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Looking for me? I’m still here, just over there!

I had really been hoping to make more use of this blog from a social media perspective, using it to write about what I like from across the digital and soaicl space, however as I also write for my company, that tends to be where my content goes. Thasnks to the open and accepting nature… Continue reading »

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Social Media Heralds the Age Organic Marketing

I’ve worked in organisations running trial programs, leveraging the voices of those online through partnership and collaboration, I have and still do monitor the social space for organisations, but what of the marketing layer on all of this.

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the social network – A Review

After much hype and anticipation I have finally been to the cinema and seen The Social Network. The Social Network is a film is based around the creation of and subsequent legal cases of Facebook.

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Social Collective…The Realisation of a Fresh Idea

With what started out as a frustrated conversation between 4 relative strangers following an uninspiring social conference, Social Collective was born.

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Social Collective 2010 – Be it, Live it, Join it!

Social Collective is an event to be held on the 30th September 2010 in London, bringing together collective thoughts on Social Media for 2011. We know its going to be much more than an introduction to Social, we’re looking forward into the bigger picture

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Looking for me? I’m still here, just over there! Social Media Heralds the Age Organic Marketing the social network – A Review Social Collective…The Realisation of a Fresh Idea Social Collective 2010 – Be it, Live it, Join it!

Mar
07

Looking for me? I’m still here, just over there!

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I had really been hoping to make more use of this blog from a social media perspective, using it to write about what I like from across the digital and soaicl space, however as I also write for my company, that tends to be where my content goes. Thasnks to the open and accepting nature of Essential Communciations, I never feel I require another platform to sound my voice and opinions.

So with this in mind, I thought it only polite to let you know that all is well and good, I’m simply providing my thoughts and comment via a different venue for the time being.

To catch up with what I’ve been talking about recently, head over the The Essential Blog and check it out. I look forward to hearing from you there!

Felix

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Nov
29

Social Media Heralds the Age Organic Marketing

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It’s been too long…again. But I’m back for now at least.

Over the weekend, I was pondering the shift which hopefully we’re all now aware of, even if not participating in, whereby consumers have a much stronger influence on brands and products than ever before, their words becoming increasingly visible online and in many cases ultimately defining other’s purchasing decisions. Well I wanted to look at the whole concept from a slightly different angle.

I’ve worked in agencies running trial programs, leveraging the voices of those online through partnership and collaboration, I have and still do monitor the social space for organisations, but what of the marketing layer on all of this.

Traditional methods of digital marketing would essentially be a digitisation of the offline messaging, imagery and content, an approach which still very much plays a role in today’s marketplace, especially within the B2B world which I currently operate in. However, social media has opened new doors to us as marketers, not simply through engagement and participation and not solely through pain point identification, but through organic marketing.

Now I’m not sure if organic marketing has been defined as a subset of marketing yet, but I’m adopting it for the next few hundred words any way. Now to try and articulate the myriad of thoughts in my head… Traditionally, we as marketers put out messages which we believed we’re most relevant to consumers both online and offline, often relying on active market research which led to the development of the item in question. But here we are, in an age where we have people volunteering information to brands and manufacturers, giving all the information we as marketers could ever want. The question is; what to do with all this information?

If we were to look at an individual piece of technology such as smartphones, we can identify trends in conversation about aspects of devices; we can see where competitors are falling down, where opportunities exist for us. Say for instance ‘Manufacturer A’ is being slated for its poor battery life, or underwhelming camera, then as marketers we can use this as the focus for our messaging. Suddenly we reconsider the banner advertising which is in place across our media partner’s sites, we redesign them with new focussed messages which directly correlate to these issues being fed to us from the social space about our competitor’s devices. Pay-per-click campaigns can be instantly adjusted so that when potential buyers are looking for further information on ‘Manufacturer A’ and the battery/camera issues, there’s a sponsored ad from ‘Manufacturer B’ proclaiming the benefits of their battery/camera.

I know this all sounds like the tactics which have been employed for years, which is true. The difference now, is that we’re having these issues handed to us on a plate by the end user. So, whilst this is a great advantage to the customer to be more informed, and to the manufacturer in question to identify issues which need resolving, it is also an opportunity to competitor manufactures to tailor campaigns to fight back.

