Great slide deck from David Armano on Social Business Planning

[slideshare id=10595521&doc=socialbizedelman-111214162029-phpapp01]

Australian retailers are finally leaving the shores of social media apathy and are attempting to navigate the treacherous waters of consumer engagement. No doubt spurred on by the negative PR associated with non-engagement, retailers are also sensing the hidden treasure to be found with consumer loyalty. The social media wave started several years ago, and it still baffles me why has it taken retailers so long to take social media seriously?  Read more... (518 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Kraft has invented a vending machine that analyses your face to predict what you want to eat.

It combines facial recognition with a fuzzy logic algorithm that suggests meal solutions via recipes, shopping instructions and even provides food samples. While you operate the touchscreen on Kraft’s “Meal Planning Solution”, a camera analyses your face to determine your age and gender, the better to anticipate what you want to eat.

 Read more... (218 words, estimated 52 secs reading time)

Here’s a great video from Fred Caballero discussing a process for measuring the ROI on Social Media

In the video Fred provides an example of linking a sales goal to social media tactics pointing out the value of “Listening” and the necessity to have at least a 6 month time frame in order to generate ROI.

Having worked in Knowledge Management for a large multinational I have had experience in the challenges involved in realising the value of shared wisdom across the organisation, without enforcing the burden of overcomplicated information categorisations.

So I read with excitement this manifesto on Social Architecture which provides a cleverly thought out view on how organisations can embrace socialisation to generate real value.

Here’s an example of a great campaign from Anomaly known as Converse Domaination.
It’s cool because it’s conversational, clever, cost effective, and relevant to the audience.

Converse Domaination from Ross Martin on Vimeo.

What do you think?

Phil Dobbie from BNET interviews me on the 3 elements to the Social Media Action Plan – Listen, Engage, Influence

My updated Social Media Action Plan presentation

Social Media – What is it?
“Open Conversations that encourage participation and connect people”

• FACEBOOK 9.7 million Australian’s on Facebook
• oTWITTER 800 tweets / second
• Youtube 2 billion views/day

Why it matters
- “Social media helps people express themselves and through the wisdom of crowds helps us discover new stuff”

What to do about it ?
- Can’t control it
- Ignoring it just elimates you from the conversation  Read more... (216 words, estimated 52 secs reading time)

Here’s a nice campaign from M&M’s Cananda engaging consumers across a number of social media platforms with clues to find the Red M&M http://www.facebook.com/mmscanada

Clues are seeded on the M&M’s YouTube, Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook which you then use to search on the Findred.ca site using a customised Google Street view map inteface.

Here’s a cool banner ad originally shown on EPSN that uses your webcam to create an Augmented Reality Soccer shoot out game

Check it out here