Tweeterlicious

Let me start with Chapter 7 which dealt with "energizing the groundswell". This chapter was excellent, as the authors went into great detail about the steps to harnessing the energy generated by the Groundswell. I particularly liked the way they offer techniques for “energizing your enthusiasts” and a logical breakdown of complex information into helpful case studies like that of ebags and Lego. My favorite part of this second section of the book is the added chapter (which after writing this, I realized I may have a newer version of the book than much of the class) on "tapping the groundswell with twitter". This chapter provides a straightforward outline on the basics of how to use Twitter as a service and gives "Twitter-esque" advice/recommendations for businesses.

"People who don't use Twitter tend to write it off. What can you say in 140 characters? In fact, the richness that Twitter packs into its tiny updates is amazing. It's caught on because it's free, it's open, and it connects people and gives them power"  (p. 197)

The opportunity is obvious when you see the statistics:  

Twitter users are insanely active and influential.

Twitter has rapidly become a driving force in the groundswell and an all encompassing activity, news source, and review board. In everything from The Today Show to blogs to social networks, Twitter seems to be used more and more each day and maintains a high level of influence on everything from fashion to politics. In this chapter, social media strategy leaders and Groundswell authors, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, show how you can turn Twitter into a powerful force for connecting with your customers for any of the five groundswell strategy objectives—listening, talking, energizing, supporting, and embracing. Case studies from McDonald's and Intuit demonstrate how different companies have used Twitter to accomplish their social media goals.

For me the three most stand-out examples of Twitter from the book include:

• AT&T: using Twitter in a regulated industry as an extremely large organization
• McDonalds: solving issues around corporate vs. local engagement
• TurboTax: dealing with highly time-intensive issues

Ultimately, people use Twitter for everything because it’s so light, breezy, and fun (I may myself be a semi-addict)! People want to talk to one another, listen, and respond to one another! And most importantly, Twitter is easier than Facebook!!

I know that Groundswell was first published in 2008, but there’s a reason why the book is a bestseller. It continues to be filled with excellent advice from two very savvy technology focused, social media professionals, who back up everything they say with concrete and connectable examples. I think this book is well worth the read and has quickly moved to the top of my "to recommend"  list!

Shop till...your battery dies?!

Facebook and Twitter have risen to the global digital world and, at the same time, inspired a counter-trend: niche social sites. These community oriented sites focus on a commitment to learn and share with similar interest people. One such community is shopping. Social is the new shopping currency. Fashion focused social websites are a trend to watch as I think they will continuously be changing the way consumers shop, discover products, and ultimately decide what to wear. This new type of social network is now creating the perfect intersection of content, community, and commerce.

What is social shopping? With sites like Groupon and LivingSocial on the rise, social shopping has burst into the social media sphere. By combining online commerce and social interaction, web developers and start-ups have pioneered the concept and have even included a lot of variations of shopping in a social context. With sharing, inviting, sending emails, chatting, discussions, voting and ranking on the rise, social shopping is HUGE!

Want to get into social shopping but don’t know where to start? Well let me show you a few key social shopping sites that allow you to get involved whether you are interested in window-shopping, getting product reviews, knowing what your friends are buying, keeping up with the latest fads, or just seeing what’s out there!

Sites like Rue la la, OpenSky, and Gilt Groupe have experienced explosive growth in email subscriptions thanks to a focus on unique products that users want to tell friends about. OpenSky offers an even more user-friendly experience, allowing shoppers to discover new products tailored to their interests.

Online pinboard sites like last week’s featured social media craze Pinterest lets users share stuff they love, promoting product desire and consumerism in the process. It’s a perfect place for brands to promote their products and "inadvertently" drive traffic to their online shops.

ShopSquad is another free social shopping service that connects shoppers with advisers through live video chat and guided browsing sessions for product advice and recommendations.

What's ShopSquad?

Other social shopping websites include Kaboodle, MyItThings, ProductWiki, ShopStyle, Woot, Iliketotallyloveit that offer an array of  different features such as applications that allow you to ask the community which product they prefer, so if you can't decide which blouse to buy, or are wondering which necklace to wear out on a date you no longer have to fret. Sites offer access to product reviews and also let you compare prices, and finally there are even shopping sites that give you a virtual closet to show off what you have bought and a space to review your favorite products or even your favorite books, movies, or music.

Will 2012 be the year that social shopping finally takes off? Hopefully it will be and this will be great news, not only for buyers like me—but for sellers too. Soon anyone will be able to integrate the element of social shopping on their website.  Social shopping  will keep buyers loyal to a particular set of sites, because that’s where other shoppers you know hang out, and who doesn't want to be with the "cool" kids? 

Many of these sites are tied into Facebook, so friends can tell other friends about their social shopping experience, and urge them to join in. An article I came across, “Can Social Shopping Finally Take Off? Some companies still trying to integrate social networking and e-commerce” By Erin Griffith, talks about how social shopping has initially had a hard time "taking off," but once sites discovered that using Facebook “norms” such as the share and “like” buttons, Facebook has actually become more effective at driving traffic to shopping sites. The Levis.com "Friends Store," for example, uses Facebook so its shoppers can see comments, shares, and likes from their Facebook friends within the Levi’s site. It’s social, without that awkward “I really didn't want EVERYONE to see what I was looking at” part.

                                         

No doubt businesses will benefit largely from this trendy way to buy, but they must make sure to, as Groundswell would say, focus on the people and capitalize on their community involvement. Companies must find ways to entice their followers to contribute to their content regularly. And as always, their Facebook, Twitter and overall groundswell presence must continue to shine!

It's Everywhere!

