2/22/2011

How to use different tactics on Facebook, Twitter and on your blog




Read more here

2/21/2011

Do´s and Dont´s Social Media

Mashable posted an interesting article about how the auto industry is embracing social media. I KNOW the image is too big to fit nicely but I really wanted you to be able to read it well :-)

2/16/2011

GO STARBUCKS

Just a short note and polite respectful greeting to Starbucks which in terms of social media is one of the kings. There is no doubt that the coffee giant have embraces social media on all levels and they do it well.
Just such a small thing as offering the FB free coffee deal without any restriction. I asked for soya milk in my free cappuccino yesterday and took up 40 cents since thats what you usually need to add to your regular coffee if you wanna twist the milk into a different alternative.
Nopp! All free, extra foam, extra soya, extra hot, extra all if I wanted to.
WE LIKE THIS STARBUCKS!

Oh and a short note also to say this whole Flipyourprofile sounds great but when I realized ONLY users who have installed the plug-in will see my profile video it kind of sucks. How many of my friends have it installed? ZERO.

Read about FlipYourProfile here

2/15/2011

60 billion photos on Facebook

OK so to go back to my post a week ago about Flickr:


Now this tells me I can go ahead and skip Flickr for a while...
Facebook houses about 60 billion photos compared to Photobucket’s 8 billion, Picasa’s 7 billion and Flickr’s 5 billion. 

Read more here

2/14/2011

Linked In Keeps Growing

Facebook´s new fan page design and features, live updating and Twitters video function were all news from last week. One graph that struck me was this one. Linked In has always been an important tool for me.

2/12/2011

My favorite Car Commercials

There is something special about car commercials, they make me wake up and for once believe in TV commercials.
Great great commercials that make me wanna buy a car for real.









2/11/2011

Twitter ranks low on Brand Value

So I wrote a previous post about What Makes Me Click. Today i thought of What Makes Me Follow?

Its about Twitter now for you who didnt "follow" that one (yes I´m wearing the funny mask today)

Someone once told me "Twitter is like CNN says, Be The First To Know".
As a user I care about live updates on the spot, where it happens, where I would love to be but can´t be for some reason. An event on the other side of the planet, a concert that I was suppose to go to but couldn't go to cus I got stuck in bed with the flu, the mobile congress in barcelona that I would have loved to go to is I was a millionaire... Those type of things ya know...

This article shows that Twitter doesnt rank so high on security and brand value:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=144422

I have NO clue what the heck Myspace is even doing on the top 50 list but oh well...


Top Social Networking Sites Ranked By Brand Loyalty
1 Facebook
2 MySpace
3 LinkedIn
4 Flickr
5 Twitter

2/10/2011

Social Media Metrics

You´re about to spend thousands of dollars or euros on a social media campaign. How do you measure it?  What metrics are important for you?
This article was interesting... I would totally agree on the top 3 but I wonder why conversion was valued so low in 2010.

2/09/2011

Foursquare grew 3400% last year...

381,576,305 Check-Ins. 1 check in from SPACE! 6 million users, did someone ever NOT believe in the whole location thing?

2/08/2011

Blogs are important

To news-blast blogs serve nobody, possibly the smallest blogs will pick it up and post something but to get your material posted on the bigger and more serious blogs you need to treat them well. To create connections and personal contacts with these blog owners can be extremely valuable.

http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2011/02/03/the-how-and-why-of-using-blogs-to-share-your-story/

Hadouken interview

I like Hadouken. A lot. How great is it to get to work with something you actually like? First to work with music and secondly with music you like. Pretty unique.

Check out this interview that one of the biggest independent FIFA soccer blogs just did. And I got a shout-out at the end too yiiha :-)

http://fifasoccerblog.com/blog/fsb-interview-hadouken

2/07/2011

"Mobile is the next step in evolution"


sme_bw2010_alex_kinsella_v1 from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

2/06/2011

Social Media Done Well

SouthWest Airlines do it good. They´ve been on Facebook and Twitter since 2007 and even before that they had a blog. Now they have 5 people handeling only Social Media full-time.
Further more this article talks about HOW they intergrate social media, how does the content flow work, through the communication or marketing departments? Or both? From who to who? Who´s responsibility is what?
As a social media manager I want content from the PR folks, I want news, press releases and that stuff from them. But just as important for me is the marketing department. To be involved in what campaigns are running on TV, what events are taking place and how can we intergrate and cross-promote all of them.

