I rarely use the Stumble! button on the StumbleUpon toolbar. Basically, what it does is when you press it, it offers you a random site that others have “stumbled,” or voted for, as good sites. It’s actually pretty fun to discover these sites that you’d never come across otherwise.
Well, today I decided to test my luck, and StumbleUpon showed me this cartoon, which really spoke to me because I grew up with Cookie Monster, and now I deal with big-people cookies.
Oh, Cookie Monster, you are so…consistent.
What do we learn from this (since everything must have a purpose):
- Social media can be fun.
- Social media can be a huge time waster, so be careful.
- If you use StumbleUpon enough, and/or you write good blog posts that others will want to “Stumble,” you too can enjoy surprise visitors and increased traffic to your site.
More information on using StumbleUpon:
Getting Started with Stumbleupon - from StumbleUpon
A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon: How to Build Massive Traffic to Your Website - from the amazing Dosh Dosh
I’m excited to announce the launch of a new course I’m giving on blogging and social media marketing strategies.
About the course
The new web, also known as web 2.0, is changing the way we communicate. With people spending more and more time online as active participants in the consumption and generation of content, companies and brands who wish to engage with online customers must adopt a new way of thinking.
“Corporate Blogging and Social Media” is a 3-day seminar that will take place on Thursday June 5, June 12, and June 19, 2008. During the course, you’ll gain a solid background in blogging and social media, start your own blog and write and optimize your first post for social media and search engines. We’ll also cover the following:
- How an effective blogging strategy can be an amazing way to market your brand and/or company
- How to set up and promote a blog with the various social media tools available
- Creating and monitoring an online social media profile that delivers results.
- Search engine optimization (SEO) basics for better blogging
- Digital PR/PR 2.0 - moving beyond the conventional press release to the Social Media Press Release
Where and what?
The courses will take place at Beit Shmuel in Jerusalem, conveniently located off of King David Street, near the David Citadel Hotel. Each day will begin at 9 am, and continue until 6 pm, with short breaks and a lunch break. Participants will receive printed material as well as access to a password protected part resource section on the illuminea site. Refreshments and a dairy lunch are included in the cost.
Find out more about the course, and see the agenda, click here
For more information, please contact us at info@illuminea.com, or at (02) 566-0297.
About a month ago I spoke at the Techshoret Conference for technical writers. Techshoret is an active mailing list for technical writers in Israel, but it includes many members from overseas as well. The people on the list are very supportive and helpful, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the best email groups in the world for technical writers.
Techshoret holds an annual conference in Jerusalem, and I was invited to speak on the topic of Blogging and Social Media as Marketing Tools for Hi-Tech Companies since they decided to add some non-technical writing lectures to the mix.
My lecture covered case studies of businesses and their successes and failures in the blogosphere, and how the world of marketing is changing to the point where blogs and social media are a necessary part of today’s marketing strategy.
I promised the participants that I would upload my presentation, and here it is (finally)!
Hollywood on a Shoestring Budget
I am also including the great presentation given by Benjy Caplan who works at ECI Telecom. Benjy spoke about how to create great videos without being a professional videographer. His presentation was interesting because he explained how his company uses video as part of their user manuals. I think this is brilliant, because so many Israeli companies have overseas customers who don’t really speak English, and the best way to communicate in that situation is visually. In addition, his company saves the costs of sending technicians overseas to help clients by sending them help videos instead.
Benjy gave us one real example of how his company used a video to help clients in India install one of their products. The clients sent ECI a picture of their installation, which was a jumble of wires. Instead of sending technicians over to fix things up, Benjy produced an Oscar-worthy video with step-by-step visual instructions of where to put which wire.
With so many Israeli companies exporting overseas, I think many should learn from Benjy’s example and save themselves a lot of time and money by adding videos to their customer support services.
Enjoy!
Bill Gates has just joined LinkedIn, and I can see why. I just visited LinkedIn and was pleasantly surprised to see their amazing new interface. The modifications to the interface, and the addition of new options and features has made it into a serious business networking tool that I could see myself visiting on a regular basis.
Before the changes were made, having a LinkedIn profile was like being at a party where everyone was deaf and mute. You could wave at people and/or shake hands (i.e. create and view connections), but aside from moderate signing (”I recommend you,” “Will you be my friend?”), nothing much happened. You couldn’t see your friends’ activity, the groups feature was weak-to-non-existent, and communication was sparse. The open bar (free membership) could only keep people interested for so long.