This book is phenomenal! I literally cannot put it down! I don’t think that I can just focus on one single concept that I have read because almost every chapter, page, and concept has spoken to me! So much so, that I’ve literally been talking about it to all my roommates…and anyone who will listen!

First of all, Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff has to be one of the most fascinating, useful and informative books I have ever read. It literally is a “How to Understand the Web” guide of sorts that I think every person who is online in any capacity should be encouraged to read. In the first few chapters, the authors define the concept of the Groundswell as “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations” (p. 9).  It does not just state this and move on, instead it centers the entire book on constructively providing numerous different ways of explaining this concept in order for the reader to fully grasp what the groundswell really means.

Moreover, the book is so well organized that it even continuously gives the reader a road map of where the author is headed, how things connect, and what is crucial to understand.  After one chapter, the book had literally answered and posed all the questions I could have ever formulated about Web 2.0, but it does not stop there. As the book continues, I literally find myself stopping and thinking, “Oh, I remember when I joined that site…” or “Oh that’s what that review tool is for…” or “I could totally get more followers on Twitter if I do that!” The book has been and continues to be so applicable to my daily life and especially beneficial in understanding how to better root my own marketing company in the groundswell.

In the first six chapters that we read, some of the most important points I understood were: 

First off, the groundswell is PEOPLE based, we do not only determine how we organize and classify online, we can also change, shape, and create how we see the world at any time (Groundswell, p. 30). A great example of this is the Diggs.com example illustrated in Chapter 1. The second concept that I really held onto after reading was the idea of, "Why does the groundswell work?" The authors explain that though the technologies may differ among people, everybody has similar desires to connect! In Chapter 6, the value of using or "talking" with the groundswell versus marketing is higlighted as a cheaper, more viral, and the most accessible way of spreading information based on this connectivity. Though simple, this is a concept that I agree really propels people to get involved online and especially in the social media world!


More conceptual things I took from the chapters that I found to be fascinating include, but are not limited to:

The Social Technographics Profile a tool used to identify the behavior of your target demographic by  things such as age, country, gender so that you are able to gauge their social participation (see below)

The tool compares your audience’s participation as creators, conversationalists, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactive (in comparison to the average US consumer). The results of using this simple social media strategy could take your company or brand to the next level and definitely give you the competitive edge over other companies not using this tool. The profile becomes so important as it allows you to understand your consumers’ behaviors and notice if they line-up with the effort you want to put in place.

To the left is Forresters Technographics Ladder which explains how the average US consumer participates in social networks and breaks down the activities on each rung of the ladder

Strategies for Tapping the Groundswell from Chapter 4 is another interesting and extremely important concept. In the chapter, the authors introduce POST which is broken down as:

·       People: by looking at people first you can understand the level of engagement based on the type of participation in social networks that is familiar to them

·       Objectives: the authors want to know if you are more interested in listening, talking, energizing, supporting or embracing people

·       Strategies: if you don’t lay out your objectives, you cannot measure the change in activity once the strategy begins

·       Technology: identify the technology whether it is a blog, wiki, social network… technology is extremely important to your strategy, the authors even discuss poor use of technology

Beyond the concrete concepts and ideas, Groundswell in general has sparked my interest in all things digital! Mostly the reading has made me think more about how each action, pin, post, tag, tweet, etc forever affects the groundswell (Note: Facebook and back to the Diggs.com example)!

***Stay tuned for my next reflection post as I am really excited to read more about how the authors describe, analyze and evaluate Twitter...I am a newly addicted tweeter myself!!

#SG

Sparking My Pinterest!

So last week after learning about Delicious in class, at work a friend told me about this additional visual candy of a site called Pinterest. Of course, as soon as I got home I was immediately curious as to what this site was all about and had to check it out for myself. After much exploration and discovery of how to "work" or share things on the site, I was hooked! Let's just face it; in my oh-so-abundant amounts of free time, Pinterest has fast become one of my favorite social media trends…and a bit of a guilty pleasure! This latest rage in social media is, in simple terms, an extremely user friendly, well organized visual collection of everything iconic, fashionable, delicious, or funny. I admit that after Instagram, Pinterest may now be my favorite form of social media “personal expression”. 

 

According to KSDK.com a Midwest news website, "the site's popularity has exploded, from 1.2 million users in August to over 4 million just weeks ago". The website coins Pinterest as an, "invite only virtual cork-board," a kind of synergy of Twitter and Facebook with an emphasis on photo sharing. To actually contribute to the site you must be a member and invited/request to join the Pinterest community (perhaps a bit big-brother/gatekeeper-esque), yet basic access to the site without  posting, or "pinning" in this case,  is instantaneously available when you arrive at the site. Like other forms of social media, Pinterest already has its own vernacular to go along with the site. Members are referred to as "pinners" and the images they share are not called "posts" like Facebook nor "tweets" according to Twitter, but instead coined as "pins".  These site specific names (everything deriving from the word "Pinterest") only aids to the ease and accessibility of the site to people of all interests, ages and most interestingly, genders (watch the video below to find out more)! There’s even a blog dedicated to explaining the intricacies and tips to becoming a top pinner! The official Pinterest blog

Men join Pinterest too!

A new form of social media never arrives without drawbacks or more often abusers of the site. Pinterest’s biggest complaint at the moment seems to be regarding small business owner’s use of the website as a place to market their products. Though Pinterest is all about self-promotion, it encourages its users to focus on creativity versus solely as a means of attracting customers. What I find to be so cool about Pinterest is how different it feels from other social media sites, as it has no advertising and seems to be a bit more down-to-earth and expressive. Overall, Pinterest is an awesome way to share, express, and get inspired. I suggest everyone give it a look, it seems to be working for me...I clearly can’t seem to get off it!

#SG

Men join Pinterest too