people apply to become one of 100 agents. The successful agents were all given a new Fiesta for six months, and are expected to record and share their experiences with the car.
Social Media has brought content creation tools to consumers, allowing an efficient means for organizing, facilitating outreach, encouraging dialogue and raising money.
This video describes how social media is being used in Lebanon for “digital activism”.
Successful cause initiatives such as Kiva (Microfinance), myC4 (Microfinance & Mentoring), Build An African School (Financing new schools in Africa) and MobileMovement (Microfinance using mobiles) all understand that the social media landscape provide consumers the means to more deeply engage with the cause, and in doing that these initiatives are reaping the benefits of communal support.
Not all campaigns will be successful, but not having a brief, or having one that is “too brief” definitely increases the likelihood of failure.
The Brief is one of the most important stages of the marketing process, and yet many clients fail to see it’s importance, and either ignore it all together or pass this responsibility to the agency. Agency created briefs or “reverse briefs” can work well where the client / agency understand each other well, but there should still be some kind of approval step so that clarity of scope is understood.
Often one of the hardest challenge of engaging with Social Media is to find your voice.
It often involves trial and error as well as feedback from trusted friends.
This week I gave a presentation to the Future Leaders meeting in Sydney and as well as providing insight into what Social Media is, I talked through the process for getting engaged and identifying your niche.
I still recall presenting the Facebook Australian population at 4.3 million around the middle of 2008.
It’s now surpassed 5 million which means that more than 1 in 3 of Australia’s online population is on Facebook.
This is quite compelling, and its not wonder that brands and organisations are starting to allocate marketing spend to reaching this audience.
The challenge of course is that social networks don’t respond well to interruption marketing.
Here’s a great video that describes how BESTBUY is using a corporate wiki to share ideas within the company.
Utilising a website that acts as a web2.0 intranet, BESTBUY employees are able to share and edit knowledge.
This video has more detail.
Social Media tools will continue to grow and exist within what is often referred to as Enterprise 2.0
