@dirkmshaw

How culturally relevant is your content strategy?

2011-08-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

The new reality for brands is people are consuming and creating more content in more ways than ever before. Eric Schmidt said we now generate as much information every two days as was generated from the beginning of time to 2003. Next time you stand in line at your local Starbucks notice how everyone is staring at their smart phone sending emails, updating Facebook status or reading the

Microsoft Kinect as an API

2011-06-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

This concept by Razorfish is not only an amazing example of the future of retail but also a great demonstration of the openness of Kinect platform. In the early days we talked about the power of services oriented architectures within the enterprise, now we talk API’s while Kinect is combining these with the addition of a gestural framework for creating immersive experiences. KinectShop from

Social Commerce on TV

2011-05-01T20:17:00.001-07:00

GOAB. A TV Experience Concept from Syzygy on Vimeo.

A day at MIT with Near-Field Communication

2011-04-28T11:48:00.001-07:00

A day at MIT with Near-Field Communication from MIT Mobile Experience Lab on Vimeo.

Near Field Communications (NFC) Shopping experience

2011-04-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

NFC-shopping: Leclerc Testimonial from Think&Go NFC on Vimeo.

Location based services will evolve in 2011

2011-01-28T09:25:00.001-08:00

In 2011 we will see a rise of location aware content, checking in will take a back seat and experiential marketing will take on new meaning. Location aware content will allow brands to extend the relationship with customers outside the proximity of their stores and place the brand squarely in an activity. For example. A outdoor retailer could create location aware content that when opened it

Slideshare: What Ad Agencies want from Location Based Advertising

2010-09-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

What Ad Agencies want for Location Enhanced Advertising View more presentations from Dirk shaw.

4 reasons to get excited about Location Based Services.

2010-09-14T12:58:00.000-07:00

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People are checked in.. Now what.

2010-08-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

Many people see check in data as some what of a commodity. I agree. The check in is merely the indicator of a persons presence the new "log in" if you will.. In days past if we could get registered users on our site we would be able to tailor the site experience based any number of attributes. Just like planning how to tailor a web experience a brand has to determine what to do when a person

In Store: The other side of Location Based Services

2010-08-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

Much of the conversation about location based services cover the landscape of GPS based solutions. GPS is great when you are in proximity to a location but misses the opportunity to pin point once you are in a physical location like the check out isle.The flip side to the GPS location based platforms is the “In store” LBS, which uses things like wifi triangulation or other proprietary technology

Getting Closer: Future Check in

2010-08-03T07:30:00.000-07:00

TechCrunch published a preview of an Iphone app called future check in. This app runs in the background of an Iphone with iOS4 installed. This is the first limitation. But lets stay with what is working.A point of friction in the process for users is that they must explicitly check in to a location. Future Check in allows you to store your favorites and be checked in automatically. This is a

Have your employees “Checked in” to your location marketing program

2010-08-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

Many large brands are experimenting with location based marketing tactics to increase sales and customer loyalty. Lets skip the technology conversation for a minute and discuss the communication and training. If you are a corporate marketing person with a large network of physical locations the temptation to add these to a location database with special offers for locals is all to tempting.One

Its all about location. But will there be a winner?

2010-07-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

Since everyone is talking about location let’s extend the conversation Sophia started in her post “Geo-Location Is Truly Everywhere“. It seems we are at an interesting point in location based content. On one hand you have the early pioneers of this new land Foursquare and Gowalla (I will leave Mytown on its own because of the amazing gaming experience) who are consistently gaining new users.

3 ways to get started with branded location based content

2010-07-29T13:51:00.001-07:00

People are broadcasting their whereabouts thru a variety of location-based platforms. With the emergence of any new consumer behavior brands quickly follow and seek news ways to engage. We are seeing brands and media companies tagging locations within Foursquare and serving up nuggets of information for their followers.If you are thinking about integrating location-based interactions into a

Panel Discussion: Traditional, PR and Digital Playing Together

2010-07-29T13:21:00.001-07:00

This morning I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel with some great folks from various agencies. The topic was on integration of channels and the role digital plays to compliment traditional marketing, advertising and PR. There were several excellent questions asked by our moderator Andrea Ehresman from The Coca-Cola Company. Here are a few that stuck out for me.The first one was: “How are ‘