Now, LinkedIn has added a lot of the features that people look for in social networking sites, thanks to the innovations made by facebook in this area. As a result, LinkedIn is now a full-fledged social networking site, with all the goodies that can make it fun…I mean a good tool for developing productive business relationships.
Here’s an overview of the new features and design:
A more usable interface
With two simple menu bars, one horizontal and one vertical, the LinkedIn user can now reach all the information and participate in all the social activities with ease. You can find people, jobs, ask and answer questions, and find and recommend service providers on the top menu bar. On the sidebar, you can manage your profile, contacts, Inbox - which has many more features (see below), and groups.
Network Statistics
This page is under Contacts on the vertical sidebar, and gives you an overview of your network. You can see your first degree, second degree and third degree connections, where your network is located, which networks you have access to, and more. This information is cute, but not really useful. For example, my Network Statistics page told me that my connections are in 23 industries, but my network gives me access to 147 additional industries, such as…Ranching. If I ever buy a farm, I’ll know where to turn.
Better organized Inbox
Your Inbox is now organized according to sub-topics. The most interesting and useful ones in my opinion are Introductions, Invitations, Profiles, Q&A and Recommendations. Introductions is a way for people to get introduced to people they’re not connected to on LinkedIn via that person’s direct connections. Invitations is where requests to connect appear. Profiles enables people to send other people profiles of people they think they’d be interested in. Q&A allows you to organize and track your questions and answers, and Recommendations is a place to see who has recommended you, and easily recommend them in return.
Network Updates let you see what your network is up to
The new Network Updates that appear on your home page allow you to see what your network has been doing lately, like who has added new contacts, joined new groups, changed their profile picture, etc. This is very similar to the facebook news feed that we all love.
Status
You can now have a status in LinkedIn! This is like the facebook status, and is a way for all your connections to see what you’re up to. This can be a very powerful way to passively announce new business developments, requests for meetings, and other notifications. I just hope there’s some way to eventually import my twitter updates automatically like I do for facebook so that I can update everything at the same time. Also, it’s pretty annoying now that every status automatically starts with the user’s first name, not even “Miriam is,” so the status doesn’t make sense unless you make sure your status starts with a verb like “is” or “thinks.”
LinkedIn emerges as the true business networking site
Until now, I and many other people were using facebook for business. Thanks to facebook’s news feed, events, status, posts, and more facebook is a great way to communicate and connect with business associates. The drawback to using facebook for business is that it’s not intended for business. On facebook, my “friends” include family (even my Dad is on facebook), old school friends, and other friends, along with business connections. That means that it’s hard to strike the balance between a profile that is both professional and personal. For example, I’ve hesitated to post photos and news about my kids and family on facebook because I don’t want my non-personal “friends” to see that kind of stuff.
In short, LinkedIn has just moved up a notch in the social networking world. Based on what I find useful in facebook for business, I’d like to see LinkedIn eventually add the following features:
- Importing blog posts and other feeds - my blogs are an important parts of my business communications, and I’m sure that’s the case with many other people. I would want my connections to be able to see my new posts as they are published, as well as my activity on other social media sites. Plaxo Pulse got this right with their ability to add unlimited feeds of your activity around the web. With our web identities becoming increasingly fragmented as we participate in myriads of sites, the ability to unify it all in one place for business could be very useful.
- Events - The option to add business events, and RSVP so that others can see if you’re attending could help people publicize events to a broad audience, and connect to people they’re interested in meeting. If done properly, LinkedIn could potentially take over all business events from Meetup.com.
- Photos and videos - I love seeing pictures from events, whether I’ve attended them or not. Videos from events, as well as business related videos could provide useful content to my network.
- Documents - Here’s where LinkedIn could stand out in the business networking world: documents are an integral part of running a business. If there was a document sharing area of LinkedIn, people could share and recommend templates for contracts, MOUs, NDA, letters, emails, invoices, work orders, and more. In addition, authors could share their e-books or articles on business topics.
LinkedIn has come a long way, but it has a lot of potential beyond adapting facebook’s features in a business setting. facebook succeeded by thinking outside of the box, and I’m sure there are ways that LinkedIn could become a leading business networking site in ways beyond copying facebook.
Oh wait, is that a question for me from Bill Gates? Bill, I’m flattered, really.
So what’re you waiting for? Connect with me on LinkedIn!
GM is one of the few automobile giants who has enthusiastically adopted social media as part of their marketing strategy. And now GM sales are reported to be up, while other auto companies like Ford and Toyota are reporting drops in sales. Is there a connection?
