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Who are posts about “fake” social media experts helping? And why are they written?

December 1, 2009 By 4 Comments

Recently I have read a lot of post about that people calls themselves social media experts even if they are not. This trending topic have led to another series of posts where people write about what you should expect from a social media expert and how you know if someone is really an expert.

Two examples of the post I’m referring to are:

The thing I do not really understand is why everyone keeps focusing on this subject. Doesn’t social media expert have the same requirements as any other kind of expert?

I am not working with human recourses, but I would guess that if you were hiring a person to do a job that requires expertise you will not hire just anyone. You will probably read hundreds of applications, see if anyone can recommend someone for the job, interview people, look at what they have done, call in references etc. It is not as if anyone could get any kind of job just by saying that he or she is an expert.

So why do people keep blogging about the subject? Is it because they themselves have had bad experiences with people claiming to be social media experts when they in fact where not? Or is it because the title social media expert attracts more frauds than other occupations. If that is the case we have a real problem.

My guess is that people blog about it because they are afraid that people will get fooled by those who claim to be experts and are not, which is a good reason, but I am not sure it will help.

People smart enough to check portfolios and references on people, will most likely realize if someone is a fraud before hiring. While people who are naive and go by heart might not go into the trap, but these people will probably not Google to find this topics and check it out from that either.

Thus, I’m wondering why these blog posts that has some really good advice is not filled under “what to think about when hiring for a social media position.” Because I am not sure who they are helping right now?

What do you think? Do you think there are more fake social media expert than other experts?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Who are posts about "fake" social media experts helping? And why are they written?

December 1, 2009 By 4 Comments

Recently I have read a lot of post about that people calls themselves social media experts even if they are not. This trending topic have led to another series of posts where people write about what you should expect from a social media expert and how you know if someone is really an expert.

Two examples of the post I’m referring to are:

The thing I do not really understand is why everyone keeps focusing on this subject. Doesn’t social media expert have the same requirements as any other kind of expert?

I am not working with human recourses, but I would guess that if you were hiring a person to do a job that requires expertise you will not hire just anyone. You will probably read hundreds of applications, see if anyone can recommend someone for the job, interview people, look at what they have done, call in references etc. It is not as if anyone could get any kind of job just by saying that he or she is an expert.

So why do people keep blogging about the subject? Is it because they themselves have had bad experiences with people claiming to be social media experts when they in fact where not? Or is it because the title social media expert attracts more frauds than other occupations. If that is the case we have a real problem.

My guess is that people blog about it because they are afraid that people will get fooled by those who claim to be experts and are not, which is a good reason, but I am not sure it will help.

People smart enough to check portfolios and references on people, will most likely realize if someone is a fraud before hiring. While people who are naive and go by heart might not go into the trap, but these people will probably not Google to find this topics and check it out from that either.

Thus, I’m wondering why these blog posts that has some really good advice is not filled under “what to think about when hiring for a social media position.” Because I am not sure who they are helping right now?

What do you think? Do you think there are more fake social media expert than other experts?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , ,

A creative and well-rounded viral marketing campaign: The Fun Theory

November 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

From time to time, there are a few marketing campaigns that is just so creative that you have trouble getting them out of your mind. One of the latest brilliant ideas is “The fun theory” an initiative by Volkswagen. Though it is not obviously connected to the cars they sell, or marketed in the old fashion way, this is a campaign that will be stuck in my mind for a long time.

It’s fun, it proves a point both while being produced and when later shown, and you get a few fun statistics to share with your friends after watching them.

The videos that went viral

It all got started when Volkswagen published three videos, the piano staircase, the bottle bank arcade and the world’s deepest bin.

Here are links to the other two:
The bottle arcade & the world’s deepest bin.

About the project

“The fun theory award recognizes those thoughts, ideas and inventions that help prove the fun theory. That fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better…” (From the fun theory website)

The whole project is based on a competition that gives people a chance to send in their fun theories and compete for a price of 2500 EUR. You can still send in your contribution as a written presentation with a visual picture of the idea. The later could be a sketch, a photo, or a film of a prototype. The competition is open until December 15, and then they will select 10 finalists that will be presented in front of a jury. Here you can see a few of the entries.