Making content move across the web

2010-04-23T07:34:00.000-07:00

Content strategy has long been the corner stone to effectively delivering “The right content at the right time to the right person.” While this sounds a bit cliché

Integrating digital with offline events

2010-02-26T19:09:00.000-08:00

Live events play a critical role to engage consumers with a brand or product thru out the life of a campaign. The challenge with events is they are usually bound by geography, size of venue and of course cost. Many brands use social media to extend the reach of events with roving reporters who are live tweeting, creating hashtags for people to follow and posting twitpics. All of these are

Influencers are not a broadcast channel

2010-02-17T07:43:00.000-08:00

A corner stone to most social marketing programs is an influencer outreach and engagement. Successful programs are built on the premise that you are entering a relationship and as with any relationship it is a two way street. You give a little and you get a little.Engagement plans hinging on providing exclusive content or a sneak peak with the hopes these people will share within their network is

Convert check-in's into loyal customers

2010-02-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

Last year I wrote a post "Hyper local. Thats where I'm at" which focused on the value of location based social networks to the user. With tools like Foursquare gaining traction the inevitable question is how do brands engage in real time and build loyal customers.Pepsi used of Foursquare to build awareness to support its Refresh Everything community-giving push. For every point earned in New York

Target earned media based on user intent

2010-01-21T08:16:00.000-08:00

Just finished Edelmans 10 idea for the new decade which was full of great ideas as you would imagine. The one I found most interesting was "The Data Decade". Steve Rubel describes browse and search paradigms are flawed because most people don't often know what they want.But not to fear, Google is looking to help us surface high-value information before we even ask for it. They are building huge

Add social media.But don’t forget to mix..

2010-01-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

Last year we saw lots of activity from brands in the social web, dozens of new products were developed to better engage with customers and everyone was trying figure out how to measure their investments in social media. The traditional way of marketing seemed to have been hung out to dry. We learned a tremendous amount about the pivotal role social media plays to support business objectives and

Guerilla Marketing or Performance?

2010-01-07T04:52:00.000-08:00

Either way you look at this pop up event it is visually awesome! It is also a great demonstration of the opportunity to create branded entertainment and catch people on their way.What brands should note about an event like this is that within a couple of minutes there are literally dozens of people who have stopped to see what is going on. We are seeing many clients starting to redefine what an

Tweetup + Testdrive = Visits to dealers?

2009-10-22T11:53:00.000-07:00

Cadillac has launched its new SRX crossover and is attempting to create a mashup of a tweetup and test drive event for its new vehicle.Almost every car dealer will tell you a customers likelihood of purchasing goes up when you can get the proverbial "butt in a seat". For many dealer events simply getting people to take test drive is the ultimate goal.Not sure if he has any involvement in this

Slideshare: 3 ways to organize social media for results

2009-10-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

Move beyond social media metricsView more presentations from Dirk Shaw.

New Noise Santa Barbara engages event participants via mobile

2009-10-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest challenges in attending larger events is figuring out how to make the most of your time. Usually this consists of some up front planning then carrying around the conference guide to figure out where to go. New Noise Santa Barbara is a music conference and festival who's iphone app from Mobile Roadie is a step in the right direction to enhance the experience for conference

Audi's configurator integrates digital experience with a live event

2009-10-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

Audi's A4 car configuration is an excellent example of using digital media to engage event participants with a product. The ability to customize the vehicle and add accessories like a bike rack allow people to visualize themselves in this car. What is did not see was a capability to schedule a test drive. If this was part of the solution it would be interesting to know how many people requested

Lego's in-store augmented reality

2009-10-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

We are exploring new ways to integrate augmented reality applications with live events. Mobile augmented reality has lots of promise but a stand alone application like this would work great as a guide to find venue information, friends and schedules all by using your event ticket.

Segment twitter streams to increase relevance and reduce noise

2009-08-07T06:18:00.000-07:00

Should we create one or multiple branded twitter accounts? What is the role of each?This is a challenge many brands face with a large and diverse set of products. In a recent audit of a company’s stream that has dozens of products, catering to an extremely diverse customer base with minimal overlap the single account approach was very noisy.For example. Lets put this in context of a brand like

5 things I’ve learned leading social media initiatives

2009-08-04T07:34:00.000-07:00

Recently Opentext acquired my former company Vignette. The role of social media strategy is one many companies talk about but have a difficult time justifying.It was a pleasant surprise to hear the commitment to formalize social media as way of doing business. This can be attributed to all of the people from Opentext who have been out there promoting the brand and laying the foundation for

How do you report social media success?

