Cafe Blog Reviews

Do online relationships have the same depth as relationships off line? Can they obtain the same meaningful purpose as your friends you see in day-to-day life? What do you think? I have had some interesting conversations recently with people in the social world about the friendship dynamics between online and off line relationships. I have only been debating this because of the increased time I have been spending on social media platforms over the past few weeks. I have had the opportunity to ‘meet’ some interesting and extremely intellectual people through feeds at Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIN. The problem that exists, for me, is the overwhelming urge to know more… The desire to get deeper into a person’s psyche and actually understand where they are coming from and where they have been. I have had fun debating and yet I am left with this undeniable longing for something more. The sharing of information and idea generation has always been a staple in social media. I started using social media as a way to gain more insight into technology, entrepreneurship, and the overall aspect of viral marketing. What I have found is (while all the information is great) there is a point where a person stops and wants something more from a relationship or an acquaintance. I have had extreme success in meeting people in my area off line whom I had the first interaction online. The relationship factor grows exponentially when you are sharing both online and off line forms of communication.  I know research and data is a prerequisite to have in blog posts pertaining to an opinion. In order to support an idea it is always better to have others opinions to strengthen your own. Unfortunately, I am running off the cuff here and spouting words over a virtual page. When is the right time to want more from an online relationship? Is there a need for it? I love the information super highway sometimes more than the road outside of my house… and that is what bothers me… slightly. How do you strengthen online relationships to the point where you can say they are a friend? Where does a follow or a subscription turn into a relationship? Are we meant to delve deeper? We should be.

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The Dynamics of Online Relationships and Delving Deeper

Plaxo? huh? I know at least two of the eyeballs reading this post thought… “Why is he writing about Plaxo?” Frankly, I don’t hear or read much about Plaxo. Why not? It is still a viable tool to be used in terms of business networking. , I thought I would put a list together to help with the use and optimization of Plaxo. The following 10 tips are things I have learned by using Plaxo and what I have gained by reading along the way. 1. Upload a picture. This should already be common knowledge for the majority of you. We want to see a face. No more excuses. Scan a college or beauty picture is you have to! 2. Feed your blog into your profile. Go to Edit Profile–> Websites. You want to be able to share your content into any type of site… as much as possible. It helps with recognition andt traffic to your website. 3. Add your powerpoint (via Slideshare) to your Plaxo feed. If you are a speaker and want the world to know what you are talking about… add your slidedecks to your Plaxo feed. To learn how check out: Add SlideShare to your Plaxo Profile . 4. Synch your Address Book. Plaxo Plaxo has the ability to synchronize with address book from Outlook Express, Hotmail, Windows Mobile, AOL, LinkedIN, Windows Mail, Mac, and Google. If you make a change in one of the multiple address books… the change is made universally across all platforms. 5. Maximize Plaxo Pulse. Plaxo Pulse is the social stream you can find on your profile page. Every social media site is starting to have the waterfall-effect-social-stream (see: your Facebook wall). 6. Invite Your Trusted Connections to Join You on Plaxo. Notice I underlined TRUSTED. Do not import your entire address book to Plaxo because they ask. Of course they ask! They are wanting as many invitations to leave your hands as possible. Only invite the people that will not be offended by you spamming them with Plaxo invites. 7. Automate Your Plaxo Status Bar with Ping.FM. If you are using multiple networks like LinkedIN, Facebook, and Twitter you can automate a status update using a site called Ping.FM . Ping lets you send one status update that will hit all of your networks. This will save you a small amount of time in the long run but remember to keep personally visiting the sites as well. Add that human flavor into the mix! 8. Use Plaxo to Connect to Other Users. There is one HUGE benefit of using Plaxo to connect and market your business and services…. not very many people do it. 9. Build More Information about Prospects. Plaxo helps you very easily build your prospect database further because it’s easy to extract contact information from it. This technique can have negative and positive ramifications associated with it. Be smart or be sorry. Feed your email list and build out information about prospects to help in the selling process. 10. Advanced People Search and Plaxo Pro. (From Plaxo blog): Plaxo announced recently the launch of ProMail and Plaxo Pro . Once you find the right people, whether through Advanced People Search or your Company Navigator, you can use our all-new ProMail system to message them directly. Plaxo Pro also includes all the advanced address book features of Plaxo Premium, including Outlook Sync, the De-Duper, unlimited eCards, automated backup and recovery, 24/7 support, and more. Plus, we’ll remove the ads from your Plaxo Profile! Related articles by Zemanta 25 Tips to Choosing a Social Media Consultant (kylelacy.com) Plaxo: OK free, not worth paying for (billbennett.co.nz) 5 Tips to Make People Care About Your Stupid Little Start Up (vccafe.com) Web 2.0 Summit: Our photo gallery of the top moments (digital.venturebeat.com)

