Tag / Social Media

by adam

Finding Your Social Media Centerpoint

While I was reading Groundswell (the new book from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff from Forrester Research) on the plane last night, I had an epiphany.  I need to find my own "centerpoint" on social media.  What’s a centerpoint?  Great question, I’ll get back to that.  Here’s the paragraph that hit home for me from […]

Img00058 While I was reading Groundswell (the new book from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff from Forrester Research) on the plane last night, I had an epiphany.  I need to find my own "centerpoint" on social media.  What’s a centerpoint?  Great question, I’ll get back to that.  Here’s the paragraph that hit home for me from Groundswell, along with a picture of my signed copy from the Forrester Marketing Forum:

"…these people [IT strategists and CIOs asking about blogs, Facebook, etc] know they need to get involved, but they’re nervous about moving forward.  To us, they seem to have developed a sort of low-grade fever.  In fact, this problem is so common, we have a name for it: groundswell approach-avoidance syndrome.  Look for these symptoms in yourself or your co-workers:

  • Strong, and in some cases obsessive, interest in the blogosphere and in online doings at sites like Facebook and YouTube.  Repeated forwarding of articles on said topics to fellow sufferers.
  • Excessive salivation upon hearing much-repeated stories of corporations that have developed partnerships with social networking sites, started online communities, or otherwise managed to get held up as winners in news reports and at marketing conferences
    …
  • Anxiety at the thought of actually participating in social technologies, balanced by similar anxiety at the thought of missing out."

In the words of Lt. Frank Drebbin, Police Squad:  "Bingo."  My firm is abuzz right now with "figuring out" social media, and we have started a social media breakfast group internally to talk about client opportunities, strategy, lessons learned, trends, etc.  I’ve been using twitter for several months, started using Google reader, started this blog, joined Facebook…all in the interest of learning about community and interaction.  My CEO regular forwards press releases and articles about social media, and our internal interest group points out cool case studies to each other all the time.  What became clear after reading this chapter in Groundswell: I need my own centerpoint for social media.

Blue_4 A few years ago an an internal community meeting, my old firm hired John Foley to present about how high performing teams work together.  Foley is a former pilot with the Blue Angels, and tours doing speaking engagements.  A "CenterPoint" is what the Blue Angels would use to set up their amazing runs – a focal point or object on the ground that would be the absolute center for their flying demonstrations.  One flight pattern in particular uses it – having two F/A-18s fly directly at each other and pass just inches apart right over the centerpoint.  In Foley’s speaking arrangements, he uses the analogy of a centerpoint to be a common purpose to align people and resources, that "all pursue with conviction and clarity."  It can change over time, but defining a purpose is a first step.  (Foley, by the way, is an amazing speaker about how to energize high performing teams – his presentation is very engaging, with some amazing video. I’d highly recommend considering him for doing something different in those "offsite team building" dreary meetings.)

My social media centerpoint, for starters, is to educate, empower and connect people within my firm.  We can’t start preaching to clients about the merits of connecting the community if we can’t eat our own dog food first and learn from our own mistakes trying. 

What is your social media centerpoint?

by adam

From Twitter to Real Life: Making Connections

Over the last several months I’ve experienced a phenomenon that has yet to be named:  Meeting people in person who I had previously only known through Twitter.  It started by meeting folks at social media events in the Boston area (thanks to breakfasts organized by Bryan Person @bryanperson and an evening event sponsored by EMC […]

Nicetomeetyoualfredn2_2Over the last several months I’ve experienced a phenomenon that has yet to be named:  Meeting people in person who I had previously only known through Twitter.  It started by meeting folks at social media events in the Boston area (thanks to breakfasts organized by Bryan Person @bryanperson and an evening event sponsored by EMC and Len Devanna @LenDevanna).  I’ve met numerous folks, all I would describe as "good eggs" – from Ami Chitwood @achitwood, leading internal knowledge management at a large consulting firm to the Twitter gurus of the Mzinga crew including Aaron Strout @astrout and Jim Storer @jstorerj to most recently meeting Amy Worley @worleygirl, Director of Interactive Marketing for H&R Block, at the Forrester Marketing Forum.

Here’s one story that jumps high in the "coolness factor" of that twitter to real life experience. 

Months ago when I started on Twitter, I spotted Phillip Zannini @phillymac, an enthusiastic video blogger, Red Sox/Patriots fan, talented interactive designer and all around good family guy.  This week, we both posted that we would be heading to Cleveland.  On Monday, I found out he has accepted a position working at Brulant, the same company.  <cue shameless plug>  I am a partner in our Consumer Product and Retail vertical, focusing on clients in NJ and Michigan while working to expand our presence in the Northeast.  <end shameless plug> One area I have not been as involved in to date is recruiting and staffing in the interactive marketing side of our practice.  Phillip started on Monday and actually used Twitter to DM me once we started to connect the dots:

DM string:
adamcohen:  What’s up in Cleveland? I’m flying there tomorrow AM for a couple days
phillymac: Start my new gig at 9:00am, flying home Thursday evening.
…later…
phillymac: I just started working for Brulant. Are you the same Adam Cohen that is in their directory?
phillymac: Ha! You are! I just checked your blog again and it’s the same picture. That’s just TOO funny.
adamcohen: Dude, are you serious about Brulant? Y, I’m a partner there but based in Boston. Are you at Park East in Beachwood?

