Thursday, March 31, 2011

Social BOOM!



Jeffery Gitomer's new book SocialBoom! has a section from Mitch Joel, my favorite author on social media since he is so enthusiastic about what he does.

I see this as the cup half full

This report actually represents an opportunity to help through strategy. These CMO see the need for social media, but its hard to fully support and be transitional without embracing social media yourself. Ever try to explain to someone how a piano sounds?



New companies like Social Business Consulting Group (Sobizco) which just recently launched with senior level certified social media strategist will bring that unifying methodology to CMOs so they can implement globally across their organizations - cross functionally and cross country.

Amplify’d from www.businessinsider.com

The Top 20 Social CMO's Of The Fortune 100 [Infographic]

Many are calling 2011 the year of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).  I can assure you, it will not be called the year of the Social CMO.  In our analysis only 15 of the 143 CMO’s and Chief Communication Executives (CCO’s) in the Fortune 100 we studied have active Twitter Accounts. Worse, 15% of them have a net zero social footprint (meaning no social activity).  

Yet in a survey by the MarketingSherpa team, Social Media budgets are expected to increase in 53% of the organizations surveyed.  

Moreover, "US marketers will spend $3.08 billion to advertise on social networking sites this year," according to eMarketer. "Spending will be up 55% over the $1.99 billion advertisers devoted to social networks in 2010 and will rise by a further 27.7% next year to reach nearly $4 billion." 

Read more at www.businessinsider.com
 

Introducing the +1 Button




I think this fits with Twitters #FF (Follow Friday) regime or #FF1 which is Follow Friday 1 person focus which I prefer. Either way I like the concept to highlight things in search.

Now if only Google would bring back the Goog 411 service which I really really liked!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Sobizco Welcomes Australian partner

Now is the time for enterprise level clients to start looking at the separate social media efforts they have implemented and look to see if they have a global strategy in place for true transformation and customer relationship building. Social Business Consulting Group is one of the new companies being formed to provide the senior level business expertise and the social media strategy and methodology you need for global coordination. Brian Solis recently moved to Altimeter for the same strategic reasons. Sobizco is by far the largest group providing this high level service.

Amplify’d from www.prlog.org
Social Business Consulting Group Logo

Michael A. Green joins Social Business Consulting Group (Sobizco)

Michael A. Green joins Social Business Consulting Group (Sobizco) to Change the Way Executives Look At Social Media - Michael Allen Green and Seventeen Social Media Strategists Unite To Form The World’s Largest Social Media Consulting Firm.
PRLog (Press Release)
Mar 20, 2011 – Sydney, Australia, Michael A.Green, a founder of iGo2 Group Australia, is now also a founding partner of the newly formed “Social Business Consulting Group” (in Sillicon Valley, USA) together with 17 other founding partners from around the world. All are certified social media strategists and have experience from well-known organizations including Dell, Franklin Tempelton, Sun Microsystems, GE, Oracle, Rockwell, Southwest Airlines, Symantec and Western Union. The founding partners and additional 20 social media consultants are located in the US, Australia, Germany, France, UK, Sweden, Russia, South Africa, Vietnam and Brazil. “I am delighted to be working with a team of international partners to form the world’s largest Social Media Consulting Firm focused on enterprises” said Michael A. Green.
Read more at www.prlog.org
 

Friday, March 18, 2011

Facebook and girl fighting

The problem of bullying has risen to dangerous and lethal levels in many parts of the country. Some of the populations most at risk are young girls in middle school who may be struggling with self esteem, friendships and status. All forms of media are to blame for fueling this mindset including advertisements, music,TV, and magazines. This media tends to show that popularity and success only comes with buying the right products or looking a certain way.



In the schools bullying by boys and girls is on the rise. This article provides a solid example (FaceBook) of how social media sites can be drawn into the battle. Social media and text messaging can add to this mayhem when pictures and comments can be posted in a negative way and then can go viral. Talk to your kids about bullying and fighting. Supervise their use of social media networking sites carefully so they understand the impact of their words and action.