Multiple level marketing both viral and creative

This well rounded marketing campaign plays on so many levels:

  1. When they did the videos, it most likely created a buzz from the people who tried the different theories.
  2. First off all it is fun and visual, and easy to share.
  3. The fact that it is a competition where money is at stake, means that many people take it with them after they leave their computer to discuss possible contributions to the competition.
  4. As they keep posting new entries to the competition, people keep coming back to the website to check out other fun theories.
  5. You can find the campaign in many places; their website, a Facebook group, twitter buzz and a youtube channel.

Volkswagens role

When you watch the movies, the Volkswagen logo only comes up on the last picture in the movie. Thus, they have chosen to not over use their logo in the campaign, which I think it an interesting move. As most brand do not seem to be able to create anything without their logo being on display.

While watching the movies, most people will wonder who made them, because they are done professionally.  I think that people will unconsciously appreciate that there is not brand name embedded in the movie.

Volkswagen is not flaunting their brand and let the brand “the fun theory” with logo be in the spotlight, and I think that this could increase the amount of people who will actually remember that Volkswagen was the initiators.

Filed Under: Musings, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A closer look on the synchronization of LinkedIn & Twitter

November 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The benefits of the cooperation

Two days ago, LinkedIn and Twitter announced their new cooperation; LinkedIn and Twitter go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Surely, I can see a lot of potential with this new cooperation. First, you remove the double work with posting the same information in both places. Second, while LinkedIn might be a more obvious place to announce work opportunities etc, the connection to twitter will send the request to more people.

The main thing about the cooperation I think lies in the party’s individual benefit from it. LinkedIn will most likely become more active from this cooperation and get significant increase in status updates. Twitter might get both more users from LinkedIn by people who just create an account to connect the two, since it now will not take any extra time to produce tweets. Since people tweet about all sort of things, Twitter might also increase the amount of tweets regarding business and professions. I cannot stop than wondering if an increased amount of tweets on these subjects would somehow be good for their financial growth.

The features of the synchronization

Anyway, even though there are benefits for both twitter and LinkedIn users. As well as for the two companies, still worry about what disadvantages that comes from this cooperation. Look at this for example:

share-settings

As you can see, you can chose to share only some tweets or to share all of them. Setting that are made from the LinkedIn website but affects your status updates coming from twitter. While LinkedIn you have to check the square by the twitter logo to get your updates forwarded to Twitter.

linkedin

It would be one thing if they only had the option to choose to connect the status updates on both networks for each post, like you can if you only share tweets with #in. However, as you can choice to have all tweets published on both networks I am worried that the increase number of updates on LinkedIn may be too much. People might become “spammed” on LinkedIn by others frequent twitter updates.

Changing the identity of the networks

From my point of view, the constant flow of twitter is what I expect from the network. The tweets I follow contain anything from links, to questions, to actions and of course answers of the questions “what are you doing right now?.” On LinkedIn, I do not expect this constant flow of updates, I expect people to update their statuses once or twice daily often less than that. The updates are more thought trough and gets to stay there status for a while. I have many contacts that overlap these networks and therefore expect my contact to use them differently. Thus depending on what I want to know about my contacts I chose which network to look up them on.

These identifying functions of networks it one of the reasons why I am on both of them, I have different expectations from them, and look for different things on them. If LinkedIn starts to become too much like twitter, why should I be on both networks?

Individual selection of the features

When people began synchronizing their twitter updates with their Facebook updates I found their updates to be more generic than the updates that they actually posted on Facebook. Thus, they changed the expectation of the Facebook update. Therefore, the possibility to hide particular updates solved this issue. Since, you no longer had to receive the synchronized posts, even though you might miss other updates then. A similar solution on LinkedIn would be very useful.

All in all, If LinkedIn gives us a possibility to hide the synchronized updates, I so far have nothing critical to say about the cooperation.

What do you think? Do you see more advantages? Or perhaps you have already seen threats? How has the cooperation affected you so far?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

A closer look on the synchronization of LinkedIn & Twitter

November 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The benefits of the cooperation

Two days ago, LinkedIn and Twitter announced their new cooperation; LinkedIn and Twitter go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Surely, I can see a lot of potential with this new cooperation. First, you remove the double work with posting the same information in both places. Second, while LinkedIn might be a more obvious place to announce work opportunities etc, the connection to twitter will send the request to more people.

The main thing about the cooperation I think lies in the party’s individual benefit from it. LinkedIn will most likely become more active from this cooperation and get significant increase in status updates. Twitter might get both more users from LinkedIn by people who just create an account to connect the two, since it now will not take any extra time to produce tweets. Since people tweet about all sort of things, Twitter might also increase the amount of tweets regarding business and professions. I cannot stop than wondering if an increased amount of tweets on these subjects would somehow be good for their financial growth.