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10 Ways to Maximize Plaxo

We all have that special organization that we absolutely cherish and give to through the holiday season. I have a couple which I enjoy: CFI and Make-A-Wish America . I wanted to send out a quick blog that announced a campaign that Make-A-Wish has started called The Greatest Wish. The entire concept of the campaign is to start collecting the top wishes of people all around the world. They would love to hear your greatest wish. If you are Facebook you can visit the cause page at: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/410999 Search the #greatestwish Twitter hashtag: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=greatestwish You can also add a Twibbon to your Twitter profile: http://twibbon.com/cause/The-Greatest-Wish-Campaign Staci Shelton has also asked for people to donate to the cause instead of giving her a birthday present! What is my greatest wish? I have been thinking about that over the past couple of days and have come to a conclusion: My greatest wish is for all people to have fulfilled and happy childhoods. It pains me when an individual was abused or neglected. Spread the word. Share the information. We can only do so much in life and Make-A-Wish is creating better lives for the children of the world.. I am for that.

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Giving a Gift to Fulfill the Greatest Wish

What do all marketers strive for when creating a campaign? Is it a creative ad? Of course. Is it a funny jingle? Sometimes. Is it a memorable moment? They try. We (marketers) live and breathe for the opportunity to create a campaign that will move people. It is moving the consumer to action through an emotional drive that drags us out of bed in the morning. We strive to reach that point of peaking human desire. Meeting with clients and potential clients today I was moved by their desire and pure drive for their companies to succeed. They were thrilled with the concept of creating a campaign that drove the base of human emotion.. something that thrilled to the point of action… something that told a story. Tools like Facebook and Twitter in the world of  Social media bring a new platform that encourages the pursuit of that emotional campaign . In all honesty it IS THE PLATFORM to create this thrill. There is no other medium on earth that allows for the human connection quite like social media. You can drive evangelists of your product to bring others to your door in a fraction of a second.You can encourage individuals all over the world to communicate and help… make.. your service or product better. How are you encouraging communication between current and potential clients? Isn’t it about time to start? Related articles by Zemanta When An Apology Can Open the Door to Trust (successful-blog.com) Ties That Bind or a Noose Around Your Neck? (barbarany_9.blogspot.com) What makes us social and is social media a good thing? (digital-constructions.com) The no straight lines of authentic value in the networked society (smlxtralarge.com)

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The Basics of Human Desire in Marketing

We had an excellent seminar this morning at Brandswag . The seminar was over the concepts of integrating social media into your overall marketing strategy. It is extremely important that every business drive social media through traditional marketing practices…. and vice-versa. Below you will find my Powerpoint presentation from the seminar. Integrating Social Media View more presentations from Kyle Lacy I wanted to break down 10 ways to integrate social media into your traditional marketing practices. The following tips are simple reminders that the world is changing and it is extremely important to shift with the edge. 1. Remember that customers are people first and buyers second It is important to keep in mind that your customers are not only a demographic and a wallet… but an individual. If you start to incorporate the thinking of “individualistic marketing” your focus will be extremely… targeted. 2. People thrive on conversation and deals A study recently released by Razorfis h  states that of “ those that follow a brand on Twitter , 44% say that access to deals is the main reason. The same holds true for those that added a brand on Facebook or Myspace , where 37% cite access to exclusive deals or offers as their main reason.” (pg 9) There will always be a place for conversation and deals. Integrate your direct mail and coupon deals into your social media marketing. 3. Integration is extremely important because of speed and portability Mobile technology is revolutionizing the way the world communicates. Social media will hit mass appeal because of the mobile phone and the pda. Thousands of text messages are sent on a daily basis… even an hourly basis… It is rumored that 4.5 billion cell phones will be on the market by the end of 2010. China has a mobile provider with 500 million cell phone users. We are going to be mobile… portable.. and fast. 4. We are shifting from uni-directional and bi-directional communication to multi-directional. (slide 16) 5.  Listening and monitoring your brand online This is one of the more important things you can do before integrating social media into your marketing strategy. Use Google Alerts or Radian 6 to monitor your brand and understand the positive and negative influence the Internet is having on your company and clients. 6. Objective and Strategy need to be developed before using social media Would you do anything in your business before planning out the ramifications of your actions? The same applies to social media. Now… if you would rather just throw ideas around without aiming… or acting… You are going to have a bigger problem than applying social media to your business. Ask yourself why you are going to be applying social media? Is it going to be for reputation management, brand awareness, or lead generation? 7. Add your social media profile links to your email signature Do I really have to explain that? Need an incentive? Check out the way Hotmail grew by leaps and bounds using the footer in email. 8. Plan the use of social media within your company Who should be using the company profile? Who should be adding content on a daily basis. It is extremely important to build out an internal social media policy . This should probably be one of the first things you deal with before entering a social media campaign. 9. Remember to build a content portal before pushing information through the Twitter-Face-Linked-verse. It is extremely important to build out a hub for your content. You need to be driving people (users) from different sites to a central location. Why? It is easier to capture information and sell. 10. Don’t stress. Have fun. Social media is not something to absolutely flip out about… it is important to understand and time will tell on the “importance” of the tools being created on the Internet. Remember to keep up-to-date and look for ways where social media can help strengthen your traditional communication strategy.