One organization in Madison that is fighting for the hearts and minds of young girls is www.Projectgirl.org. @ProjectGirl is a national grassroots effort to teach trainers and educators, including the girls themselves, how to de-mediafy their lives through the use of art and video.



Find ProjectGirl on Facebook and Youtube under ProjectGirlUSA



Local Madison social media groups - Social Media Breakfast Madison and Social Media Club of Madison are working to educate each other. Members can support educating schools about the positives and negatives of social media by offering a program on social media to your local school.

Amplify’d from host.madison.com

Facebook posting causes street brawl, police say

A 13-year-old girl's Facebook posting of another girl's photo
side by side with a large young actress' photo erupted into a
street fight on Madison's southeast side Monday night, with upwards
of 15 people, mostly teen girls and women, duking it out, police
said.

Read more at host.madison.com
 

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Trend for big business - global strategy

I think that many large businesses will begin to consolidate many disconnected "social media campaigns" and realize they need an overreaching strategy to truly transform their business for competitive advantage.

Amplify’d from www.tradingmarkets.com

: Soucie Becomes Founding Partner of Global Social Media Consultancy, Sobizco

Social media consultant Wendy Soucie stepped onto the world stage this week, as she entered into an agreement to become one of Social Business Consulting Group's (Sobizco) founding partners. Sobizco, a global social media and business consulting firm, is the brain child of co-founder Axel Schultze.

Schultze, who is also founder of the Social Media Academy says, "This group of 17 social business consultants covers the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific. Each is a certified social media strategist with hands-on industry experience from companies such as Oracle, Dell, Western Union, GE, Southwest Airlines, Rockwell, Symantec and Franklin Tempelton. These founding members have been selected for their expertise in applying social media to the goals of business and for their particular areas of specialization."

Social media has provided enormous economic benefits to businesses around the world, including growth in market share, brand reputation, improved customer experience, higher return on marketing investments and reduced support costs--all resulting from more engaged customers. Sobizco's services include social media auditing, strategy development and engagement planning, as well as technology consulting and a wide range of implementation services.

Read more at www.tradingmarkets.com
 

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Honey production up in Wisconsin

I am pretty happy that the bees in Wisconsin, part of a pretty tight union of hard working females, continued to work hard inspite of budget issues.

Amplify’d from www.nbc15.com

Thursday Morning Wisconsin News Headlines

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Wisconsin's honeybees were busy last year, helping the state's honey production jump 15 percent. The gain made Wisconsin the nation's eighth-largest honey producer. The bees produced nearly 4.4 million pounds of honey in 2010.

Read more at www.nbc15.com
 

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Are you working for a company that blocks social media sites?

We love to hate them. Especially if you are the senior executives, IT manager, or business owner who is worried that your staff will spend more time socializing versus working.



The trouble with this perspective is that business owners need to empower employees to develop social business skills, and social business relationships. We need to have more varied touchpoints with clients and people we wish to have as clients. This audience needs to trust the business but since its very hard to trust an entity, we instead must realize the relationship must be a trust of our people.



Let your people use social media. Note that all 400,000 + employees are trusted to be on any website or social site at IBM.

Amplify’d from www.hreonline.com

Access Denied

A new listing of the top 10 most-banned websites by businesses in 2010 prompts the question: Who decides which sites get blocked? And, as social sites are most often blacklisted, it's ironic that experts say such decisions should be made by a cross-functional group, not by a single department.
Facebook. MySpace. YouTube.
Three of the most popular websites on the Internet are also the three most-blocked sites by businesses in 2010, according to a new industry report.
The report is based, in part, on the firm's 30 billion queries it receives daily from users.

OpenDNS, a San Francisco-based provider of Internet navigation and security services, recently released its list of the top 10 most-banned websites by businesses in 2010 as part of its first-ever in-depth report on the topic, entitled 2010 Report on Web Content Filtering and Phishing (PDF).

Read more at www.hreonline.com