To engage a deep relationship with people, one has to provide content to discuss and relevant ideas to share. That are basics of relationship building. In the Internet sphere companies are subjected to this statement. Content generated by brands is smart and interesting when dealing with video or photo content since they have ability to create awesome ones, but when dealing with written content they’re not enough relevant according to consumers. Though that status, there’s still a powerful move for brands to make in order to be an online influential player. Read More

Communication is a major issue of the web, and quality its graal. Basics of the web is sharing and celebrating which means there is more noise than signal (reshared vs. original content). Companies have to deal with that and a solution is to make more noise than the others, avoiding competitors any opportunity to generate noise and signal. That’s the easy way, but a way than may lead to conflict and decrease of brand image. The other way is to generate a targeted signal to aim at people when they’re ready to listen and take the message as signal and not noise. Read More

I’ve jumped into a conversation started by FaceReview editor Rodney Rumford (who’s also CEO of Gravitational Media) who’s been listing companies activity on Twitter, especially about “33 brands (minus 2 following updates through comments) that suck on Twitter” (You may also be checking the 25 startups dealing with Twitter). Within his listing most of the pointed companies have parked or got hijacked their company name accouts. That’s not what I would have called misusing Twitter (that’s just my opinion). Companies being active on Twitter mainly use that service to spread their content, and then yes they do badly use those 140 caracters messaging service. Because they’re missing the point about who’s on Twitter and what they can do. Read More

Generating and leveraging brand communities starts being hype if we check the flow of incoming information about it. First of all, the latest book of Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff “Groundswell”, then the study Tribalization of Business by Deloitte, BeelineLabs, and SNCR, and the last master piece which is the Forrester presentation of online community best practices. Here’s an overview of these 3 major content provided by some of the best people around (regarding Social Media). Read More

A consumer has started a flame war reviewing your product on her own blog, on Amazon.com, Yelp, or any website relying on social media effect? the result is a snowball effect and you need to stop it? Or you’re already tracking user generated content regarding your product/ service and you’re willing to make the right move. Then there’s one simple advice to keep in mind. You’re starting a human to human conversation, and the best way to change people’s mindset is to get interested in their feedbacks (they’re real feedback, not always clear, but it’s your job finding what’s interesting in them) and embrace the critics. In the end, you can’t be that smart you’ve managed to do it all right at the first time, can you? Read More

You know the rock band Kiss. You should also know what means K.I.S.S. It’s a bit old fashion but that’s exactly what messages should be to spread over the Internet: Keep It Simple, Stupid (for more info, click here). 2 important info to push in the message: what’s in it for the user and why is it worth sahring with others. Can’t you (or your agency) do it? See the following videos to get examples of what (not) to do.


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coComment, a FireFox plugin to track and get noticed of comments around the web, has made an interesting move pushing live new features to establish itself more in the comments tracking and gathering business, including companies such as Disqus, Fav.or.it, SezWho, Intense Debate, in addition to already existing word-of-mouth tracking companies. It’s seems a crowded business, but competitors have chosen different paths to own the market. And that would definitly be an interesting battle to follow. Read More

Following the article “Social Media + Consumer Opinion + Brand = opportunities brands have to join the conversation“, it was necessary to add some words about ROI brands can leverage joining the conversation. I would look over 3 different stages of what I call “joining the conversation” to speak about the social media ROI: taking the floor by blogging, monitoring social networks and contributing to the social media, and social media advertising using knowledge and network acquired through social media activity. Read More

Reviews, suggestions, and conversation between consumers and brands are core business of social media. It’s an easy doing right now posting one’s opinion on a product, service or idea, using blogs, wikis, conversation platform, and obviously product review tools included in e-commerce platform. Which means there are negative and positive opinion posted on what companies are selling. And which also implies companies may be scepticals about social media since they don’t get the hand over the message but only become part of the discussion. Yet, as Joshua Porter explained why brands shouldn’t fear product reviews, companies shouldn’t fear social media because it’s in fact a huge opportunity to develop product/ service range, increase customer care quality and quicken innovation. Here are some thoughts and ideas about how to challenge consumers and turn their requests, suggestions, arguments, and negative opinions into interesting points to enhance your brand equity and customer loyalty. Read More