Since 2005 and the rise of the “Web 2.0″ term from O’Reilly, technology has been leading the Internet with new opportunities with companies charging into content streaming and download (Youtube, Joost, FFWD, iTunes, Vuze for example) and social networks (Bebo, FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Second Life, Habbo Hotel, …). But for about 1 year another groundswell has started. Thanks to or due to, the fact is social media has kicked off a new way of thinking for the Internet, and more globally has set up a new way of working for companies. Stepping back a moment to get the big picture, here are some takeaways from the web 2.0 thing for marketing and communication. Read More

Gasoline price rising and loss of $15,5 billion in the second quarter have pushed GM to move forward and try new things. And the new thing is the relaunch of the social media strategy with the release of the new GMnext.com platform. Featuring executive blogs, consumer generated content, and social media tools (like Twitter and Youtube), the so-called social platform aims at targeting young car buyers. This is the context. But GM is missing the important part of the way it works with social media … Read More

Creativity, innovation, experience enhancement. That should be the definition of agencies, ad networks, and ultimately companies that hire them to make their brands and products sell more. But for many reasons that doesn’t. Basically agencies are learning how to deal with the Internet, companies are still misleading agencies with brief that don’t highlights their needs, and ad networks are using patterns that don’t match with the Internet. And all of them are trying to protect themselves from failure requesting data and proven successful campaigns before making their decisions. Read More

Consumer have taken the power according to many social media consultant, “they’ve taken the control, you have to listen to them or you’ll go to hell”. For sure people can create websites, blogs, forums, use Facebook, Twitter of any social tool and tell brands are wrong and ugly. Some are using explicit websites names and URLs, as Emily Steel explains in her Wall Street Journal post. But would it change the bottom line? Read More

Sun Tzu, author of the famous Art of War, has been one of the most interesting author of marketing book, more interesting than Seth Godin (I do believe he’s the best web marketer). The statements he’s providing are basics of communication and marketing and much more relevant in the web environment. Google seems to have well read that book too since their strategy and tactics that accompany the launch of their latest product are based and leverage the fundamental points of the Art of War, turning it into a Art of Story Telling. Read More

Generating a communication strategy to engage with your community is related to your business objectives. Whether you are willing to develop your loyalty rate, awareness, reputation, and stickiness, you have to take into account some key concepts to make your social efforts valuable. Being user experience centric, thought leader, sharing with your customers and prospects are parts of the requirements and if you’re not aiming at or able to do it, you should make sure to change your company mindset before. Because social is about discussing and being agile. Read More

Last parts of the series “Engaging with your Community For Dummies”, FaceBook reaching 100 millions users, music industry new tactics to leverage Youtube, Google Android way of leveraging their mobile developer community, and others. Here are the posts you may have missed last week. Read More

David Armano is turning the conversation about social media into a more interesting one, putting the conversation asset into the business frame. What the point in speaking about conversation, how to turn it into an asset. He makes the distinction between internal and external properties for companies. But instead of focusing on the company use of social networks and collaboration, I’d prefer focus on the objectives: loyalty, awareness, PR, expertise, sales increase, and innovation process speed up. Read More

Social Media is crowded with information as real life is crowded with advertising (if not wrong we’re facing more than 3000 brands a day). That’s one major fact you should think about before releasing your latest “so much incredible and unbelievable” social media strategy to attract social media guys to make them spread the word about your campaign. Just look at what Guerilla marketing campaigns do and try to develop it online. That may be a useful resource. For examples, look at this Guerilla marketing slideshow. Read More

Every day tons of information, personal thoughts, ideas, feedbacks, and content generated by consumers are spread, discussed, linked, digged, and commented. Stories become mainstream because of quality, innovative approach, but mainly because it’s about brands, brand customer relationship management, and ultimately about brand infinite ability not to respond users questions and cut down communication when asked to join the conversation. In that status lies an interesting opportunity to generate a competitive advantage. By observing social media users you can quickly learn how to address relevant answers to social media users, how to use the right channel according to the user’s request, and how to efficiently monitor social media channels/ users. Read More