Posts Tagged "Social Media"
May24

Social Media in the 1870s

Posted at 9:45 AM • View Comments

I’ve been intrigued with History Channel’s recent product America: The Story of Us. Last night, I caught up with my DVR to watch Episode 6 (Heartland).  One entrepreneurial story covered was that of R.W. Sears.  It obviously struck me from an entrepreneurial aspect; but it really dawned on me that in the 100+ years of advertising & direct response marketing innovations we have undergone, we are in the exact same spot from which we began in the 1870s.  The quick story on Sears:

Once the four standard time zones were created (reduced from 8,000!), Sears bought a handful of unwanted pocket watches and through the use of Morse Code sold them to other train station attendants using the trains to make deliveries.  The next year he expanded his product offerings by getting products to farmers and their families in the Midwest that had limited access to stores for products such as bicycles, sewing machines and even automobiles.  At its maximum, the catalog was over 700 pages!  People ordered what they needed and received it in a relatively timely manner.  Less than 20 years later, he was fulfilling 30,000+ orders per day.

So how have we not evolved in over 100 years of direct marketing?

Big brands are freaking out and having to work harder than ever for customer loyalty because customers are back in control with word-of-mouth discourse that can be released to thousands of people on impulse.  That impulse is very real and very measurable. Customers tell brands what they want and not the other way around.  When I think about it, the time of Mad Men (1950s) to let’s say 2000 were really an anomaly in our nation’s history with regards to advertisements.  Brands used to push and tell people what is popular.  The people are back in control of their buying habits.

The only difference between now and the 1870’s is that the scope of access has dramatically increased.  I can now go to Google to find my favorite sewing machine* at the lowest price and then virtually truck on over to Facebook to instantly discuss my potential purchase with thousands of my sewing buddies*.  Relatively soon, I will use my Android-based GoogleTV to purchase my favorite advertised sewing machine* (based on my Facebook viewing habits) at its lowest price in the middle of my favorite History Channel show.

*Disclaimer: I do not sew!  That is all.

Apr1

UPDATE: Leadership Video Toolbox

Posted at 7:34 AM • View Comments

The Leadership Video Toolbox project is barely a week old, and I have 3 video submissions already!  The 3 qualities taken thus far are: Vision, Initiative & Teachability.

I’ve got 18 more qualities to cover so just pick the one that sounds best to you.  You can also redo 1 of the 3 already chosen.  I’d like to hear as many viewpoints as possible.

Click here for the details on the project.

Let me know if you have any questions or ideas.

Mar30

Leadership Video Toolbox…BE PART OF IT!!!

Posted at 1:28 PM • View Comments

HELP: CALL FOR VIDEOS ON LEADERSHIP!!

Background: I’m currently working a on video blog for my MBA Leadership class.  The project is called a “Leadership Toolbox.”  The professor wants us to create a “toolbox” that future leaders can refer to for guidance.  My idea for the toolbox is to create a video blog that has individuals whom I see as leaders spend 30 to 60 seconds on the one of the 21 leadership qualities discussed in the book by John Maxwell “The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader.” It’s simple to do.  Pick one of the 21 Leadership Qualities and send me your 30-60 second video commentary about that topic.

In the past, this project has been a static one.  I want to use the the collective minds to create and grow a living, breathing toolbox for myself and others.  I plan to continue growing this toolbox long after my class has been concluded.  But, I need your help now!

Directions: The video can simply be recorded with a webcam and shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes of your time.  If you need help recording it, just let me know as I have several methods for doing this.  Don’t worry about editing it. I’ll do that.  Just film it.  Please let me know if you have any questions, concerns or ideas on how to start.  You can email the video to me; or if you use Dropbox, let me know, and I’ll setup a shared folder between the two of us. (You can sign-up for Dropbox free here)

The final video blog will be located here: CLouvi’s Leadership Toolkit (Note: the current videos are just placeholders).

Timeline: Before Monday, April 12, 2010

21 Indispensable Qualities: Character, Charisma, Commitment, Communication, Competence, Discernment, Focus, Generosity, Initiative, Listening, Passion, Positive Attitude, Problem Solving, Relationships, Responsibility, Security, Self-Discipline, Servanthood, Teachability, Vision  Here is a 21 Indispensalbe Leader Qualities Summary that overviews each chapter.

Extra: If you’d like me to include any links to your blog, LinkedIn profile, bio, etc, please let me know and I’ll be sure to include it online.

Great thanks to all the people have submitted videos thus far! Special thanks to Liz Philips for the suggestion to crowdsource this project.

