Social Media Advertising: Don't Underestimate Your Customer

The Nielsen report came out this month and the focus was on social networking's rapid rise throughout the world. Social networks are growing and new behavior patterns are emerging. Cultural resistance to participating in social networks is waning and their influence is growing on a monthly scale.

People once less likely to be public are posting to social forums and flocking to social networks. This change is taking place across the globe. Two observations that struck me from the Neilson Report which can be immediately applied to websites, blogs, and social network accounts are:

SOCIAL MEDIA IS CHANGING THE RULES FOR ADVERTISERS
Consumers have a deep distrust for advertising. Social Media offers a transparency and a candor that has created trust. Along with this trust is also a promise that you will not be invaded. Advertising efforts which are not "value adding" or part of the conversation are an intrusion in these social networks and advertisers must learn to play by the rules or risk having their message rejected.

The Nielsen report on Social Networking's New Global Footprint mirror's blogging advice.

• Add value through interaction and consulation
• Be authentic and transparent
• Advertising must be a conversation rather than a push model
• Don't advertise, communicate and participate in the community

DON'T ASSUME SOCIAL MEDIA IS FOR THE KIDS
The numbers are changing and the demographic of the social networks is not necessarily who you would think. Facebook's greatest demographic shift has been the increase in users between the ages of 35-49. The standing presumption was that social networks were predominantly populated by teenagers and young adults.

Facebook's Growth in Global Audience Numbers By Age Range

Myspace Social Networking Friends or Foes?

Myspace Social Networking Friends or Foes? I use Myspace quite frequently to stay in touch with old friends and from time to time I make some new friends. Recently I have been getting nothing but spam mail through Myspace. With Myspace social networking it can be hard to decide between friends or foes. I get email alerts all the time from people that I don't know nor want to get to know. I have contemplated shutting off the email alert so that I do not get notified of all the people spamming me.

However, Myspace has come in very handy this past week because it has allowed me to share correspondence with somebody in a band whose music I was trying to find. Without Myspace I would have never been able to get the info I needed. Myspace has the ability to make the world a little bit smaller. The spamming certainly is distracting, but it is worth putting up with a little of it.

There is a lot of music on Myspace that I can't get anywhere else. Snocap is a company that allows you to order music from Myspace Music. Without Snocap and Myspace I would have never been able to get back great music that I lost several years ago. I believe Myspace can be more of a tool than a problem.

Here is a YouTube video of the Kitchen Syncopators playing on a street in New Orleans. The band whose music I was able to find on MySpace.

Inauguration of Technology

Today as the 44th president of the United States is inaugurated we watch this historical moment from a myriad of technology. It does seem fitting and futuristic to see our new president embrace technology and social networks. It is surely an exciting sign of the times.

iPhone Application

Just in time for the inauguration. Watch the 44th Inauguration live from your iPhone.
Download Ustream.TV, an application for the iPhone, to watch live and recorded video with a chat function. Use your phone to watch the inaugural events live and chat with others watching.

Inaugrual Photosynth
The very moment Obama takes the oath CNN is asking for viewer to email their photo (10 MB size limit) with their name in the message if they want a photo contributor's credit. For more information on "The Moment" click here Inauguration Moment.

Pictures will be downloaded into a new software and the melding of multiple vantage points will combine to create a navigable 3D image.

We are very excited to see the application of the photosynth technology to document this momentous occasion. At Webconsuls we have used this same technology to show the large beautiful views of Kilauea Lakeside Estate and to show the cutting edge medical technology from the Division of Interventional Neuroradiology.

Webconsuls Photosynths

Passing the torch on January 20, 2009

On Tuesday, January 20, 2009, I for one will break from work and watch as Barack Obama takes the oath as the 44th president of our United States. I expect it to be a hope-filled day, one that I will share with my husband and children. We as a family and nation will be passing the torch on January 20, 2009. As I write these words it occurs to me that there are very few inaugurations that I clearly remember. Some I was too young to remember (Eisenhower-1953), some I choose to forget (Nixon-1969, 1973; Bush-1989, Bush-2001, 2005), some I cannot forget (Johnson-1963; Ford-1974), and one that will always "light the corners" of my mind (Kennedy -1961).

Last evening I re-read John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address from January 20, 1961. Most of us know some of the memorable lines like "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans", but how many of us remember the rest of this passage? I am sure not many, so let me share them with you here:

"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans-born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage-and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world."

Videos of Kennedy's speech are remarkable to view.



President Kennedy's strong hopeful words are still applicable today, sans "born in this century", as now we are in the first decade of a new century. On Tuesday I will listen carefully to President Obama and I will hope that somewhere in his speech there will be inspiring words that my children will be able to remember and quote 48 years from now.

Yes, there is a lot of excitement about President-Elect Obama's inauguration. Newspapers, magazines, radio, network television, cable television, the Internet, YouTube, My Space, Facebook, Twitter are all participating in this magical event, cashing in on "hope." Yesterday I learned that Microsoft is partnering with CNN to "photosynth" the inauguration and they want your assistance. You can be part of history by submitting your captured photos.

The torch is passing to you, to our new President, to our future. Let's make the best of it!


P. S. This post is dedicated to my father, Joseph Raymond Eagen. He was born January 17, 1918, eight months after John F. Kennedy(May 29, 1917). Like President Kennedy, my father was born to first generation Irish Catholic Democratic parents and he served as a Naval Officer in WWII. It occurred to me this morning that the very first time I posted for this blog I wrote about my father as being an original social marketer. Daddy, Happy Birthday!

Social Networking with Smule Zephyr

Social Networking permeates everyone's life in one way or another. It is fair to say that just about everyone is looking up old friends and classmates with Facebook and Myspace. Those two forms of social networking certainly come in handy for keeping in touch with people who are geographically undesirable.

The iPhone is where a lot of social media is taking place. People can now update their status, upload pictures, and chat with their phone. The host of applications available to communicate with around the world is amazing.

Smule released a new application last week that is pretty neat and worth taking a look at. Social Networking with Smule Zephyr has a beautiful interface for sharing messages around the world. Zephyr is not as precise for communication as some of the other social media applications; however, it is neat to get a message from China or some tiny island in the South Pacific. You can draw or write messages with wind and snow, every time you touch the screen it makes a beautiful sound. If you like the message then you have the choice to keep it traveling around the world.

Zephyr and other Smule products make Social Networking and Social Media fun and Interactive. They satisfy the human wonder of what people around the world are doing right now? And maybe, just maybe, we are doing the same thing at the same time.

Social Networking with Smule iPhone Applications

The past few weeks I have been playing with some new applications for my iPhone. There are thousands of applications available. Something to suit every-body's taste. There are apps for just about anything. Smule has four apps out now that I believe are not only fun to play with, but they are also a way of social networking. Social Networking with Smule iPhone Applications are still very new, but they have so much potential to bridge what you do in your free time with the rest of the world.

Smule's Ocarina, Sonic Lighter, and Sonic Boom all have a world mode which connects what you do with the particular application with the rest of the world. You can isolate which part of the globe you want to view or listen to. The Ocarina will record the different songs that you play and you can go online or listen to them right from your iPhone. You can watch and see who has the their Sonic Lighter burning or who is setting explosions with Sonic Boom.

No doubt in the near future we will be able to communicate directly through the application with various friends we make around the world. The Internet and the iPhone are all about connection, interaction, and Social Networking through various channels of social media. Smule's applications are on the ground floor when it comes to exciting new ways to network.