2009-07-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who shared comments on the last post about measurement. As I mentioned a key learning to increase executive commitment to social media was the need to move beyond reporting just social media metrics. We need to show how our activity is impacting business outcomes that matter to executives.The chart below is an overview to show the tools we will use, types of activities we

Earn, Aggregate And Re-Use

2009-07-25T11:50:00.001-07:00

Marketers are being challenged to leverage existing social networks to effectively reach audiences. The question many ask is, "How do we make the most of word of mouth marketing, especially when it resides on third-party sites in the form of tweets, comments and status updates?" One way is to aggregate this earned media and re-use it in the context of a purchase path. First, I want to note that

Spam has never been good

2009-07-24T05:21:00.000-07:00

Chris Brogan wrote a post this morning that struck a chord, " Twitter MUST Stop the Spam Use of APIs Now". I could not agree more. Spam has never been good, not in a can, not in an email, not in a direct mail and certainly not in twitter.Perhaps when spammers arrive means that Twitter has reached critical mass. Whatever the case this pollutes the experience. The variety of spammers that come into

How much is sentiment analysis “Worth”?

2009-07-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

In a recent post I asked the question “How much sentiment analysis is good enough?”.This sparked a great dialog with an insightful question from Adam Cohen “What is sentiment analysis “worth” and do companies gain more value if they tag 100% of mentions versus 80%.The worth or value question is a really good one. Here are some ideas for thinking about its worth and how sentiment analysis should

What’s the “I” in social media ROI

2009-07-17T05:57:00.000-07:00

This week I was on a great panel hosted by Red Door Interactive. The topic, you guessed it social media. As with most discussion the conversations it started with what tools are being used.However the most interesting part of the conversation happened when the topic of ROI came up. A person in the audience asked the question “If social media is free then what is the I in the ROI”. My response

Sentiment analysis, How much is good enough?

2009-07-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

There is tremendous value knowing if mentions of your brand are positive or negative and how many there are of each.The Conversation Impact(TM) measurement model by OgilvyPR uses a sentiment index (% positive - % negative) as a measure of brand preference. However understanding sentiment is not just a matter of selecting a listening platform.The social media monitoring tools I've used fall into 2

Social media is A tactic, not THE tactic.

2009-07-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

As with anything new, much of conversation about social media has been focused on "how do I use it" more than "why do I need it". Brands have been flocking to social media in an effort to figure out how they can engage with and influence customers.There is always a learning curve with new techniques but has this curve made us loose focus on what worked? And, if you did not execute and measure "

Provide context when aggregating conversations

2009-07-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

There was a great discussion on how brands should effectively aggregate conversations from the social web and placing it on a corporate website. The recent launch of Crispin Porter’s Beta.cpggroup.com is a good example of purely aggregating conversations around a topic.Aggregating conversations or mentions is a great first step towards evolving corporate websites however it can quickly become a

"A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm"

2009-06-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

Don’t tell my boss but appointing a strategist to create a “social” company is not a sustainable model. It takes the entire community. Henrik Ibsen says "A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm"The social media maturity model proposed by Destination CRM does a great job at showing all the customer touches companies have. But the way the chart is visualized

Optimize earned media in branded experiences

2009-06-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

In some previous post I explored concepts on ways marketers can aggregate earned media and re-use in the context of a purchase path or branded experience. The question this brings up for me is which pieces of earned media are the most effective.Everyone talks about the power of word of mouth and there is plenty of research to prove positive comments or reviews affect people’s purchase. However

Whitepaper: Making Social Media a Capability Not a Campaign

2009-06-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

Because social media is such a new concept for businesses, many companies are entering into it in an uncoordinated manner. This makes it hard to replicate success, which means predicting the future value is almost impossible. This white paper explores a framework for making social media a capability within your enterprise and not just a one hit wonder.WP Making Social Media a Capability Not a

What would you do if Twitter closed?