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10 Tips to Integrating Social Media with Marketing

This is my last post on the Razorfish FEED 09 Brand Experience Report . One thing I have learned while reading and studying the social media report is that marketing and advertising is not dieing… it is merely adapting. This may be old news to many of you but (in the social media world) the cry of the DEATH OF ADVERTISING… is constant… loud and clear. I have even taken up the battle-axe and screamed to the heavens about the slow death of the ad world. Truth is… advertising will never be dead. The cycle of product promotion will always be a staple in the world of entertainment and communication. It is changing and adjusting with the fast changing world of online communication! The digital experience of the consumer is changing the way we communicate as brands… as companies. From Razorfish: “According to our research, the overwhelming majority of consumers who actively engage with a brand digitally–whether by entering a contest, “friending” a brand on Facebook, or even watching an advert on YouTube–show dramatic upticks across the entire marketing funnel. Simply put, digital brand experience create customers.” (pg 4) This change is not only happening in the world of social media but beyond… Consumers are engaging with brands on a completely different level. Through digital marketing and brand experiences consumers now have the CHOICE to communicate with a brand. So what does this mean to us… the business owner, marketing executive, and sales person? Shifting your marketing… adapting and changing with your environment is only the beginning. The world is changing and the business landscape will shift with it. Are you positioning yourself to take advantage of the future? Related articles by Zemanta What is viral marketing? (va4growth.com) Facebook is for brands – the careful ones (nevillehobson.com) Why marketers need to create social media guidelines (superhypeblog.com) Integrate Social Media into Your Marketing Strategy (kylelacy.com)

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News Flash. Advertising Isn’t Dying. It’s Adapting.

I have been waiting to write this post. I don’t know if it is because I wanted to hear what other social media users thought… or I just didn’t care enough about another feature on Twitter. Needless to say… I have been researching Twitter lists and the inherent value of the lists. Because of that research I have come to three simple conclusions: 1. If you create Twitter lists be very sure you keep them updated and fresh. 2. It is not imperative to create lists. If you need organization… use a trusted source’s list or organize through an application like TweetDeck or Hootsuite . 3. Monitoring lists without following individuals is important to business research on Twitter. For those of you who have not discovered Twitter lists… it is pretty simple. Twitter users have the ability to organize people they are following in topical lists. The organization of users based on lists is not new to the social media world. Facebook also allows you to organize your friends based on lists. To get a better understanding of Twitter lists view this video from BitRebels : Twitter lists can be a powerful business tool as mentioned in point 3 of the “simple conclusions.” You have the ability to follow the updates of a group of people (or brands) without publicly acknowledging that you are following them. This is important for lead generation and competitive analysis. I have setup a Twitter list called Business Leads which help me keep track of individuals or companies I am interested in selling in the near future. If you decide to use a list for business leads… make sure you make them private. We wouldn’t want competition taking advantage of this new tool.. Would we? I haven’t come to a conclusion on what I think about Twitter lists. Honestly, the feature is a little green… to make any rash decisions. Try it out. Make some lists for yourself and try to find some value. If you can’t find any value… move on with your life. There will be a new feature in a month to capture your attention. For more Twitter List Resources: John Jantsch: 5 Reasons to Use Twitter Lists Red Eye: Twitter Lists Making Tweeting Better, Easier Word Sell Inc: How To Use Twitter Lists Social Media Today: The Ugly Side of Twitter Lists

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Why Should I Care About Twitter Lists?