The challenge for marketers now, is how to keep up with these changes. As broad marketing messages become increasingly ignored, this is a question which will need to be addressed…

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Oct
23

the social network – A Review

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This post was originally written on The Essential Blog
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After much hype and anticipation I have finally been to the cinema, handed over £11 of my hard earned cash and seen The Social Network. For those who aren’t aware, The Social Network is a film based around the creation and subsequent legal cases of Facebook.

You don't get 500 million friends without making a few enemies

My first piece of advice is that you make your own mind up about the film rather than trying to decipher the split opinion online, so get out and see it… unless your twitter bio states that you’re a “guru” or an “expert”, in which case you obviously know it all anyway.

Starting off in the early days at Harvard and the series of events which led Mark Zuckerberg to create an internal website, which crashed the Harvard university network, The Social Network does a great job of setting the scene of a story which most peope only know the result of, the Facebook site itself. Jesse Eisenberg who plays Mark Zuckerberg does a great job at portraying the hugely intelligent individual, from incredibly complex sentence construction to his demeanour, Jesse clearly embraced the opportunity to represent such a formidably public figure. Amazingly, he only visited Facebook, and set up a page in research for the film admitting he could see how addictive it was.

During the judicial process, Zuckerberg spent a huge amount of time in rooms with lawyers. Whilst these could have been dull and jargon filled scenes, they were quite the opposite. Again, Jesse Eisenberg conveys subtle intricacies which make for very entertaining watching. His nonchalant manner and quick wit work in harmony to create some very memorable “wish I was there” moments.

Very worthy of note, and not to be overlooked is Andrew Garfield who played Zuckerberg’s co-founding partner and closest friend, Eduardo Saverin. Acting as CFO for what was originally “TheFacebook”, Eduardo’s story is possibly my favourite of the film. Detailing his passion to be a sound business man, and battling with Zuckerberg and his stubborn ways, to being cast aside and pushed out of the Facebook organisation, you can’t help but really feel for Eduardo’s character. Eduardo has spoken recently about the film with CNN.

From an information perspective, I was surprised to see such a close story, covering the evolution of relationships between Zuckerberg, his colleagues and his friends. The inclusion of Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster, was very interesting as I had never realised how significant a figure he was in the development of Facebook from a business perspective. However, I’m not sure the casting of Justin Timberlake in this role was ideal. I liked that I didn’t know or recognise the cast, as I felt it added to the “out of nowhere” scenario which took place when Facebook was created.

At the very core of the film are the series of law suits which were set against Zuckerberg. I hadn’t expected this in anyway whatsoever, but I felt sorry for Zuckerberg by the end. As portrayed in the film, Zuckerberg may have taken a seed of inspiration from the Winklevoss twins, but what he created was something so much bigger, yet for this potential intellectual property theft he had to pay out $65 million to the twins! Not bad for a simple conversation which took place in a foyer one afternoon… The technology in creating the Winklevoss twins is quite incredible and well worth a look on its own if you’re into videography. As for the characters, they were typically American crew rowers, just as they are in life. I would say however that as an ex Great Britain rower, the talent is rather suspect but at least the views of Henley Royal Regatta are impressive!

All in all, the film was a triumph in my eyes, it may not have been entirely true to the facts, but it was so close that it made no difference to the overarching story. The film concludes in a rather contrite manner, but it does tie everything together rather well, and brings out a human aspect in Zuckerberg not previously seen in the film. You may either love or hate Facebook, but you can’t help but admire Zuckerberg and what he has achieved, ostensibly with the support of just a few people, and without taking a single penny from any of the 500 Million Facebook users he has created something truly incredible!

What is great is that all those involved who have seen the film, believe that the story was honest, true and representative which really adds to the whole experience, apart from that is, Mark Zuckerberg himself. In reflection, the film has made me feel somewhat…inadequate.

So, if you fancy a night out this weekend, why not go check out The Social Network? If you do, let me know what you think of it…

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Oct
01

Social Collective…The Realisation of a Fresh Idea

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OK, so the last time I posted was to let everyone know that Social Collective 2010 was taking place, and here I am now letting you all know how it went. You may say that’s rather un-dedicated of me to the Social Mogul, however I never realised just how much time organising an event could take.

The Planning:

With what started out as a frustrated conversation between 4 relative strangers following an uninspiring social conference, Social Collective was born. Fed up with hearing the same old messages being pedalled around ourselves, and witnessing a new “Guru” or “Expert” being self proclaimed every day, we felt the time had come to try and help social media grow up. Dubbed as a “Forward thinking social media conference”, Social Collective looked to bring real actionable insights to the table, not for acceptance by the meek but for debate by the professionals. Having all met through social media, the 4 of us (Simon Lewis, Beth Carrol, Barry Furby and myself) felt it was our responsibility to take on this challenge and help change the perceptions of so many conferences in our industry.