First GM blog launched in 2005
General Motors was an early adopter of blogging and social media with their first blog, Fastlane, launched in January 2005. The goals of the blog were to:
- Develop a fast way to reach out to and hear from customers, and attract significant web traffic.
- Help GM overcome its lumbering-dinosaur image, and close the gap between customers’ outdated perceptions of GM quality and the improving quality of new cars and trucks.
- Attract other blogs and web sites to link to the FastLane blog
(source: Council of Public Relations Firms )
Fastlane is written by none other than GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, making GM the first major corporation to feature posts from a senior executive.
Wait a second; am I saying that GM, the old clunky American auto company is actually progressive? Until recently nobody would call GM trendy, but that perception is changing, and it could have a lot to do with the direction communication channels they have with their community.
Second GM Community Site launched 2008
Recently GM launched its second major social media initiative, a new website called GMNext. The GMNext blog is built on the WordPress Open Source blogging platform, and users can collaborate on the site by uploading photos, videos, and more. Here’s how GM presents this new site:
Over the next year, General Motors will celebrate the start of its second century through GMnext, a dialogue-based campaign that engages people via social media and interactive experiences. As a platform to showcase GM’s commitment to transportation solutions employing technologies that are relevant to consumer needs, GMnext will demonstrate our focus on solutions to the challenges that will shape the future of transportation.
Aren’t they just wasting their time?
Why would a global corporation like GM “waste” it’s time with social media? After all, social media is very difficult to calculate direct ROI for, and the big guys like to see concrete results that they can measure on paper for their investments. Well, here’s a list of the benefits GM gets from their social media marketing strategy:
- Bob Lutz says he receives better consumer intelligence from reading the comments on his blog than those from traditional market research channels, like surveys and focus groups.
- Forrester compared the results of GM’s Fastlane blog to those of a focus group, and since a focus group costs about $15,000 a month, which works out to $180,000 each year, GM has achieved similar results via their blog, and saved itself $180,000 in cash per year.
- Creating a sense of cooperation and interest in clients and the community. Beth Lowery, GM’s environmental and technology officer, said that GM is trying to engage their customers one car at a time. Internet experience and excitement is created from the driving experience.
- Transparency: The company is also much more transparent about its design process, making its challenges and hopes open. Lowery says transparency is engaging suppliers and customers alike, bringing them into the process. (From Social Media Explorer)
- Increases chances of reaching younger buyers:
Automotive analysts said the strategy of involving customers and potential customers in the online forum is a smart move, particularly for reaching younger buyers.
“If they’re going to grow their market share, they’re going to need to bring in the younger buyers, who are buying imports because their parents bought imports,” said Joseph Phillippi of AutoTrends Consulting. “This is a big step in the right direction.” (From freep.com)
- Profit? Increase of 2.6% in sales compared with January last year.
GM’s social media strategy is working because they are creating an entire user experience, both on and off the web, and are not depending solely on their online presence. They are making efforts to ensure that their cars match the online experience they describe, and that excited GM owners can join the growing GM community.
Ford succeeds…and then fail at social media
One other auto company that is jumping on the social media bandwagon, albeit more slowly and a little shakily, is Ford. Ford recently released their first social media release. A social media release is an evolving structure that is aimed at becoming the modern answer to the ancient format of the conventional press release. It includes “social” elements that are updated, and that users can break apart and use as they see fit, such as flickr photos, de.licio.us tags, etc.
Unfortunately, a few weeks later Ford’s lawyers did a very unsocial thing and stopped some of their most exuberant fans from printing up a fan calendar with photos of their own Ford cars in it.
“The folks at BMC (Black Mustang Club) automotive forum wanted to put together a calendar featuring members’ cars, and print it through CafePress. Photos were submitted, the layout was set, and… CafePress notifies the site admin that pictures of Ford cars cannot be printed. Not just Ford logos, not just Mustang logos, the car -as a whole- is a Ford trademark and its image can’t be reproduced without permission. So even though Ford has a lineup of enthusiasts who want to show off their Ford cars, the company is bent on alienating them. ‘Them’ being some of the most loyal owners and future buyers that they have. Or rather, that they had, because many have decided that they will not be doing business with Ford again if this matter isn’t resolved.” (From BoingBoing - read more there)
As Todd Defren over at PRSquared put it, “Ford pulled the spark-plug right outta their hearts.”