Mar25

Onto the 3 NEXT Twitter Ideas

Posted at 11:33 AM • View Comments

An acquaintance of mine, Josh Martin, today asked, “What is Twitter’s future?”

It’s a question that has been asked many times and answered many ways over the past 15 months or so.  Many who attended SXSW this year were hoping for some earth-shattering insight into Twitter’s next big thing and were largely underwhelmed with the announcement of @anywhere.

Here are 3 future areas of development I see for Twitter:

TwitterSense: I’m more anxious to see Twitter release and ad revenue model similar to that of Google’s AdSense.  Many 3rd party apps such as HootSuite are already doing this, but I bet stakeholders in Twitter are dying for a piece of this action.

Loyalty Marketing: An area being severely overlooked in my eyes as I see many opportunities to tie dollars back to loyalty marketing campaigns.  @CoTweet, which was recently acquired by @ExactTarget, has the right model.  Who will adapt it for the loyalty marketing space?  With my company, Dukky, our clients’ offers are shared across Facebook 3 times more than Twitter; but Twitter redeems at 10 times the rate of Facebook.

B2B Twitter: This is CoTweet’s bread and butter; but no one has really pushed the boundaries of selling internal business Twitter technologies.  For instance, at tech conference all of us geeks go to town with our hash tags to communicate; but do people really efficiently utilize this in other industries such as healthcare or industrial machines?

These are a just a few future growth areas I see for Twitter.  What do you see?

Oct28

Facebook Is Dead..Now What?

Posted at 6:05 PM • View Comments

Over a year ago, my friend Darren Herman wrote a post about the social networks Facebook and LinkedIn colliding.  I saw this happening on a small scale at the time but not on the major scale it is now.  I now have clients, MBA classmates, colleagues, friends, family, Michael Phelps, dogs, cats, etc. all in one place!  This is NOT why I signed up for Facebook!  I signed up because I wanted to have easier access to my family as well as friends of past and present.  Also, when I was single, I could see if that girl I just met was crazy or not.  Anyway, like Darren, I wanted a place that I could keep in touch with real people or friends that I’ve actually met.

I have another acquaintance Ryan Coleman, a successful entrepreneur, that runs NextForce and argues (in short) that it shouldn’t matter what picture, videos, etc. are on your site because if your culture lines up with a prospective employer’s culture, then it’s all “gravy.”   I agree and disagree with him, and this is where my aggravation with Facebook comes into play.

Gen-Y understands Facebook…the new business networkers (largely Gen-X and beyond) do not understand it beyond having an electronic organizer.  I can tell they don’t get it because they have no picture or one, most likely from their company website, and then there is nothing else on their Facebook page.  People are becoming scared to put things up about themselves.  I have friends looking for jobs that feel the need to take down their walls, delist their relationship status and disassociate themselves with groups their passionate about.  I don’t blame them.  I would do the same…now.

Facebook is about to become LinkedIn Part 2.  It’s going to become a contact tool instead of a place to share things.  Facebook isn’t going to be the only one dying off.  This cycle will repeat until a solution is found.  Maybe an invite-only Ning is the way to go or the ever-elusive ASW.   Maybe Web 3.0 is all about tagging people as entities or degrees of separation.  i.e. Darren Herman (email, facebook, linkedin, mobile, AIM, in-person) or Ryan Coleman (email, facebook, mobile).

Gen-Y is still another 10 years from being the majority in hiring roles.  Until then, I can’t fully buy into Ryan’s way of thinking.

BTW, ONLY add me to Facebook here if you meet any of the following criteria:

1)    I have no idea who you are.
2)    You have 1 or 0 pictures of yourself up.
3)    You are reading my blog for the first time.

Apr2

10 Social Networking Trends

Posted at 4:07 PM • View Comments

Aki Spicer, from Fallon, has a wonderful slideshow about the 10 Social Networking Trends. Here are the 10 topics it covers:

1 Social graphs
2 Social shopping
3 Portability
4 Lifestreaming
5 Crowdsourcing
6 Continuous partial attention
7 Privacy protection
8 Open social
9 Virtuality
10 Measurement 2.0

The best part is his insight into the virtual worlds that will be demanded by today’s  youth.  And if you get nothing else from it, his best point was that the good and bad of Social Networking is that no one has figured anything out yet!

Feb21

Facebook and the CIA Coming to Get Ya!

Posted at 3:08 PM • View Comments

I found this video via Marketing Headhunter. It’s a look at how Facebook and the CIA are connected trying to mine all of our personal data. Yeah, it’s over the top; but it’s still fun and interesting to see…only about 3 minutes so check it out.