So, after 9 months in the making Social Collective came to life yesterday at The Museum of London. We had a lot to prove; we’d made some bold statements, we’d promised “new” and “fresh” ideas and approach. Thankfully we had the right audience and the right speakers…or at least that’s the impression I’m getting as the positive feedback continues to roll in.

I would at this time like to thank my agency, Essential Communications, for embracing this opportunity with open arms, being more flexible than I could have ever hoped, whilst going above and beyond to provide resource and contacts for creating the printed media including brochures and banners and giving me time to develop other aspects of the event. Thanks also go to my designer with whom I worked very closely, Clare Hedley, who took my logo and sketches of what I’d like the brochure to become and created truly commendable visual pieces of collateral.

The Day of the Event:

With an early start at 4am, the day was off, a short trip to the station and by 6:15 I was in London on my way to The Museum of London. Once set up, and with people rolling through the doors, the day was off to a great start.

Kicking things off, Adam Vincenzini (#SoCol Compere) roused the crowd fantastically, energising the audience with his inexhaustible wit, charm and charisma. Whilst we’re all still questioning how Simon Lewis is in fact the Jack Bauer of the group, I want to thank Adam for volunteering his time and effort for the event in which he acted as the social glue tying speakers, intermissions and questions together throughout the course of the day and evening.

Live Blogging:

As I don’t want to be here to pass comment just yet on the days speakers and topics, I thought I would direct you to the Social Collective Live Blog which was being written by Gemma Went at a ferocious speed during the course of the day.

So here they are in all their glory:

Well I hope you’re still with me at this point?…

One of the most poignant factors to come out of the day was that so many people were interacting during the conference via smart phone, laptop or tablet, we became a trending topic on twitter for the day under our tag #SoCol. Whilst not appearing like the biggest deal in the world, this showed us that we had created an event which was sparking debate, and encouraging individuals to question what they perceived or believed about aspects of social media, we had succeeded in what we set out to do!

The After Party & Networking:

Following on from the day of speakers, we retired to Green’s Oyster Bar, Cornhill. A fantastic venue with a real character, again something which we wanted to achieve, a venue which was grown up, serious and capable of being appreciated. With canapés to die for, everyone was treated to a wonderful evening…or so I hope anyway. We certainly knew Beth was happy, as her focus on the mini burgers had become a thing of legend in the run up to the event, so when the time came she was in here element.

An evening of networking and drinking followed, along with an introduction to the kind of in depth research and approach Telligent take to their social media offering, swiftly followed by the great Guru John Popolini… Whilst the acoustics of the venue were less than ideal, I hope both of these were also of value and entertainment…I for one certainly thought so.

The whole team welcomes your feedback on the event and the after-party, as we hope that if we are able to run SoCol 2011, we can make it even better. Without you as attendees, we don’t have an even, so what you have to say really matters!

To stay up to date with how the whole story unfolds, be sure to keep an eye on the hash tag #SoCol.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this inaugural event a resounding success.

Photos courtesy of SoCol event photographer Gail D’Ailmaine – http://www.dalmaine.biz/

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Jun
02

Social Collective 2010 – Be it, Live it, Join it!

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It is with great pleasure I announce this years ‘must attend’ event, Social Collective 2010!

Social Collective 2010Social Collective is an event to be held on the 30th September 2010 in London, bringing together collective thoughts on Social Media for 2011. We know its going to be much more than an introduction to Social, we’re looking forward into the bigger picture about how we communicate within the platforms and how we measure and integrate Social Media into our strategies, customer service and marketing.

We’re not looking to produce just ‘another’ event, we’re looking to bring together some of the leading authorities in Social Media, from app developers to word of mouth evangelists to discuss where and how the industry is evolving! Social Collective 2010 is set to be ‘A forward thinking social media conference’.

Currently, we’re working the final stages to bring you a fantastic event line-up, consisting of a full day of paid workshops with leading keynote speakers from across the space, all culminating in an evening social event with a much bigger capacity giving you the opportunity for further discussion and networking with like minded people. The venues we’ve selected are in keeping with our ambition to bring you something special – The British Museum and Grange St. Paul’s Hotel in eye shot of St. Paul’s Cathedral & Victoria Embankment, London.