2009-06-18T05:52:00.000-07:00

According to Techcrunch “Facebook’s systematic attack on Twitter is scheduled for beta testing: the Everyone Button.“ There have been several comments floating around on whether or not Twitter can survive. If a business is not making money and does not have a clear path to profitability then I would not be surprised. Perhaps a little saddened.The most valuable parts of Twitter is not the

Are the fish taking the bait?

2009-06-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

Jeremiah Owyang put together a great presentation where he describes the importance for brands to scan the landscape and understand the fish they are trying to catch. For most marketers doing this sort of customer research and segmentation has always been part of our approach for reaching the right audience.Social media however has changed the landscape when it comes to reaching customer segments

Checkout abandonment issues? Add a concierge.

2009-06-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

According to MarketLive research cart abandonment rate was up 2.1% year over year to 56.8%, consumers exiting a site after viewing just one page went up 2.6% to 34.7% and the percentage of visitors making it to the shopping cart declined 3.0% to 9.6%.Online marketers can reduce these numbers by using video, user generated content and multivariate testing to drive higher levels of engagement and

Litter in the stream

2009-06-11T05:52:00.000-07:00

A recent post from Brian Morrissey on how marketers are trying to get into peoples social stream via promotions like #squarespace, a daily giveaway of iPhones if you add the hashtag #squarespace to your tweet.His post got me thinking about the right ways for brand to earn media. Clearly this is about as earned as filling out a register to win ballot for a new motorcycle while walking thru the

Concept: Integrating earned media in the b2b purchase path

2009-06-10T11:43:00.000-07:00

In my previous post I shared a concept for integrating earned media in the purchase for a b2c transaction. For most of us b2c is a fairly straightforward concept to understand and as Michael Leis points out “we'll be looking on this concept as passe in a few short years.”Jeremiah Owyang also commented that he gets the question from some of his clients that aren't as cool as high-end road bikes "

Concept: Integrating earned media into b2c purchase path

2009-06-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

One of the challenges marketers are faced with is tapping into existing social networks to leverage the power of word of mouth. How do you leverage word of mouth when it does not reside on your site but in places like tweets, comments and status updates? One way to leverage earned media is to aggregate and re-use in the context of a customers purchase path.I have started to write a white paper on

"Real"ationships are the new outbound

2009-06-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, replicating social media success is essential for scaling across your organization. One hypothesis @gerardodada and I formed when beginning to experiment with social media is that we could generate new leads.We proved this hypothesis with the launch of our social media product. By actively listening for certain phrases and engaging with people who made mention of

Following is passive, listening is active

2009-05-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

Had a great conversation via Twitter that was spawned by Christian Knapp from Keystone Mountain. He asked, “what do you think of reciprocating all followers or just following key industry opinion leaders?” My response was the philosophy we apply to the @vignettecorp account. We follow customers, media/analyst, bloggers and people who have interesting things to say about the market we serve. We

Turn earned media into a managed asset

2009-05-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

Earn, Aggregate and Re-UseEarned media resides in dozens of formats ranging from tweets, comments, status updates and reviews. With emerging standards like Facebook connect and OpenId it is possible to aggregate and make these interactions available in many contexts.This is not to say you completely turn your site over to social media like Skittles.com. Rather, think about the placement of earned

Make social media a capability not a campaign

2009-05-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

This is a first pass at some ideas on creating a sustainable social media program. The premise is simple. If you can not replicate success then it is impossible to predict what kind of value can be achieved from your investments in social media. This inability to predict value is the challenge many companies face when developing a business case to formalize a social media program.Make social

Can you replicate social media success?

2009-05-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

It seems like everywhere you turn someone is talking about social media.According to a recent study by Vignette and the Marketing Leadership forum only 12% of companies think they are successful in their social media efforts. This might be because 40% of the respondents cited they have no social media strategy in place.The lack of a clear vision and a strategy is directly related to the feeling

Measuring brand awareness & sentiment in social media

2009-05-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

As we continue to see positive results in our investment in social media, we begin asking tougher questions. One of the goals we want to better quantify is how does social media "Increase Brand Awareness". The key metrics we will track are share of voice, brand mentions, sentiment and influencer's. These metrics will be filtered by the solutions we sell and the markets we serve.We selected Radian

7 Questions Some Brands Are Asking About Twitter: Vignette's Answers

2009-05-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

Here are answers from Vignette's perspective on Jeremiah's recent post on 7 Questions Some Brands Are Asking About Twitter:Should we create multiple accounts for different divisions? How should we name them? How should the content be different? Currently we use @vignettecorp as a tool to share relevant links about digital marketing, social media and web content management. We are working on

Twitter, Its not just about lunch anymore.

