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

How does a marketing or communication campaign turns viral? That’s the question all the communication agencies are trying to answer when their clients call them saying as a strategic brief: “I want you to make the next Coke + Mentos viral video”. When I think of not so old time I had to face my boss telling him: “there’s no sense making a video, they should care more on their mediocre products than on their marketing for the moment” (yes I know it’s a cheap answer). But after been forced to watch so many lame self labeled “Viral videos”, and fortunately for me lots of amazing, hilarious, engaging videos, I’ve to say there’s some common points to videos going viral. Here’s the list. Read More

Twitter is like the hype itself since its launch. Everybody’s using it and this webservice smells like there’s some great opportunity integrating it into communications planning and marketing strategies. But how can 140-words text improve brand reputation? What is the return on investment of such an application for brands and above all how can it become a competitive advantage using it? Not so easy to answer but after some use you’ll discover Twitter is more useful and engaging that you may think, but only if associated with a blog and social media activity (see this post regarding social media activity). Read More