Current lineup of speakers includes:

Bradley Little – Vice President, Head of BuzzMetrics, EMEA
Katy Howell – Managing Director, immediate future
Joanna Lund – Founder & Owner, Reputation Matters Ltd.
Paul Harrison – Managing Partner, Carve Consulting
Chris Hall – Owner, Cow Bell
#MAPmad – Marketing, Advertising, PR in the era of social

Head on over to the site to find out more and to book your tickets…

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Apr
30

Live Chat to Take Negative Social Discussions into Closed Environments!

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Live Web ChatI recently attended Internet World at London’s Earls Court, where the hottest web topics (supposedly) are being showcase and offered for purchase, use or investment. Whilst the experience as a whole often feels cold and much like a continual avoidance from the barrage of flyers from what can only be described as ‘wanna-be’ Miss England PR girls, there are always some key take outs which justify the visit.

On a technological front, the most common trend at the exhibition was around the integration of live web-chat into sites and platforms, generating in some cases an 80% increase in incremental revenue gained from those who would otherwise have left the site if had they not been engaged in conversation by an agent. Whilst this is fantastic and adds a real human element to the potential user experience, something said by one such company whom provide web-chat systems really resonated with me.

I was casually told that their highly developed live chat facility would soon be integrating web 2.0 functionality, and would facilitate conversations… ‘Great’ I thought, but how does that work?

It would appear that the aim is indeed to facilitate conversations, but by removing those conversations from the social space. For example an individual may be having issues with a product made my manufacturer ‘X’, their complaint, or negative creation of content would be identified by a crawler which would then notify an agent at company ‘X’ of this occurrence. The agent then has the facility to send an invite to this individual to participate in a live chat. At first I thought this was great, and facilitated quick resolution to problems, which I guess is true. However, by the time the live chat has taken place, the negative content may have gained traction, without any specific management and any counter reaction from ‘X’ in the social space and even when the resolution may have been reached in the live chat, the only content which still remains in the social space is the initial negative content without any trail of the resolution which was met. This puts a lot of faith in the individual to create content to say the problem was rectified so brand reputation is maintained!

I’m not saying this system couldn’t work somehow, but it will need to be very carefully managed to ensure that brands maintain a social presence to handle negativity alongside the alternative paths to conflict resolution, such as live chat or any other external channel from social media.

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Apr
23

150 Human Relationships. That’s Your Limit…Sorry!

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Recent research has indicated that humans are in fact only capable of having 150 ‘human connections’ at any given time. This theory was put forward by Robin Dunbar, professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, stating that this is as true a fact today as it has been throughout history.

However, in historical times, accruing more than 150 contacts would have indeed been something of a mammoth feat, but in today’s technological world, this figure can be supasesd in a matter of days on a social network.

So how do these number apply and affect our social interactions. Well for twitter, connections can simply exist in just one direction, there is no requirement for reciprocation with mutual following. Therefore, there is an argument that if a user has a following of 25,000 people, then maybe, just maybe that person is in fact one of the 150 friendships each of those 25,000 individuals have. I must admit, this is something of a long shot…a very long shot! But as a standard, I’d say the following and follower numbers are not all that different, so how can those 25,000 people which are followed be categorized as human relationships?

What concerns me is that the ego of numbers in social media has at some point become more important than the relationships they represent or enable. The kudos behind follower numbers needs to be a thing of the past, the conversational volumes and spread within a mutual following is surely of much greater importance and gravitas, that’s what these platforms are in place for after all. There is simply no way that anyone can keep up with following that many people, so the reasoning must simply be one of self-esteem and not of productivity or enhancement!

If you cleared out your following in a critical and logical manner, I wonder what the eventual figure would be of people you follow?

Put your ego and kudos aside, and start building and fostering the niche community which matters to you…

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Apr
23

Personal or Business: Where’s the Boundary?

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Gone are the days of traditional 9-5 jobs, clocking on and off and working through a routine, or at least that’s the case for most of us! However, there’s always someone asking us to consider how the late nights and not cutting off the working day could actually be detrimental to our work itself.

So what do we do when our personal and work lives are so intertwined?