2009-05-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

Twitter is much more than people updating what they had for lunch. It is a real time discussion on the latest trends, a place to gain market insights and a place where word of mouth rules.If you are not sold on whether Twitter is right for you, consider the cost of ignoring.• $1million in sales for Dell (corporation).• 200 copies of Steampotville sold in 15 hours securing a publishing deal

In the social media dugout

2009-05-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

Growing up about the only sport that interested me was baseball and nothing was harder than sitting in the dugout watching the game.Recently my company was acquired and the same feeling emerged watching streams of conversations take place and due to the quiet period don't really have much to share.While sitting in the dug out I would try and make myself useful by observing every play of the game

Twitter Litter

2009-05-05T15:59:00.000-07:00

Just got done chatting with someone who commented about how impressed they were that within 10 days a business had amassed over 2k followers. I had to explain why I am not impressed.It is understandable when someone who has a huge off line presence is able to grow a following in a short period of time, using auto follower and other "get followers quickly" tools defeats the purpose of Twitter in

Using internal blogs to help teams learn social

2009-05-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

A recent post from Jeremiah on “How Brands Balance Their Diet With Social Media Supplements” referenced our use of internal blogs as a tool to educate cross-functional teams on social media.Here is a little more about the use of an internal blog. “The garden of social media”, long story on the name but the idea is that we are planting seeds to grow a culture who is passionate using social media

Moving beyond social media metrics to business outcomes

2009-04-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

Recently I noticed my reports are beginning to morph into something an executive can actually sink their teeth into. The first couple of reports to Sr. Management were mostly social media activities, which looked more like how I was spending my time versus what is being contributed to the bottom line.The aha moment came after sharing a deck created a couple of months ago with Jeremiah Owyang.

How to inspire & engage consumers in down times

2009-04-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

According to Hitwise online users are spending less time shopping online. This should be no surprise given the state of the global economy. This does not mean people are not online. In fact internet use continues to grow and online video and social networking are leading the way.HitWise also reports that online retailers are seeing a significant increase in traffic from social media, in the UK

B2B social media, how different is it?

2009-04-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

The phrase B2b has always puzzled me; it implies that two businesses or logos are conducting a transaction. When in reality it is people who are making the decision. According to a recent study by Forrester B2B is the "most active groups of people I've ever seen when it comes to social participation -- buyers in the business-to-business sector."Since social media is about people, does it matter

LinkedIn Group for Social Media Strategist

2009-04-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

After digging around LinkedIn for a while I could not find a group dedicated to the social media strategist role in a corporate environment. So I decided to set up a place to connect and share ideas about integrating making social media successful in their organization.The goal is to create a dialog on the challenges of shifting the traditional organizational mindset and building more social

Don't work flow the voice out of blog post and comments

2009-04-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

The beauty of participating in social media is that it does not have to go thru the corporate watering down process. This is why guidelines are set,to encourage employees to share their opinion on a topic without interference from legal, marketing etc.A mindset that every blog post or comment has to be reviewed as if it were official communications dilute's the voice and tone of the person

Content marketing for product launches

2009-03-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

Most product launches generate several pieces of information that usually never make it any farther than the corporate web site.Here are a few ideas to make content more social, easier to spread and some metrics to help determine which content is most effective.Web properties: Make them more socialThere are several simple ways to make content on your website easier to share. The simplest is to

Is life streaming and privacy an oxymoron?

2009-03-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

My SXSW thoughts continue to trickle out, this time on how life streaming effects privacy. The sessions I attended on Saturday prompted me to think deeper about this topic.The morning started with a very provocative discussion "Is privacy dead, or just very confused" followed by "The future of social networks" by Charlene Li and ended with Russ Unger and David Armano's core conversation "

The meme that started a market conversation & provided insight to brand perception

2009-03-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago Kas Thomas an Analyst for CMSwatch wrote a post called “A reality checklist for vendors” where he outlined 15 items that CMS vendors should comply with. The list ranged from some very basic items like how would someone un-install your software to how complex are the pricing models. This post triggered the team over Day Software to create a “CMS vendor meme”, where they

Are you promoting the company’s brand or your personal brand?