The features of the synchronization

Anyway, even though there are benefits for both twitter and LinkedIn users. As well as for the two companies, still worry about what disadvantages that comes from this cooperation. Look at this for example:

share-settings

As you can see, you can chose to share only some tweets or to share all of them. Setting that are made from the LinkedIn website but affects your status updates coming from twitter. While LinkedIn you have to check the square by the twitter logo to get your updates forwarded to Twitter.

linkedin

It would be one thing if they only had the option to choose to connect the status updates on both networks for each post, like you can if you only share tweets with #in. However, as you can choice to have all tweets published on both networks I am worried that the increase number of updates on LinkedIn may be too much. People might become “spammed” on LinkedIn by others frequent twitter updates.

Changing the identity of the networks

From my point of view, the constant flow of twitter is what I expect from the network. The tweets I follow contain anything from links, to questions, to actions and of course answers of the questions “what are you doing right now?.” On LinkedIn, I do not expect this constant flow of updates, I expect people to update their statuses once or twice daily often less than that. The updates are more thought trough and gets to stay there status for a while. I have many contacts that overlap these networks and therefore expect my contact to use them differently. Thus depending on what I want to know about my contacts I chose which network to look up them on.

These identifying functions of networks it one of the reasons why I am on both of them, I have different expectations from them, and look for different things on them. If LinkedIn starts to become too much like twitter, why should I be on both networks?

Individual selection of the features

When people began synchronizing their twitter updates with their Facebook updates I found their updates to be more generic than the updates that they actually posted on Facebook. Thus, they changed the expectation of the Facebook update. Therefore, the possibility to hide particular updates solved this issue. Since, you no longer had to receive the synchronized posts, even though you might miss other updates then. A similar solution on LinkedIn would be very useful.

All in all, If LinkedIn gives us a possibility to hide the synchronized updates, I so far have nothing critical to say about the cooperation.

What do you think? Do you see more advantages? Or perhaps you have already seen threats? How has the cooperation affected you so far?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Blogging from St. Petersburg 13-16 October

October 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Tomorrow morning I leave for St. Petersburg and our Emax Winner trip. Bodil, Michael and Tuukka will fly in today and I will join them tomorrow.

During the next four days, we will meet companies and entrepreneurs in the beautiful Russian city. We go to learn about business and entrepreneurship in a foreign country and the schedule is packed with interesting meetings.

Hopefully the hotel offers an internet connection that I can use to keep you posted about what we learn on the trip. Otherwise I will back-post it when I get back.

Is it anything special you want to find out? Ask a question and I will try to find the answer.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

IKEA Let The Customers Spread The Word Via Facebook

October 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I am usually impressed by how IKEA manage to keep their advertising and marketing very current so they play on what is actually going on in the world. Like their metro adds in Washington DC, around the 2009 election.

metro1metro 2

Pictures by buschap

A few days ago I found this new Swedish campaign where they use let people invite their friends to a breakfast at IKEA, via Facebook.

bild3

The ad read: “Invite your best Facebook-friend to breakfast. Click here”
then it switch to a picture of two Facebook user and breakfast

bild4

and it says “Cris treated Anton to breakfast at IKEA. ten SEK/two people. (Two for the price of one.)”

If you click on the ad you get to a Facebook application that they have built for this. The application allows you to invite your friend to breakfast by posting an invitation to your friends wall as well as an invitation to use the application. And of course you can write a personal message along with the invitation if you want to.

People often talk about building viral marketing campaigns. That means that the message you want to send is spread trough social networks and the internet by the users through word of mouth. I think this IKEA campaign is a great example of a successful viral campaign as people benefit from it.

Ten SEK is a bit more than one dollar, and who would not want to have breakfast for that amount with a friend. Also I think Ikeas is often a place where you go as to with your family, by expanding that to a place where you go shopping with your friends, the number of visits to IKEA will increase per person.

Thus this marketing campaign is not only spread by the customers, the customers are also reminding one another that IKEA, is a place where you could take your friend just because its it pleasant to meet.

Can you see other benefits with the campaign that you want to share? Or can you find a disadvantage to share?

If you want to see more examples of IKEA check out these pictures

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Social media customer care is good, but make sure you take care of all you costumers

October 1, 2009 By 4 Comments

I recently read a post by Scott Monty called “Are You Really Satisfying Your Customers?” Very interesting points and examples but one of them caught my eye since we definitely did not share the same opinion.