Social Media isnt something you can put an unqualified intern doing. It´s a big responsibility and it shouldn´t be something "on the side". It can dramatically change your company´s reputation and it can turn people against you just as it can turn them into great loyal fans.

There should be a clear strategy of who does what, what GOALS and objectives do we have? Increase sales? Get more fans on FB? Brand awarness? And a time schedule! Not just "Oh well we should do some contests on FB" What´s the purpose, How are we going to do it and When?

It´s like playing a football game but not knowing that the main point is to kick the ball into the goal. Whats the point then?

Read the full article here

2/05/2011

What Makes Me Click?

This thing about privacy and to spend all your time on Facebook. To get so addicted until the point where you live your life on there, you may be crossing the limit.

People who post more than 3 updates per day I punish with the "hide-button". I simply dont see any updates from some people who used to take up all the newsfeed all the time. 
Same thing with people complaining about not having enough time in their lifes, quit facebook-ing while working then. 
Another thing that turns me totally off is when people take polls or play games and post their scores. "I just got 455 points while playing the Bananagame" Do I really care? Whopps Shoops you´re gone from my newsfeed too.
Another danger could be to get too personal, write things that upset people. Found these two examples below. Seriously though that woman running down her cousin should take a chill-pill.


What turns me ON then? What makes me interested, what makes me CLICK?
Vacation photo albums, we like that. 
Funny updates of people making fun of themselves, "I feel ugly today. At the bus, next to 30 kids, do someone notice if I fart right now?" made me laugh the other day. Or "Best way to destroy your self esteem, having the period and going to a step class with 17 year olds. I feel fat and slow" These small everyday funny posts rank highly in my book, those get my Like. Important news or links is also a safe card.

Brands they need to start offering me something, SOON. Not just hey we are Zara and here is our latest collection.I want value, ADDED value. Check in get a discount. Share this to 3 people and you will get a free download. Vote on the best shoes and one person will go to Australia to play with dolphins. Those things get my attention.

2/04/2011

If I Owned MySpace

One of this weeks biggest news in the world of Social Media was as you probably already know that MySpace is now for sale.
News Corp is giving up. They tried to join the big monster (Facebook) and work with them just didn´t go as they would have hoped for.

I thought for a brief second, if I had XXX million dollars and would buy it, what would I do with it?
MySpace, say it out loud. My own space. Maybe a file hosting website? A food site? Or maybe not since Yahoo just rolled out their FOODILY site which seems very promising. 
What about a travel portal. My Space In The World. My house, My Office, my world. Maybe an interactive webportal á la Second Life.

What will happen with all the artists on there?
My bet is that any of the search engines will buy it, Google? But then again, Google doesnt really need MySpace. Does anyone need Myspace? It´s like buying a PC when you already have a Mac, or like buying an Opel when you already have an Audi.

Abused!


I´m curious and furious.
In your country do you pay a part from the bills of the consumption, a service fee of anywhere in between 30-50 eur per year? Meaning paying the water company to be able to pay them? Paying them to be able to take care of their water pipes I guess? Paying the electricity company for their electricity cables so that THEY later can charge you the highest electricity prices in Europe.

In my bank in Sweden I have 3 accounts and I pay a yearly fee to be able to be with that bank. A part from that they give me a little bit of interest too every year. I think the deal is a win-win, It just feels FAIR.
Here I feel hit by a truck and then dragged behind it, stopping every 2 days realizing I have to pay road tax to be dragged on this road.

La Caixa. 4 accounts, service charges of more than 100 euros AND extra charges for the VISA cards, say again?! Oh sorry I forgot, ZERO interest.

My gym DIR is another example of being totally screwed over but just a little bit every time. THEY don't take any yearly service charge to let me pay them my money and use their facilities. Nono, they secretly increase the monthly fee about once every 6 months just a few cents or sometimes a euro or two, kind of hoping nobody will notice it. I didn't the first year but then I was like HEY I´m paying 10 eur more every month and nobody told me. I feel totally fooled and stupid and used and every word in the world that resembles the opposite of FAIRNESS.
If you make me pay a fee that is like going to a luxury gym in sweden and you always have at least 5 machines "Out Of Service", hair in the showers and you keep raising the prices all the time I´m gonna be pissed! You don't treat customers like that! THEY are the once who´s paying YOU. Treat them well damn it.



