This fall, I’ll be speaking at LavaCon in San Diego on generations and the social experience.  The popular conference is focused heavily on the digital and social media experience. The way they phrase it, they’re focused ‘on how to develop, manage and publish digital content that enhances the customer experience, reduces production costs and promotes your online brand.’  Who’d the conference really for? Marketers, public relations pros, brand managers, project managers and anyone with a hankering to learn more about making digital and social media work well for their brand.

And here’s the better part: you can save $50 off of registration by using the discount code CLOUDSPARK. Register by July 9 and take advantage of early registration rates. (Psst, wanna know what we’re doing with our $50? Sneak a peek!)

If you decide to go, let us know, we’d love to meet up in beautiful San Diego.

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“In the future everyone will have 15 minutes of privacy.”

For now, Facebook efforts to own the new social web are facing  a backlash from its blatant invasion of your privacy (and the privacy of your friends). The company has made it ever-challenging to keep control of personal data on the side of consumers using its services. With changing updates coming in rapid succession, defaults set at opt-in, it’s easy for consumers to not know, or be confused about, what they are agreeing to share and to disclose.  For Facebook, their trappling of privacy is another rung in their effots to control data, remember it wasn’t that long ago that Facebook asserted content rights over nearly all data: writing, photos, art, etc.

While you might use Facebook for personal relationships, the complexity its privacy policy and consumer concern may translate to businesses using a Facebook platform like Facebook Open Graph. As a business will you be able to answer your customers concerns about how Facebook and how you are using their data? Will Facebook’s challenges translate onto your brand and consumer trust? These are important question to ask (and answer).

But start here, do you know how complex has Facebook’s privacy options gotten?  See for yourself: (prepared by the visual team at the New York Times):

Now how are consumer supposed to easily navigate the complex privacy settings?  In an increasingly complex social web, consumers are right to question just how their data is collected, used and ultimately shared. Facebook should make it easier and more transparent to understand how their data is being shared. If Facebook becomes a company that consumrs don’t trust, what will it mean for the whole social web? And what will it mean to you?

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With the fast pace of sports – an industry with ever-changing leaders, teams, athletes, seasons, sponsors, opportunities – it’s no wonder that keeping up with the rapid pace of social media can be a challenge. This week, the Atlanta chapter of Women in Sports and Events, invited me to present a social media primer for sports and event professionals.  Having worked in the several areas of sports, I jumped at the chance.

Using examples of successful and innovative social media initiatives in the sports industry, I presented Social Media: A Primer for Sports and Event Professionals.  The goals of this presentation were to give these professionals the definitions, the keys to success, the demographics and details of the most popular social media platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr,and  YouTube) in use today.

And just for a note of inspiration, I stated the presentation with this new video channel on YouTube. In our opinion, it’s a near perfect blend of brand/sponsor, global event and the fan experience.

What social media examples might you want to share?

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You’ve heard about Twitter right? You join about 87% of Americans who’ve heard of it, but maybe you’re part of the 93% who haven’t ventured to try it for personal or for business.  While there are lots of case studies to show innovate ways to use Twitter and proof it leads to sales, you just don’t know how to start or if you should.  You’re not alone.

We frequently present on Twitter for business. It’s so important to help people get started, especially businesses, that Twitter posts a Twitter for Business Guide on its homepage.  But before you get there, let us help you with the first steps. 

This presentation was given at Atlanta’s Freelancer’s Forum last week.  While a lot of learning happened off the screen, these are the basic steps to get start in and understand more about the world’s most popular short-message platform.

Let us know if it helped you!

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We’ve been telling visual stories for nearly our entire careers. Why? Visual matters because most people are visual learners or can better recall a visual cue than a written one. When YouTube came around 5 years ago a whole new opportunity came up to tell that story directly to an audience – no media required. We’ve been on board every since.

Now wait, if someone tells you they can make a viral video for you, stop there. You (or your agency) can’t make a video viral, you can make it great. Only your audience, your customers, your fans, can take it viral. No matter, even if you think you have a tough product or service, there is always a visual story.

We’re sharing this new branded YouTube page from The Coca-Cola Company. It’s a soon-to-be-classic example (created by Sapient Nitro – deep talent over there) of just where video can take a customer. Coca-Cola a global leader in the refreshment category has taken the World Cup ritual (the on-field celebrations) and asked fans to share their own celebrations if they were playing on the field. Here’s why we think Coca-Cola succeeds:

1. It lets people (the fans) participate directly: send in video, artwork, photography (branded or not)
2. The content is seemingly new, refreshed, all the time and it’s easy to share
3. Coca-Cola can tie-in the campaign with actual events (note the videos with the branded banner)
4. The music is universally appealing, borrowing beats, harmonies from different cultures
5. For a global brand, the World Cup is a near-perfect opportunity to showcase its near-universal appeal

What videos do you think stand out as examples of a great visual story? What would you add?

