Working on a social media strategy isn’t just a button you can push to add value to your communication and marketing plan after having done everything you can. It has to be core to your customer care strategy to perform fast and accurate word spreading. If not you’d have to face issues that can’t be solved because of the customer care way of working. Read More

Indie labels have launched MySpace service, giving credit to this social platform to make big players join the party. They’re generating pages and traffic by inciting their artists to jump into that virtual gig that has become MySpace. But by treating music Majors and indie label differently, the News Corp. company may create a situation that finally helps a new music platform to take the floor. And by pressuring its community (indie labels), MySpace is moving from a social platform to a MTV-like music news website. Read More

Brand building can come from advertising, there are a lot of examples out there and best-in-class brand image advertising can be found for most of the worldwide companies like Nike, L’Oreal or Microsoft (though the almighty Richmond company may have missed the point). Brand building can also come from people: customers and people refering to companies who share their personal/ professional brand image as they’re advocating for them. But the best way keeps being when it comes from the company employees. That makes more sense and leads much more business. Zappos may have found the fine tuning to make it an important asset. 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

We don’t know how to calculate the return on investment of social media efforts. Yet. Basically because hardly none of the companies that are trying to leverage that new breed of communication channel has put enough money on it and connected their business strategies with those efforts. But one example tends to prove social media and community management has changed the course of their business: it’s Dell. Read More

QuikSilver brand that changes its corporate strategy to go “full consumer”, comparison between the Hulu “me too” mainstream business model and the yet to find Youtube one, the final post of the Engaging your Community for Dummies series, Google and its art of communication and reputation shaping of Chrome (and its brand image), the most read posts for August, some social media strategies and ideas, and the latest Microsoft brand image strategy. Here are what you may have missed last week. 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

What purpose do you need a community for, what can you expect from your community members, what is the proposal you have to validate with them to insure the work you do with them can be owned by the company, when and how to analyse the data you’ve gathered and what to do with the results? Shaping your community is the same as shaping a surf board. Knowing where you want to go and the different steps to follow is a value added to your company. Here are some tips about how to shape you community to fit your needs. 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

Hulu is a US based video sharing platform that’s currently being “hype” since they’re transforming traffic into business. We’re then quick to make a comparison with Google’s Youtube business model that is still not of the level we can expect from the Internet global leader. But after the first impression, we can question the relevancy of the comparison: first because they’re not in the same business field, and second because of the objective they’re aiming at. Read More