Oh and then its all the papers. Bank books/Check books, remember them? Didn't think so. 
I was 4 years old when they took them away.
Changing an account or a contract, here you go 25 pages sign on each page and fill out 150 questions, oh and then FAX them. Huh? Fax, I dont even know how a fax works, do you?
My firend recently changed bank and I this is the bunch of papers he had to sign (each and every one of them) to open an account. We put it on the weight scale and guess what, 2,8 kilos of papers! (almost)



Further more, If I call my bank and ask them to remove the 20 euro fee for a transaction they will do it. But if I don't remember it I´m screwed. I´m tired of having to do THEIR job. Take care of your stuff and I will handle mine.
"Oh well we cant have it done automatically", say what? If you don't have the IT systems to do it, then write a post it note and put it on a wall I don't care what you do but I don't wanna have to remember it for you. I already pay you enough to do SOMETHING.

Hey, fair is fair and I was always tought that all parties should feel the deal is good. There is not ONE winner and one looser in a business transaction. BOTH should feel good about it.
Wake up La Caixa and DIR. I´m leaving BOTH of you ASAP.

Social Media Info Graphics

SocialMediaToday just published a bunch if Social Media info graphics. 
65 to be exact. I picked my top 11 (wondering why I can never pick "My Top 10", its always 11 or 12.
Oh well, here we go...












2/03/2011

Facebook Advertising

Are fans worth $1.07 each for brands? Why has the price gone up? What does it really mean to gain fans for your business? 

Picking The Wrong Line

Folks I HAVE money in my account its not my fault!

Tuesday night, grocery shopping day together with a hundred more people at the supermarket. Lovely.
Do you also get that feeling sometimes like "WHO would be so stupid to go christmas shopping the day before christmas and have to deal with all these people? And then you realize you´re just one of them. I had that feeling last night. Next time I´ll go in the morning (already said that one a few times).


Check out time and obviously I pay with my VISA card.
The card machine stands there and looks back at us like "Do I really have to process this now? What about tomorrow? I´m tired"
It doesn't have reception, it´s no joke. The poor guy finally has to leave the line of 30 people waiting and go physically OUTSIDE the store to search for reception, again no joke.


He was walking around like a police man with a metal detector looking for a hidden gun somewhere.
On the sidewalk perhaps? No, lets take 3 steps to the left to the middle of the street, oups hold on cars I have to make this portable visa machine work I have 30 people waiting inside. What if I hold it up in the sky and point it to the right?
The woman behind me has 3 apples and a bottle of soda to pay for. I can hear her screaming inside "BOY DID I PICK THE WRONG LINE TODAY!"
Can´t they just plug in a cable?
The guy coming back in after 10 minutes searching for reception outside

2/02/2011

Planning a contest on Facebook?

Sorry its a NO-GO.
If you work with social media you probably already know this but SO many people do not seem to know this. 
"Lets set up a contest, a photo voting contest on our wall and its FREE?! Yay! 


NOT Yay people. Illegal.


One or two years ago Facebook dramatically changed the rules. No more using their platforms and having angry customers claiming their Bananahat or free download from them. Enough is enough.


The promotion guidelines are a bit tricky to understand since obviously a lawyer wrote them on FB´s Help page. So, lets try to clear this out once and for all shall we?



Facebook requires you to run your promotion via a third party application, usually on a Page tab. (WildfireApp or FanzApp being 2 of them)
This, along with clear verbiage about Facebook’s non-involvement in the promotion, allows Facebook to avoid any liabilities associated with an unhappy Fan who never got their free download (for example).
Linking off-site to a promotion on your company website or third party site does not require Facebook approval (here is when the microsite could become useful!)
Facebook requires you to complete the checklist tasks below, prior to promotion launch:

Designate an individual to act as a primary contact to address any communications from Facebook with respect to the promotion
Include the following provisions within your official promotion rules: Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.
Complete release for Facebook from each entrant or participant.Any questions, comments or complaints regarding the promotion will be directed to you, not Facebook.