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For a follow up from our ealier presentation, Social Media 101, I presented a second session at today’s PRSA/GA Annual Conference in Atlanta, Ga. More conceptual, this session was focused on discussing the forthcoming trends, some of which like Real Time and geolocation are already happening.  While the audience was PR professionals, these trends are certain to impact brands and bottom lines in the near future. After all, it was only 3 years ago when people were saying, “What’s this Twitter thing about?”  Like my earlier session, I used the new Prezi format, which won rave reviews from the audience.

Oh, and if you’re really geeked now, check out Akoha, a company that blends geolocation with good deeds, and augmented reality app Layar which let’s you see, what you don’t see,  and keep your eyes on other companies pushing the envelope of what’s possible. Or drop a note here and let us know who those companies are.

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Today, I presented at the PRSA/GA Annual Conference in Atlanta, Ga.  This presentation to PR professionals focused on providing the basics of social media – definitions, demographics, and details – they would need to enhance/advance a company’s brand.  It was also the first time I debuted the new Prezi format, which won rave reviews from the audience.

What else would you add?

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We get asked a lot about the demographics of different social media channels.  So we were happy to discover Flowtown.com’s visual chart of top social media channels.  While it doesn’t provide all the answers or information – including key questions like, “how many of the users of the channel are in the U.S.?” – it does provide a great visual breakdown of the basic consumer profile.

Source: www.flowtown.com

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If you haven’t experience the phenomenon of Twitter chats, you’re missing out on excellent crowdsourced learning and sharing.  There are nearly 80 chats happening each week in topics ranging from agriculture to web journalists. We’ve put together a list of Twitter chats relating to our worlds – marketing, PR, social media, and business – all noted with their days and times.* While we’d love to list things like DesignChat (Wednesday, 8pm CT), we’re trying to stay focused and not list every chat we’d like to follow. 

 If you’re running your own business, or just trying to learn more about marketing/social media/pr you can follow the conversations, pose questions and participate. You can learn a lot to apply to your business.

Oh, and if you miss a chat at the time listed, you can also search by its hashtag for past conversations; many chat hosts will post summaries on their own blogs.

Feel free to share what chats you find worthwhile. If you just can’t get enough, you can find a full list of chats, by checking here.

*Times for chats are based on US time zones: ET is Eastern Time; CT is Central Time; PT is Pacific Time.

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We get a lot of questions about how much time and budget to allocate to social media. Questions like: “What percentage of the mix do we need to invest?” or “Can I have my PR person just add this to their job?” It seems that while nearly everyone is starting to understand the value of social media, not everyone fully understands the costs.

Here’s what we know: It takes at least 65 hours a week to maintain 4 social media channels for 1 brand.

While social media channels are considered “free,” the time you need to create, develop, and maintain those channels is anything but free. In fact, from our survey of social media practitioners, it can take quite a bit of time – for an average brand it takes 65 hours on average to maintain 4 social media channels at any given time.  For the math challenged, that’s a full time job for 1.5 people.

How’d we get the numbers? This spring we surveyed nearly 40 SM practitioners and asked about their hours invested in social media for their brands or the brands of their clients.  In our survey, we defined the following: creation means setting up the page with initial content (does not include creative design team hours); development means attracting followers, initial promotion/launch; and maintenance means listening, responding, posting, messaging, inviting. The average ranges depended on the potential for the community size, initial promotional pool, campaign goals, etc.

Here are what the surveyed practitioners spend on social media for a single brand:

Planning

Social Media Research  8-25 hours

Social Media Planning   10-20 hours

Blog

Creation                      10-15 hours

Development                40 hours

Maintenance                5 hours/week

LinkedIn

Creation                       1 hour

Development                 5-15 hours        

Maintenance                 3-10 hours/week

Facebook (Fan or Group Page)

Creation                       3-12 hours

Development                10-50 hours

Maintenance                 7-15 hours/week

Ning

Creation                        1-10 hours        

Development                  20-60 hours

Maintenance                  5-15 hours/week

Twitter

Creation                        1 hour

Development                 15-40 hours

Maintenance                 3-7 hours/week

YouTube (branded channel)

Creation                        3 hours

Development                  5-20 hours

Maintenance                  2-7 hours/week

Flickr Pool

Creation                        1 hour

Development                  5-30 hours

Maintenance                  2-10 hours/week

For those of you that are fully engaged and invested in social media channels, I’m sure you’re not surprised, right? Social media done well requires a time investment. It’s a free channel with a real cost and has the potential for tremendous value if you invest the time. Tell us how many hours you’re investing in social media each week. And if you’d like a copy of the survey, email us.

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