He wrote “Comcast is the shining example of customer service on Twitter, led primarily through the efforts of the head of their digital team, Frank Eliason (aka @comcastcares on Twitter).” And I cannot say that he is wrong about this or not, perhaps they do help a lot of their customers though Twitter. However what I do know is that this opinion I had after numerous issues with their call-in customer service.

When I moved into my new apartment in Arlington it took about four weeks of trouble, non-working hardware and hours on the phone etc. before my roommates and I finally had a working cable and internet connection. Perhaps I should just have tweeted and then it would have worked? But how could I? I had no internet. Comcast provides internet connections and more so how does the twitter account help me when I don’t have internet. (Or a smartphone)

What I realized from Scotts comment and my experience is that it does not matter how great the customer care is trough twitter if it does not work on the phone as well. Sure the endorsements from the success will spread, but the complaints about the problems will sound higher.

Thus don’t forget to improve the old ways of providing customer care etc, just because you find new ways that is better for you. Before customers know about the new ways, they will still use the old.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

The small things that make a difference

September 25, 2009 By 2 Comments

Skärmklipp

Once in awhile you found these small details on stuff you buy that make you happy, because you realize that someone thought one step longer. A few days back I found one of those things, and the best thing about it was that it only was a tiny addition to the packaging. Still it made a huge difference.

So I usually bleach my hair, but I felt for a change and decided to color it instead. Since I’m a student and short of cash as usual, I decided to go for the make-it-at-home-kit! My friend was with me when I went into a store and began looking trough the shelves for the color I had in mind, and we actually found one that I really liked. On the way to the checkout counter I said to my friend that I had to remember to cut out a piece from the packaging to save if I am going to color it again, so I’m sure that I get the right color.

When it was finally time to start the coloring and I opened the package, they have actually made one of those sides when you open it into a “color-reminder” that you just cut off. It has the name and a picture of the color and is super easy to cut off. Perfect for me, who by then had forgot about cutting a piece out and was only focused on the coloring.

This is just one example of how small things make a difference. What can you add or change to your product or packaging that will make people think that yours is a little bit better?

I found this interesting post about how the feel of packaging can make it all wrong at Limequat’s blog <- Check it out!

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What do you put your name on?

September 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

First of all, to most of you this post does not contain any news. It’s a reminder to some of you and a tip to a few others, that sometimes you hurt yourself by being nice to other.

So a few days back an administrator from my education program emailed me asking if I could be a reference to their program. They provide education abroad and the principal from the school in the US had recommended that she talked to me. Since I liked the program and learned a lot, I was about to agree. When I began thinking about the consequences.

If I agreed on this, I would put my name on this organization and if people liked them I could perhaps benefit from it, but if they did not, it could hurt my reputation a lot more.

To make a long story short the organization in question had sent us some pretty questionable bills, which if I looked in deeper could be illegal and also they very also deceitful about the arrangements. Knowing this you might wonder why I even consider putting my name on it? The answer to that is that I would not have been talking about this organization but about the school in the US.

But since the words I said would be in the organization’s marketing, people might think that I was recommending the whole organization and not just the school. After all, marketing is so much more than the words you read.

Therefore I decided to decline the offer and emailed both the administration at the organization and the principal. When I got the returns I realize even more I good my choice were.

The principal emailed me and told me that it was a smart decision to not put my name on something I don’t believe in, which is completely true.

However the organizations respond was something like:  I’m sorry to hear that you feel that way; could you please write and tell us about what we can get better at? We always want to improve.

Now I don’t remember for sure if they gave us a survey after the program was over, because we had a lot of things going on in the end of school. But I know that if they did, I would have taken the time to answer it thoroughly because I think it’s important to learn and get better. And in that case she would have known what they should be working on.

However, if they did not and they want to improve they should not ask me how now. Even if I would take the time and write down what I find questionable it does not feel like they would read it and consider it. If they want to know, show people that by handing them a survey, at least then you seem to want the answers.

I’m not saying that you should not be nice, and that you should not help others. But you have to think about the consequences. If I would have agreed to be a reference, I would probably have got a “thank you email” and their day would have been easier, but next year I might have lost my trust because they got sued for fraud?

What’s the price for not being able to say no?

Filed Under: Musings, Social Media Tagged With: , ,
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