YOU MAY NOT:



Condition entry in the promotion upon a user providing content on Facebook, such as making a post on a profile or Page, status comment, like, or photo/video upload. This means all contests similar toFirst 50 people to comment on our status will be entered to win a free pickle” are a no-go.
Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by becoming a Fan of your Page
Notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages. This means you need to use email or SMS to communicate with a promotion winner. Notifying the winner via Facebook comments, messages, updates, or wall posts is prohibited.
Instruct people (in the rules or elsewhere) to sign up for a Facebook account before they enter the promotion
Market to individuals who are under the age of 18.
Market to individuals who reside in a country
If a sweepstakes, cannot be open to individuals residing in Belgium, Norway, Sweden, or India. Cannot promote any of the following product categories: gambling, tobacco, firearms, prescription drugs, or gasoline.

There are more rules and things to understand people so read up well on this before you start your Promo campaigns!


Top 10 +2 Tools

Facebook, Twitter, Tuenti, Youtube, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Reddit, Apps, Picasa, Quora, KLOUT, WildfireApp, Linked In, FoursquareGowalla, Bebo, Blogster, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Fotolog, Myspace, Xing, Bitly, Feedburner, Tweetie, Google Trends, Alexa, Disqus, DIGG, Hashtags.org, Flowtown....

This world moves faster than light. Every day there are news and updates in the already full space of online tools, platforms and applications.

Here is my personal Top list for today (meaning this may very well change...in 1 hour!)

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Hootsuite
Klout
Linked In
Foursquare
Wordpress
Blogger
Socialmention


+ 2 more...

WildFireApp Social Monitoring


Hashtags.org


Hello? Anybody there? Can I pay please?

"Do you tip in Spain" my american friend asked me recently.
"oh..hm...well, a little bit I guess... But not like you´re used to with 15-20%" I answered.

Coming from a country where tip is included in the price I have always found it a bit confusing, when and how much to tip. Basically I go after the philosophy that if the service is good I tip. If not I don't.

The other day I had a drink at a restaurant, it took us 10 minutes just to get the attention of the waitress. Then another 10 minutes plus a walk up to the checkout to say "Can we please por favor pay? Possibly? Anyone? Please, double triple super please? SI US PLAU"

The life enjoying attitude in this country makes a whole bunch want to work as little as possible. Add to that extremely low salaries, AND no tip and you will get an idea of the service here.

But we have sun people, lots of it. And a blue ocean. Who WOULD want to work with that and the best cuisine of Europe in front of your nose?

Me?

Facebook Facebook and Patatas Bravas

How many hours do YOU spend on Facebook? Personally I must be close to 5-6 per day now. Considering I work with the platforms on a daily basis it may not be strange and it most certainly does NOT say I DONT work, more the opposite.

Now they´re talking about a voice-chat in FB. Like having Skype inside the profile. And the Facebook currency system, "Buy with friends" soon we are never going to leave this platform. Our lives spin around it, we communicate through it, we find information through it, we get married through it, we break up through it, we laugh we cry we stay up to date with where the hell the world is spinning through it.

But what about in a country where the physical meeting part of a relationship still is very important? Where an email almost doesn't count as contacting someone, you have to call, twice, to have something done.


I am not criticizing Spain, I love it!
I love how we spend time together, outside, with a glass of wine, having sun almost every day of the year, enjoying the core pleasures in life.
I love how I can cancel a meeting last minute if I don't feel like going (even though I am still not doing this, I more like the THOUGHT that I possibly could :-).
I like that people don't take themselves too seriously like we do in the nordic countries. I love how there is no non-fat sour creame to find and their are only 2 choices of milk in terms of fat, half fat or full fat. I love the patatas bravas and the salsa that you enjoy with a cold beer...on a TUESDAY.

But where does this online revolution fit in in this society? My friends first reaction when Facebook rolled out their Places-feature was "THIS IS TERRIBLE! PEOPLE ARE GONNA KNOW WHERE I AM ALL THE TIME".
But today when I got a free coffee for checking in at Starbucks that same friend had to admit, it was preeetttty cool to get free stuff by pushing one single button.