2009-03-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is the delicate balance that exists for those of us representing our companies thru social media. Since conversation is king, those who are great at engaging in dialog both online and offline will likely become the voice of their company whether intentionally or by accident.In the last several days I have been asked “What happens when a new opportunity presents itself, how will you mitigate

Social media is like running a marathon

2009-03-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

When starting to think about implementing a social media program you should enter with the mindset of running a marathon, not a 5k.Setting up a page in Facebook, getting a Twitter account and a blog created is like buying the gear you need to train. But you still need to create a plan for achieving your goal of completing the race.The lack of goal setting has created a grave yard of twitter

Is there equity in being a micro-famous?

2009-03-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

For those of us paying attention to social media you can probably rattle off a dozen or more people who would be considered micro famous.The micro-famous were out in full form this week at SXSW, Vignette was a sponsor of the Austin Tweetup where Guy Kawasaki was in attendance. I sat next to him for a little while and the stream of people who came over was insane. One guy even had the nerve to

Living near, working near and playing in Boulder

2009-03-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

This post is a little off topic but the people at Boulder.me are collecting stories from local bloggers on “What does boulder mean to you?”. I figured I should participate since I draw so much inspiration from this community and living here.Living: Notice my reference to near, that is because live about 10 miles from Boulder in Broomfield. About 2 years ago we packed the family up and made our

Tip for PR pro's, You don’t just tweet a release.

2009-03-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

My role is at the intersection of marketing, communications and brand management. I recommend how to and how not to integrate social media to accomplish the goals of each team. It has not taken long for me to understand the “traditional” mindsets in each of these spaces.One of my recent observations was while discussing how social media's role as part of a press release. I am no expert in

What are you doing to monitor compliance with social media guidelines?

2009-03-04T08:28:00.000-08:00

Defining your social media guidelines is great first step to encourage employees to participate on behalf of your brand, but are you monitoring if employees are complying with these guidelines.The thought of ensuring compliance did not cross my mind as something I needed to add to the monitoring list until recently. I was trolling around Facebook researching how companies are using pages and

Why influencers matter for customer retention

2009-02-24T08:44:00.000-08:00

Recently,while monitoring Twitter I discovered a thread from a person working at a large customer; he was asking questions about alternative solutions to one of our products.I reached out to the account team and informed them of this conversation; they jumped all over it and quickly found out this person was “just” a systems admin. A comment I got back was “We have executive sponsorship, so we

Address negative comments head on.You may make a new friend.

2009-02-20T15:35:00.000-08:00

The most difficult part of my day is determining when to engage with those making negative comments.Some are certainly not worth touching either because of the sheer tone of the comment,context in which it was made or if it is a conversation I don’t want to lend any credo to .On Twitter when I see a negative comment I always look at the person’s profile to get an idea of how valid the claims are

How executive sponsorship accelerated adoption of social media

2009-02-11T14:42:00.000-08:00

“Executive sponsorship” always makes its way on the infamous list of “critical success factors” for almost any project. While everyone always agrees it is essential, getting the sponsorship is no trivial task. Especially for something relatively new.I recently experienced the power of “executive sponsorship” when it came to integrating social media into the way we do business. Our executive’s

Question: Are you using twitter for customer support?

2009-02-10T09:12:00.000-08:00

We are discussing the role twitter can play for customer service/support.Our support team is wondering how you balance driving participation to a developer community with giving people quick answers.Have you started using twitter for support? If so what is working and what have been some of the lessons learned?

“Who is "I" can you dump the logo?