“It’s not as if the BMC effort was draining revenue from Ford’s coffers,” he continues. “If anything, any revenues resulting from calendar sales would help sustain a Ford Fan Club!”
The struggle of the social revolution
GM and Ford are interesting examples since they are from industries that are traditionally not considered hi-tech. They are also examples of big corporations trying to get a grasp of the new reality of social media. GM, as an early adopter, seems to have understood early on that the traditional control over the customer that they were used to is slipping out of their hands. Instead of resisting, they more or less embraced the new medium and reached out to their customers, and I think we can see real results in their sales reports.
Ford is trying to join the new web, but the above incident with the over-zealous lawyers is a speed-bump of an attempt to retain control. They’ll get the hang of it, and it will be interesting to see how other businesses, both big and small, add social media to their marketing basket.
(I recently experienced a Ford-like episode with a pretty big company that produces one of the world’s most successful Open Source platforms. You can read about it and the resulting comments here.)
Update March 20, 2008: GM announces that it will dedicate half of its $3 billion budget to digital and one-to-one marketing in the next three years. GM will invest in several online methods including gaming, search, mobile and a broad array of interactive applications. See this article for more information.
SphinnCon Israel is sold out! SphinnCon Israel is a SphinnCon networking event focused on search and internet marketing, and is taking place this coming Tuesday, February 5 at the Jerusalem College of Technology (also known as Machon Lev). This event is exciting thanks to the incredible lineup, with representatives from well-known international companies like Google, TechCrunch, Kenshoo and Yedda (see my previous interview with Yedda’s Lior Haner, who will be speaking at the conference), and thanks to the location: Jerusalem! For once I don’t have to schlep to Tel Aviv for a great event, and I am thrilled.
There are also some really interesting reps from lesser-known but really professional Israeli companies: Tzvika Avnery will be there from Tagadam; Tzvika is a pro in the social media sphere and his company develops apps for social networks, among other things. Eli Feldblum from RankAbove will be there too; Eli is actually pretty well-known in the SEO world for his expertise, and his company services clients from all over the world. I’m mentioning these guys because I know them, but I hope I’ll get to meet the others on the panels too.
The main guy behind the whole thing is Barry Schwartz, the Executive Editor at Search Engine Roundtable, and President of RustyBrick, “a Web services firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales.”
Here is the speaker list as from Barry’s latest post on the event at Search Engine Roundtable:
SEO Panel
PPC Panel
Social Panel
Cool, eh?
Here’s what’s not cool: not a woman in sight on the speaker list. Not one. It’s a celebration of testosterone. I’m not against testosterone, but it would be nice if it was toned down a bit by at least one representative from the other 51% of the human race. And it’s not like there aren’t impressive women in the industry: how about Tamar Weinberg, who works at Rusty Brick and writes the amazing Techipedia blog? Or Tzvika Avnery’s partner at Tagadam, Orly Izhaki, who has a really impressive background in web-related ventures, and writes at smo.co.il (Hebrew)? Don’t tell me they were unavailable as an excuse. I’m sure there’s at least one woman in the web industry who could have been available.
Anyways, I’m really looking forward to this event, and I’ll hopefully fill you all in on how it goes. If they have internet access, I may even Twitter and live-blog the event like a good lil’ social media geek should.
We at illuminea try to encourage our clients to incorporate blogs into their websites since, in our opinion (and in the opinion of many others), the typical corporate website is not as effective as it could be. With content that rarely changes, and little to no engagement with clients and potential clients, traditional corporate websites are little more than online brochures, and do not utilize the power of the medium on which it sits: the web.
Jeremiah Owyang, a Web Strategist with Forrester, wrote a great article on the topic called “The Irrelevant Corporate Website,” explaining why the typical corporate website is increasingly irrelevant in today’s age of fresh new content and cooperation with consumers.
The article was so groundbreaking that it’s been translated into many languages, most recently Hebrew. Omer Rosen did the translation.
Commtouch, one of the world’s leading email spam fighters, has now officially launched their new corporate blog, Commtouch Cafe, which was built by none other than…illuminea (i.e. us)!
Founded in 1991 in Israel and publicly traded on the NASDAQ (CTCH), Commtouch’s technologies help companies avoid the rising costs of email spam by constantly monitoring, identifying and blocking new malware attacks. To accomplish this, the company analyzes the distribution patterns of billions of email messages per month. That’s quite a job.