I was able to grab some time to hear about his background and his experience plugging in with our team.  For me this is my best story about moving from Twitter to a building a much more personal connection.  I look forward to having Phillip as a great part of our team and we’re fortunate to have him aboard.  Last thing I expected was to have someone hired by my company who I had met through Twitter – without me knowing.

Have a good twitter connection story to share?

Photo: AlfredN via Flickr.

by adam

The Future Will Be Televised…With Social Media

Forrester Marketing Forum 2008 How fitting that engagement is the theme.  For my first time at Forrester’s Marketing Forum, I’ve decided to take a different tact on my own personal engagement if nothing else than for the learning experience.  Ever go to a large conference and just sit at the back, taking those 8 second […]

Mf08_webForrester Marketing Forum 2008

How fitting that engagement is the theme.  For my first time at Forrester’s Marketing Forum, I’ve decided to take a different tact on my own personal engagement if nothing else than for the learning experience. 

Ever go to a large conference and just sit at the back, taking those 8 second vacations, checking your email, paying attention only to the most dynamic speakers and humorous presentations?  That was me.  Sometimes I’d wonder why I was even at the conference that was what I was going to get out of it.  Here is a great tip on how to avoid that – use Twitter to take notes.  Jeremiah Owyang, one of Forrester’s well known analysts covering social media, mentioned over Twitter that he would be live blogging during the keynote presentations and offered to have folks sit up front.  Forrester went beyond that with a meebo chat room on the Forrester blog site and ustreaming the keynote with live video.  I decided to take him up on the offer and spent much of the first day of the conference laptop open on Twitter (Twhirl to be precise).  A very interesting thing happened – I paid attention more than I had before, looking for the key points in each speaker’s presentation.  Another side effect happened – I was able to quickly share that knowledge and interact with many who were not at the conference.  To be honest, I was in this to be better engaged, but glad to hear (via twitter responses) a few people got something out of it.

There is a group of folks doing the same here – some experienced social media folks and others relatively new like yours truly.  Here is a list – all talented folks who are deep into marketing in various ways.  I’d recommend following each of them:

@jowyang – Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst for Social Computing
@jspepper – Jeremy Pepper, PR manager for Boingo
@worleygirl – Amy Worley, Director of Digital Marketing for H&R Block
@Rumford – Rodney Rumford, CEO of Gravitational Media and FaceReviews.com
@MichelleBB – Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek, VP of Marketing for Harte-Hanks (also fellow member of Forrester’s Technology Marketing Council)
@weave – Eric Weaver, VP, Edelman Digital

I’m sure there are others out there I haven’t met yet who were doing the same.  I had an enjoyable day today keeping up with the speakers and ‘tweeting’ along the way even through the smaller track sessions.  You can find all of our tweets at http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=forrmarketing08 …

Sessions I attended and covered on Twitter during the day today:

  • Engagement: A New Approach to Understanding Your Customers – Brian Haven, Sr. Analyst, Forrester Research
  • Tapping Agencies’ Evolving Marketing Capabilities – Casey C. Jones, VP, Global Marketing, Dell
  • Moving Beyond Marketing to Engagement – Gary Skidmore, President, Harte-Hanks
  • Creating Brand Advocates at Nike’s Jordan Brand – Emmanuel Brown, Director of Digital and Content, Nike’s Jordan Brand
  • The Interactive Marketing Maturity Model – Shar VanBoskirk, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
  • Making Word of Mouth Work – Peter Kim, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research; Janet Eden-Harris, CEO, Umbria; Dave Balter, Founder/CEO, BzzAgent
  • Community: Engaging 130 Million Customers – Cathy Halligan, CMO, Walmart.com
  • The Four Pleasures: A Framework For Customer Engagement – Dr. Patrick Jordan, CEO, Patrick W. Jordan, Ltd.

My day 2 includes conducting a usability test for Forrester’s new website (a project led by a former Accenture colleague), meeting 1:1 with Forrester analysts, following a host of what looks like more great content, and an awful flight home.  Did I miss anything?  I have lots of notes to share back with team Brulant and have some great content for future posts… Thank you Forrester.

by adam

“Cannonball comin’…”

A couple of college friends spotted my blog recently and asked why.  Some colleagues at work joined Twitter recently and found that I am already on it (in fact, I’m linking to this as my 1000th post), and asked why.  In the last three months both friends and family have seen me spend quality time […]

A couple of college friends spotted my blog recently and asked why.  Some colleagues at work joined Twitter recently and found that I am already on it (in fact, I’m linking to this as my 1000th post), and asked why.  In the last three months both friends and family have seen me spend quality time on Facebook and asked why.  I gave it some thought.  To understand these tools, you have to immerse yourself in it – by diving right in.