2009-02-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

As I move from using social media for personal reasons to applying it to Vignette,I plan on sharing lessons I learn along the way. This first lesson learned was learned thanks to @Jimpeake.One of my first actions was to take over the company twitter account which was initially set up to connect people at Vignette Village. After Village the account was rendered to re posting press releases and

Tweet it forward

2009-02-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

Turn on the news, go to a cocktail party or look at your twitter stream and the chatter is likely about people losing their jobs. Re-tweeting and posting to Facebook are ways you can help others get a job in tough times.My twitter updates go to Facebook,(whether people like it or not), a person I chat with only via Facebook commented about how many of my updates are retweet’s of people looking

Defining social media metrics

2009-01-29T12:05:00.000-08:00

As I noted in my previous post i have a new role as a social media strategist for Vignette. I wanted to share our approach, goals and metrics we will track against each goal. There are certainly area's I have missed, which is where all of you fine people come in.If you have any ideas or suggestions of things to add, modify or can I would love the feedback. My next step after sourcing ideas from

My new role, the accidental spokeperson

2009-01-26T16:25:00.000-08:00

Rohit Bhargava's Letter To The CEO: 6 Ways To Help Your Brand Survive In 2009 does a great job summing up our plans for 2009. The first step is to "Embrace the accidental spokesperson”. Vignette sees this role (and others like it) core to transforming the way it learns, interacts and shares with customers.As of today I am moving into my new role as a Social Media Strategist for Vignette. For

SocialNetwork API’s + Video = A virtual couch

2009-01-26T12:20:00.000-08:00

In a recent blogpost I wrote “Give your content wings”I described the opportunity that exists to connect web content management system with open API’s from Google and Facebook.CNN took this a step farther by connecting a visitors social graph to a live video feed. 18.8 million people tuned into the ignauration of President Obama with the Facebook live inauguration stream.I was one of them and

Is transparency in location a threat or a way of life?

2009-01-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

In a recent post HyperLocal, that’s where I’m at, I talked about ways to use location based services for making new connections. Today I started thinking about possible risk of to much transparency in location.This weekend I saw a tweet by @micah on an iPhone twitter app called Tweetie. This is hands down the best I have used for many reasons, thanks for sharing. Micah pointed out a feature that

Hyper local. That’s where I’m at!

2009-01-13T11:15:00.000-08:00

There are as many of reasons why people should adopt social networking as there are tools. Outside of the amazing connections made, one of the most useful features for me is the ability get location based alerts. For the sake of scope, I will narrow down how I get location based alerts using twitter and BrightKite.Many people don’t like the idea of others knowing where they are, but imagine you’

Give your content wings

2009-01-12T15:43:00.000-08:00

After reading the post, FTW 2009: APIs by Michael Leis (@mleis) I got to thinking about other ways to “monetize” digital assets. Most companies I work with have made significant investments in tools for managing digital assets, online communities and user generated content to deliver an online experience. Not only is there a cost for the tools to manage the experience, millions are spent every

Technology investments should be measurable, not just in down times.

2009-01-09T11:07:00.001-08:00

All of the conversation recently on how to measure and justify investments in social computing feels like ground hog day.During the heyday of the dot com companies were making all sorts of investments in new technologies. Very few took into consideration how to quantify the investment; the sales pitches must have been that good.The market slowed and these companies began to rationalize the

A Twitterer’s view on using Yammer.

2009-01-06T09:38:00.000-08:00

Having posted nearly 4,000 updates and meetings hundreds of new friends, Twitter has become an essential communication tool in my daily quest to stay connected.We’ve just begun to build our internal Vignette Yammer community. The value of being able to share and get feedback from across the organization in real time is huge. But like every community, growing it and realizing the potential will

Meme, myself and beer

2008-12-28T09:22:00.001-08:00

Andrew Hyde, the community manager for Techstars and local people organizer tagged me in the "what is your sixth photo on flickr" and "10 random things about me" meme.This photo was taken during a off site meeting with my co-worker Scott McDowell (@onespring). We decided we would take our meeting to the botanical gardens at Piedmont park in Atlanta with cameras in tow.Now for 10 random things

Video: Ignite Boulder

2008-12-25T19:28:00.000-08:00

Adapting measurement programs to refine online marketing activities.

2008-12-12T15:40:00.000-08:00

This is my presentation for IgniteBoulder2.I hope people take away that a well executed measurement program aligned to company goals allows you to quickly adapt and test new marketing tactics based on customer preference.Is measurement part of your digital DNA?View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web marketing)

Are LinkedIn group’s just stickers on your profile?