I was surprised when I looked through a couple of apps in my phone to see who was on Viber and who had WhatsApp and realized half of them were Spanish (or Catalans, sorry :-)

So this makes me think people are going to move quickly here. Foursquare, Places, Gowalla and the rest are already pumping out locations, offers, badges everywhere here. The Mobile Congress is right here, the new generation of people here are going to adapt faster than ever to this.
We just need the old people to step down or hang out on the Costa Brava more and let us do what we do much better than they do.

A letter to Michael Rapino at LiveNation

Live Nation is a huge concert promoter. The worlds biggest actually with a reported revenue in 2007 of more than 4 billion dollars. They produce thousands and thousands of events every year all over the world and they are the home to artists such as U2 and Madonna.
Their base station is in glamorous Beverly Hills California but of course they have offices all over the world who act sometimes a bit independently if they happened to be bought up by the giant a few years ago, but they have been forced to report to the big boss in America now.
In countries such as Spain this meant they all of a sudden had to perform well not just in peoples eyes but on paper AND filing as correct as possible tax reports.



A year and a half ago I had an interesting experience with this company. 
I was contracted to do what I do best and what I´ve always done best. Make buzz, create a social media strategy, reach out to new ambassadors and ultimately increase the appearance online. 
This was in Spain ladies and gentlemen, not in Beverly Hills but me being just a bit naive thought that these things would be interesting for the former GAMERCO who had recently turned into "Live Nation".


After 2 weeks I noticed that this wasn't interesting for them at all. Probably they liked saying "we have someone who knows social media" but I wasn't given even 5 minutes per day to do any of these things. I think another reason they hired me was because my boss didn't speak a word of english and every time someone called from another country I had to translate while he was on the speakerphone. 


Now I´m not going to tell you the details of this disgraceful workplace (I hope that word is enough for you to know it wasn't all that cool even though I was backstage with Elton John and Depeche Mode), but needless to say I stayed 2 months and left the company, pretty disappointed.


So I made them a new, better and magical freelance offer, with a 40% lower price than I usually charge just because I really wanted to create something good for them and be able to have them as a reference. 
"Nana carinyo, we will do it ourselves, we will put an intern on it, or someone already overloaded with work who can do this on their free time" was more or less their answer.


What a big misstake. How sorry I felt for these uneducated ignorant people.
But I got over it and 6 months later I gave them some examples of other jobs I had done, I showed them new jaw dropping statistics of peoples behavior online, and offered them to at least consult the intern so they could improve their crappy FB page at least a bit.

No answer.


The company now after 1,5 year has 1300 fans on their FB page. Whohey!
Live Nation America has over 300.000 fans. Live Nation Sweden have a few people exclusively dedicated for this in specific. But Spain, Gamerco? Naaa, they do their thing. As they have always done.
Michael Rapino, CEO of the company. (If you´re still there that is)
You know these things are important, how could the spanish company not spend even 0,1 percent of their budget on Online Business/Marketing and Promo? It still amazes me and it just can not understand it.


Flickr, who the hell uses that?


I was asked the other day for a work projects if we should include Flickr in our strategy.
My first thought was "Flickr, is that still around?" next thought was "I hardly know how to work with Flickr cus its just so not for me" but then I had a long thought about it. Do I know ANYONE who uses Flickr? No. Oh sorry, I know 1 person who´s a pro photographer and uses it but the mainstreem Facebook addicts out there dont really see the need do we?
With all my photo apps in the phone I´m satisfied and if I wanna share something I do it where everybody is, on Facebook.
After having read two articles about it, one of them being from the New York Times I was convinced.


“Traffic is shrinking. Unique visitors to Flickr in the United States fell 16 percent, to 21.3 million, in December compared with a year earlier, according to comscore. 
Meanwhile, for that same time frame, use of Facebook’s photo features grew 92 percent, to 123.9 million users”


Click here to read the article


I remember I tried to get into the whole Flickr thing a while back but it was just complicated and boring, create a group what? Add to that ZERO people to share my stuff with so I dumped it.


Facebook gives me all I need. I have it in the background all the time, "People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook" (from Facebook statistics page)


Better to well on a few and important platforms than be everywhere in my opinion.