Everyday I find myself merging my two lives together into a singular life, no longer the work life / home life divide, just one life. I spend my working days managing social media projects for clients and for my employer, I discover and experiment with things which I then adopt into my personal social activity and vice-versa…

So where do we draw the line, if there even is one? Most people have identified Facebook as being a very personal platform, and will usually not be found ‘friending’ fellow colleagues. Where people used to meet up with the same group of friends each night down the local pub, we now find ourselves in a perpetual checking of presences for interactions on a global scale, the very same platforms we use on a professional level.

The transition of the work / life model has taken a real ‘shift’ with social media. The same umbrella strategies which we use with friends and new connections, from engagement to participation are often those we employ on a professional level within social media.

Does this make my job more enjoyable because it’s what I do for pleasure too? Absolutely. Does it make me more aware and productive? Of course. Has it taken away some of the separation from work? Strangely, no! But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Social media is so vast with it’s applications and so diverse in its offerings, saying that if you work in social media you can’t play in it would be like saying if you work in a city you can’t live in it. Those of us who opperate in social media on a professional level are also so often wrapped up in it and passionate about what we do that findign the work/life divide isn’t even a consideration…

15-20% of people now marry someone they met in the workplace compared to this being a rare occurrence in years gone-by. This shows that with our ever increasing time spent at work, our social / work divide is shrinking but we’re all only one person, so acting in 2 ways in social networks to accomodate would surely be schizophrenic?

It’s a hard balance and line to draw for so many, and it’s becoming ever more difficult. But for those of us fortunate enough to work in something we’re so passionate about, the divide isn’t something which needs attention, becuase that divide is almost unrecognisable!

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Apr
16

My Top 5 WordPress Plugins

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With so many plugins in the WordPress plugins available, I thought I would share my favourites:

  1. Askimet – Avoid all those annoying spam comments. Askimet is by far band away the industry standard for catching those nasty critters.
  2. Chat Catcher – Aggregate all mentions of a blog post into the comments section from platforms including Twitter and FriendFeed. It’s a love or hate system, but so far it’s working for me.
  3. Ultimate Google Analytics – We all love to know the numbers behind our blogs. Retweets are a great deep involvement measurement, but are your other traffic driving tactics working and is awareness spreading? Google analytics can tell you and this tidy plugin integrates seamlessly.
  4. TweetMeme Retweet Button – Without a doubt one of the greatest sharing mechanisms available, the TweetMeme button is a simple, trackable and versitile…and it makes everything look smarter somehow!
  5. SexyBookmarks – Last but by no means least, SexyBookmarks is a superb, stylish and interactive sharing tool which offers various options for all tastes. With a multitude of social sites at your disposal, SexyBookmarks can be tailored to suit your audience and their most popular venues.

Hope this short list provides a few options which will change your blog, new or old, and help increase your usability and analytical aspects of what you do.

Got some plugins you think should be on this list? Let me know…

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Apr
16

Social Media – Play the Long Game

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Having worked B2C and B2B, I’ve notice a very key differentiator, something which hasn’t affected other marketing channels so critically but has struck a real chord with me. You may be thinking it’s the ROI argument, having to justify what the returns will be, well you’d be right but only to a certain extent. Without question, the highest barrier I face is the question of timely return.

It’s one thing to know that 100% accuracy on ROI for Social Media is unattainable, no matter what any one may say, but the requirement to portray the long term investment required with Social Media is a real challenge. Those of us who spend our lives in Social Media accept that everyday is another stage in the growth of our presence, our networking, our content, but for those who have only every experience short term return strategies such as email marketing or direct mail, this is a real struggle to comprehend.


WOM Ripple Timeline

When trying to “sell-in” social media for B2B clients the single most critical point I try to make, is that for smaller organisations the greatest opportunity is initially that of increased awareness. Without awareness in the micro communities which exist for clients, they have no authority, no reason for anyone to pay them any attention or respect and this is just stage 1. Where an email campaign can return results in hours and every interaction can be tracked, Social Media often appears to be a fluffy unproven tactic which requires a dedicated investment of time for very little reward. Patience is a virtue which I am yet to clearly identify in 80% of B2B clients, though attitudes are on the change and the shift from traditional channels are being more proactively monitored and challenged.

It’s a very interesting contrast which exists in the dynamic of B2B vs B2C organisatioins, but it is a great experience of how the different industries align their thinking and pre-conceptions accordingly. Exciting times lie ahead in my opinion as the personal interaction in social media infiltrate into the B2B organisations, with an every increasing awareness across the industry driving exploration and experimentation.

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