The new blog, called Commtouch Cafe, aims to “show the face & voice of the people behind Commtouch’s technology; share the type of informal information that [they] are exposed to daily just wandering the halls here, that might also interest our partner community or other spam/virus fighters; and have some fun.” This blog is the place to go if you want to keep up on the latest reports, figures and developments in the world of spam and malware.
Now I know they are my clients, so you probably should take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but this move by Commtouch into the world of social media marketing is very impressive for the following reasons:
- Commtouch is publicly traded. Many publicly traded companies cite the complicated compliance issues of stock exchanges as reasons not to have a blog. Commtouch saw the value of becoming part of the online conversation, and overcame any obstacles that they may have faced in order to do this.
- They also launched with a new viral video. Not only did Commtouch launch a blog, but they combined it with the launch of a cute animated video they made that is now on YouTube. (The video is below.)
- The content is written with a web audience in mind. Big corporations often speak in long expanses of corporate speak. The posts on Commtouch Cafe are short and contain a lot of visuals, like video and images.
- They are an Israeli company. Big Israeli companies in particular are still staying away from blogging. A notable exception is Answers.com, a large publicly traded company with an obscure and hard-to-find corporate blog (if you look up Answers.com blog, you won’t find it): no.stupid.answers. This blog is also pretty good - short, useful posts about questions and answers.
Congratulations to Commtouch on their entry into the world of social media, and may this signal the start of a new trend among Israeli companies!
Here’s the Commtouch video:
There are so many social media sites and tools out there, that it’s hard to know which to pay attention to, and which to ignore. Also, how do we use them effectively and still retain time to get some real work done?
A recent discussion took place on the CIWI (Connecting Independent Writers in Israel) mailing list about how to start a blog, and whether one should start one at all. One writer was of the opinion that blogs are passe, and that users should concentrate on microblogging mediums, like Tumblr and Twitter.
In my opinion, the microblogging tools are a nice addition to an overall social media strategy, but are weak on their own. Many of the most popular people on Twitter, for example, are those who have built up a following for themselves via their blogs. They use Twitter to drive people to new posts on their blogs, and to create a supplementary stream of information. Much of the information on Twitter is backed up by longer posts or articles on other sites.
Blog, Twitter, both, none?Â
So what is the best way to create an effective web presence? Do we blog, do we tweet, or do we do both?
Adopting a social media strategy can be a daunting task, particularly due to the wide range of tools and services available. Users need a strategy that is effective, yet also gives them time to have a life outside of the web.
Here’s how I have structured my social media activity. This is not necessarily the only or right way to go, but it can give you an idea as to how to get started:
- Blogs: I use this blog to write about different issues related to marketing and business. In order to keep up with the world of WordPress, which is the platform we use to build all our sites and blogs, I also write a blog called WordPressGarage, which we use as a kind of online manual for knowledge management. WordPress’ categorization features such as categories, tags and search, are excellent for managing information. WordPressGarage has become more than just a blog: I use WordPress’ Blogroll to keep track of my links on the Links We Love page, and I’ve set up a microblogging section in the sidebar called Shorties, which is where I post really short bits of info that don’t justify a real blog post. I could have accomplished this with del.icio.us and Tumblr, but I really prefer to keep everything in one place if I can.
- Twitter: I don’t really like Twitter, but I use it because I know it is effective. It also helps me keep up with the social media arena, and I have to admit I’ve found some pretty interesting content thanks to the twitterers that I follow. I post here short things that aren’t appropriate for my blogs, or I post links to new posts on my blogs. (You can find me here on Twitter: http://twitter.com/miriamschwab.)
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn was really boring for a while, but it seems to be picking up, although it’s still not the type of site I’d visit on a regular basis (unlike the site mentioned in step 4). The advantage of LinkedIn is that it gives me a place to create a professional profile that people can easily find on the web. Other than that, not much happens there (unless I’m missing something). It’s like a really boring party where we all shake hands, and then sit around looking at each other. And here I am on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/miriamschwab
- Facebook: facebook acts as a kind of aggregator for all the content that I publish all over the web. I mashed together my blog RSS feeds into one feed, and that feed is pulled into my facebook profile’s notes section. My twitters (tweets) appear in my facebook status. Any extra stuff that I want to publish or share that aren’t directly connected to marketing or WordPress are published there too, like videos, links and events.
Here are the social media sites that I would like to be more active in should the days suddenly become 40 hours long: flickr, YouTube, de.licio.us, digg, and StumbleUpon.
The above still uses up a lot of my time, but it ensures that my “online presence” stays fresh and current, and my offline presence retains some semblance of a life.