As I learn more about interactive marketing – frankly, I know I have a lot to learn – social media is changing our industry.  Old approaches to connect with customers and communities are becoming less effective and less relevant.  What better way to understand how it is changing than to jump right in, drink from the fire hose and be baptized by fire all at once? 

After a few months, I have learned a lot and had fun doing it through Twitter, Facebook, this blog, and other tools:

  • I have met a diverse group of passionate social media enthusiasts who have been welcoming to a new participant, including the Social Media Club in Boston.
  • I found a group of strangers who love dunkin donuts coffee like it’s crack, just like I do. 
  • I have direct access to some of the folks in PR, venture capital and social media around the country that are defining how the industry will change, and there are amazing conversations taking place that I can participate in. 
  • I have reconnected with former clients and colleagues who are marching down the same learning path that I am.
  • I have caught up with old friends from elementary school, high school, college and work.  Not to mention summer camp (former campers who were 12 last time I saw them are now out of college!?).
  • I found a die-hard group of Red Sox fans to share a live game experience as if we were all in the same room.
  • I watched a campaign to raise money for Cancer research unfold due to the openness and honesty of a few core bloggers.
  • I watched a couple of social media companies leverage tools like Twitter to do their own PR about their new firm.
  • I have watched companies and individuals experiment, connect, ask questions and contribute thoughts and opinions.
  • I have found new ways to leverage being online and being connected every day.

Most importantly, I’ve experienced first hand how connecting to communities can add value to the experience – in this case my own – and am grateful for the connections.  I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.

by adam

Top Retailers and Social Media – Designing our next study

The top internet retailers are savvy companies who are mastering the art of user experience, search marketing, email marketing and many other tools to maintain a steadily growing industry.  Have they mastered, or even embraced, social media yet?  Geoff Livingston, in his book Now Is Gone, suggests companies need to "engage or die."  Which online […]

RetailThe top internet retailers are savvy companies who are mastering the art of user experience, search marketing, email marketing and many other tools to maintain a steadily growing industry.  Have they mastered, or even embraced, social media yet?  Geoff Livingston, in his book Now Is Gone, suggests companies need to "engage or die."  Which online retailers have started to engage, and how? 

I am sponsoring another Brulant survey of 100 of the top retailers – similar to Brulant’s Alternate Payment Methods study conducted in February – to see which companies are using social media tools to enhance their online presence and engage their communities. 

Here’s where I could use your help – What to measure? 

To keep it simple, we are going to go do our own research on a series of "yes" or "no" questions.  What questions do you think would help the casual observer determine "adoption" of social media?  Here is what we have so far.

Take 100 of the top internet retailers and measure the following – Does the company have:

  • an official Facebook Fan Page or Sponsored Group
  • an official Myspace page (after looking around this may be hard to figure out, but I’m clearly no myspace expert)
  • 1 or more official corporate blogs on their websites (interesting list at: http://www.socialtext.net/bizblogs/index.cgi)
  • RSS feeds off their websites
  • user reviews of products available on their websites
  • any YouTube “official” videos
  • any YouTube “Unofficial” videos
  • any Flickr results for brand

Realizing some of these may be both hard to quantify and that there are more likely to be individuals doing these activities on behalf of the companies, we’d want the measurements to be easy to capture and refresh at a later date to see trends.  What do you think?

by adam

Work Hard, Play Hard – with Social Media

I work for a small interactive marketing and consulting firm called Brulant.  95% of the close to 400 employees are based in Cleveland, OH.  Every year, we have a traditional event called the Practice Wars, teeing up team members in the Java and Microsoft practices against each other, along with folks aligned to industry verticals.  […]

Practicewars_2 I work for a small interactive marketing and consulting firm called Brulant.  95% of the close to 400 employees are based in Cleveland, OH.  Every year, we have a traditional event called the Practice Wars, teeing up team members in the Java and Microsoft practices against each other, along with folks aligned to industry verticals.  The competition ranges from foosball and ping pong to Rubik’s cube and an engineering egg drop.  Other competitions include football, softball and other sports.  Everyone is encouraged to compete in at least one event, and the winning group maintains both a trophy and bragging rights for next year.

This year, we have infused social media into the fun, but as a communication vehicle and a way to educate the company on the tools and communities that are out there. 

  • We’ve launched a Brulant Practice Wars blog (internal only)
  • We’ve started a twitter feed @practicewars http://twitter.com/practicewars for all to follow, with live updates and scores during events
  • The folks followed by @practicewars show up in a real time feed on the blog
  • The blog has a RSS feed, comments, photos, a mashup of maps for the event locations

We used to just send out a big powerpoint of pictures and results – this time we can update everyone real time, solicit ideas, and even let folks talk smack.  This is a great way and idea to leverage social media internally and in the meantime we are teaching everyone the value of a tool like twitter.   Score: New Brulant Community 1, Old school lack of engagement, 0.