2008-12-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

LinkedIn has been a topic of conversation with several customers recently. They are wondering how to best use this as a place to engage with customers and prospects, promote their brand and be authentic at the same time.These conversations made me ask myself: is LinkedIn really a “social “network where people share ideas and insights? or a place where people want to have affiliation for their

Are measurement and analytics part of your digital DNA

2008-11-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

As I outlined in my previous post analysis paralysis, there is a ton of data coming in from the variety of digital touch points your customers have, and just as many tools for reporting.Not formalizing an analytics program makes it near impossible to understand what is happening which leads to uninformed decisions making for new enhancements and investments to your digital customer experience.Ad

Challenges in a world where the customer lifecycle is not linear

2008-11-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

The marketing funnel is no longer a funnel: Historically a marketer’s job was to move people from the large end down to the small end. This was a easy way for developing targeted offers for moving customers from one stage to the next and for sales to predict pipeline.Today marketers no longer dictate the path people take, nor do they lead the dialogue.This is forcing us to rethink the “funnel”, I

First election now action, ideas for re-focusing Obama’s online communities.

2008-11-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

Regardless of your political affiliation, one thing we can all agree on is that Obama’s new media team demonstrated the power of the groundswell and of the social networks. The campaign used every available tool ranging from facebook pages,twitter and online communities to rally, inspire and mobilize voters.As Seth Godin points out in his book tribes, Obama was able to raise 50 million by

Analysis paralysis: More digital interactions means more data

2008-11-07T14:50:00.000-08:00

Social networks, blogs and now micro blogs are infiltrating marketers with more than just figuring out how, where and who to engage with. It is creating tons of data to sift thru and even more tools for analyzing it.After meeting with Kevin Cawley from SocialEyes, a platform for measuring engagement within facebook & open social applications, it got me thinking about how many different tools we

LinkedIn, Open social and its impact on web content & collaboration software

2008-11-06T10:05:00.000-08:00

In a recent blogpost I describe how companies can shift social context and enhance business value. LinkedIn apps is yet another opportunity for connecting with existing social networks by providing a useful applications Linkedin.com recently announced more ways to interact with your network. They are positioning these apps as a new way to “create projects and collaborate, share information,

Finding, connecting and engaging with influencers.

2008-11-05T07:20:00.000-08:00

Knowing the marketing funnel is not a funnel, a single customer can change your industry and the number of tools available for marketers to create experiences are getting more complex.Here are a few things you can do to find, connect and engage with those who are influencing the perception of your products and services.Find out who is talking and what they are talking about.Before deploying

Slideshare: Digital experiences that create brand advocates

2008-11-03T06:25:00.000-08:00

This is the presentation i will give at Ad-Tech NYC. It covers tools and techniques for converting prospects into customers and customers into evangelist. I describe the challenges that face marketers in a world where the customer lifecycle is not longer linear, present tools and tactics that address the challenges of connecting with the connected and wrap up with an approach for designing for

Slideshare: Enhance business value by leveraging word of mouth

2008-10-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is the presentation I gave this year at Vignette Village, it was based on my previous post "Social networks, a foundation to shift social context and enhance business value."In this presenation I describe how companies can create a social web experience without having to build thier own social network by using tools like FaceBook connect and Google open social.This will go thru another

Social networks, a foundation to shift social context and enhance business value.

2008-09-19T08:56:00.001-07:00

We don’t have time for another social network!For any of us who actively manage multiple social networks, we know it can be hard work to stay on top of everyone’s status, tweets and professional updates. Personally I have reached a point of saturation for investing in new destinations where I have to find, friend and maintain another set of contacts. However the number of new social networking

Do you target updates based on social network?

2008-08-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

When i began using twitter for my facebook status is when i realized my updates are not as relevant to many of my facebook friends as to my twitter friends. As evidenced by a comment when twittering Adtech, one of my friends asked me wtf am i talking about widgets for. I do like the fact within facebook I can continue a dialog that may have started on twitter.The same holds true with Linkedin

Frequency, Participation & Relevance: Three keys to networking online or offline

2008-08-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

Last year I transplanted myself and the family from Atlanta to Colorado. While it has been quite easy to familiarize myself with all the amazing outdoor activities it has been very challenging to rebuild the social & professional network I had spent over 10 years cultivating in Atlanta.On my way from techcocktail in Boulder last night I got to thinking about ways to derive the most value from my