Monthly Archives: April 2011
Communities
HOW TO: Get Started With Photo Blogging
Blogging is possibly the purest form of social sharing, but with so many types of blogs it can be difficult to pick just one to begin with. Photo blogging is a fantastic way to show off your creativity, while also keeping your photo skills sharp. This article focuses on some of the key things to do when starting a photo blog. For instance, it is extremely important to customize. With thousands of photo blogs, why should anyone pay attention to yours? By customizing, you are giving people a reason to pay attention. This will also help focus the intent of your blog. Check out this article for some more great tips and tricks.
Tools & Technology
Facebook Launches ‘Send’ Button For More Selective Sharing, Announces 50 Million ‘Groups’
Facebook’s “Like” button is getting a friend. The “Send” button is Facebooks newest addition to the family and is already getting rave reviews. The idea is that when you see “Send” on a site, you can share it with select people such as Facebook friends, specific email addresses or Facebook groups. It’s a selective way of sharing information with specific people. While only 50 sites will begin using this feature to begin with, it is inevitable that this usage will grow, most likely making groups a more popular feature on Facebook. “It’s always been easy to share links within Groups, but this lowers the bar even further because you don’t have to leave the page you’re reading — you can imagine people using the button to share book reviews with their book club, close friends sharing new ideas for travel destinations, and so on.” Facebook reports there are over 50 million groups right now, and with this new feature, that number is only bound to grow.
With digital marketing now truly mainstream and the inarguable rise of Facebook, Twitter and other digital media, the word “Social” is part of every marketer’s must-know vocabulary. But what does it mean anymore?
The word has traditionally referred to broadening of ‘the political’–popular empowerment and the re-appropriation of civil society. Social as in “of public interest” pertains to social work, social issues, social service, social justice, social responsibility, social problem, social security. Commonly the word also alludes to being interactional. When I asked our VP of Social Media, Heidi Skinner, she said she always thought of “social” as “a party of people assembled to promote sociability and communal activity in offline activity. It was simple: People fell into two groups being ‘social’ or ‘anti-social.’”
In the marketing sphere, Kotler and Andreasen (author of Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations) defined social marketing as:
“differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society.”
In today’s context, the word “social” is seeing an inevitable evolution in perceptions. Read More
After a year of patience and a failed launch-day trek to the Apple Store on March 2, I’m finally the owner of a new Apple iPad 2.
The iPad is Apple’s flagship “post PC era” device, but I’m not sure we’re ready to ditch our laptop shackles just yet. The magical aura surrounding my unboxing of the product was cut short when I pressed the power button for the very first time. As the screen began to glow for the very first time, I was quickly met with the “must connect to iTunes” screen- no cosmic intro video or helpful setup assistant here. This might one day become a post-PC device, but not without a digital tether to the machines of today. I hope that future versions of iOS will allow some onboard functionality without the need to first connect to iTunes.
Once the iPad synced all my stuff- photos, podcasts and apps, it was time to see if this tablet could really fit in my digital life, or if it would live as the evil middle child between my Macbook and iPhone.
Communities
Coachella Marketing Blitz: New Brands Shake Up Party Landscape
As many of you already know (and possibly attended), Coachella took place recently. This desert music and arts festival had some pretty hefty social media integration this year, a reflection of the culture and goals of the festival. Many brands were in attendance, appealing to attendees with their social media interactive tools. QR codes were a big hit this year in terms of navigating the festival and interacting with brands. Giltcity.com, Spin.com and Lacoste are all brands that were there showing off their social media chops. Did you attend the festival? Let us know what your impressions of the social media integration were!
Tools and Technology
LocalResponse Taps the Social Web to Help Businesses Draw Customers
LocalResponse is a new tool that was announced on Tuesday. It is being referred to as a “social advertising platform” that allows companies to look through social media information to more directly target their consumers. By being able to look at who their most loyal consumers are, brands have the opportunity to send them rewards and deals specifically, rather than in an email blast. LocalResponse scans Twitter as well as a plethora of location-based services to find out their information. So far, LocalResponse has reported that the beta version of their product had extremely positive response.
Measurement
ContentAide: Get Daily Reports About Your Rival’s Facebook Page
Allow me to introduce you all to Tim Schavitz, our CMVP of the Year for 2010. 
Tim has been with CM for almost 5 years. He was one of our first creatives in the Chicago office- he tells us he works on our Nissan Commercial Vehicles Account, “Talking about cargo vans doesn’t sound like the sexiest gig for a creative, but Nissan has a great story to tell. They’ve taken a good amount of time and research to challenge a stagnant, domestic-dominated market in the US. Our team has had the chance to bring that story of innovation to life for their flagship van, the NV lineup, as well as creating the visual style for this new brand”.
Very cool Tim but really we just want to know about the debauchery on the annual CMVP trip to Vegas…
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See full infographic at Mashable.com
Communities
The Winners & Losers of Social Networking
In the game of social networking, there have been plenty of winners and losers. And while it might seem that Facebook is the ultimate winner, it depends on who you are talking to. For example, if you are over the age of 65, you probably would be more inclined to join Plaxo.com rather than Facebook. Social media agency, Ignite, has done a study about the demographics within social networks, to discover where most people are hanging out. Some of the findings might be surprising, like the fact that most kids under the age of 17 are not on Facebook, but rather Habbo.com. Check out this extremely informative infographic to find out more, and let us know if you find any of these findings and predictions especially surprising.
Tools & Technologies
Location Discovery Service Scoville Lets You Find Hot New Local Spots
Location based services are all the rage right now, and Scoville is jumping on that bandwagon. Basing their business plan around the idea of a Scoville Scale (one that measures spiciness in food), Scoville aims at giving users the hottest destinations in their area.
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