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Holistic Social Media

Dec 13 2010

Three Folks to Watch in 2011

There are the famous and the uber-connected, this post is NOT about them. It’s about three really genuine cool people who are smart, funny, and make stuff happen. Meet them…

 

Francisco Rosales
From his site, Social Mouths

Francisco Rosales. Social Mouths. This guy is just plain neat – he helped us with the kicking Thesis theme trickout you see. But he says some smart things – like claiming that it’s NOT about the numbers in social media – it’s about actual connections.

Has that right brain/left brain combo that’s tough to find.

Visit his site and learn a little more about him here: Social Mouths.

Shelly Kramer. v3 Integrated Marketing. Straight-shooter – and would you want your marketing expert to be anything else?

 

Shelly Kramer
thanks, blissdomconference.com

And just about every time she opens her mouth on behalf of the company, it’s spot-on. (When she opens her mouth on behalf of herself, it’s snarky.) Her site is here and she’s also speaking at the 2011 Blissdom Conference.

Another cool thing about Shelly: well, earlier this year she called us out here at Area 224 HQ. Privately, suggesting we were in the process of doing something stupid. She was absolutely correct – and her direct but kind suggestion got us to change our thinking on the concept of Social Media Automation. (Some of it – okay, but must be done correctly. Lots of it, bad.)

 

Katie Felten
Katie from MKE Live

Katie Felten. MKE Live. One thing that’s really likable about Katie – besides her energy, her devotion to an underrated town like Milwaukee, and her deep domain expertise in the LinkedIn category – is that she actually left a corporate gig to make this MKE Live thing work.

Which, in this economy, is really really counter-intuitive.

But it’s that sort of thinking – zig when others zag – that can really pay off. Worth seeing what she’s up to – on Twitter (@KatieFelten) and elsewhere.

Our Three to Watch…

Who are yours?

 

 

 

Written by Dave · Categorized: Holistic Social Media, Uncategorized

Dec 10 2010

Anatomy of a Meme

If Area 224 were a betting organization, we’d put money on this video becoming a meme.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgtnNc1Zplc

We’ve talked about viral videos before – how you really can’t plan for something to go viral, but you can create killer content and hope for the best.

However, since “Hope is not a Strategy,” it helps to have a few elements that can put the possibility of success in your corner. And, this Meme-worthy video has all of the elements of Holistic Social Media. For instance:

Influencers. Real influencers, like Paulo Coelho. I don’t know what his Klout score is and I’m not sure I really care. I do know that I have read at least one of his books.

A Good Story. Want action, adventure, international intrigue? Hey, the Nativity has it for you.

The Whipsaw Effect. Would Mary really email Joseph to say she needed help during the first Christmas season? Huh? Yup, that’s whipsaw for you.

Brazilians. Some wacky number of Brazilians use Twitter. And 47% of users of Orkut are Brazilian. Wanna go viral? Fala Portuguese.

Enjoy this really cool Natal Digital.

Written by Dave · Categorized: Holistic Social Media, Video · Tagged: Natal Digital

Dec 09 2010

Blood Sausage (and your 2011 Marketing Plan)

Leave it to Area 224 to bring two diametrically opposed concepts – Blood Sausage and Marketing Plans – together. Yum!

 

blood sausage
Thanks, blass.com.au

Blood Sausage. Blood Pudding. Black Sausage.

No matter what you call it, well, it is what it is. Sausage, made from blood.

In fact, here, verbatim, is the recipe, taken from the 1978 edition of the “Belgian Cookbook,” compiled by the Center for Belgian Culture of Western Illinois.

“10 lb. pork back fat, ground.

1 gallon beef blood.

7 lb. onions, ground.

Three 1 lb. loaves of dried bread, ground.

Salt, pepper and cinnamon to taste.

Casings.

Mix the ingredients. Fill the casing and make into links. Boil slowly. Doneness is tested by piercing with a needle. If no blood escapes, sausage is done. Makes about 20 lb.”

Now that you know how the sausage is made – what are you supposed to do with this knowledge?

Plan to make your own sausage.

See, the Belgians were (and are) frugal folks. Frugality is something I inherited from my Dad (full-bred Flemish chap that he was). (NOTE: “Frugal” does not necessarily mean “cheap.”) (NOTE: this is running dangerously close to being a post about Flemish Stereotyping.)

Frugality means using what you’ve got to work with. Maximizing your effectiveness – not necessarily your efficiency, but your effectiveness. Maybe thinking less about “marketing” or “social media” and more about “business.”

Blood sausage is frugal food. It may not be for everyone. BUT…

What can you mix up in your organization’s lab that maximizes stuff that’s sitting around?

We have the benefit of thousands of years of food science – who would think of making something like “Blood Sausage?”

And, darnit, the French call it “Boudin Noir.” The Portuguese call it “Chuorico Muoro.” Both are, I bet, more marketable names. But I digress.

The point? What’s one department doing (the department that has, say, pork back fat) that another department can learn from (the folks with the beef blood).

Where’s your dried bread?

Are your departments actually talking to each other?

Is it time to sit down with someone from the other side of your company’s world? Is it possible you can make beautiful sausage together?

Ages ago, there was one guy with one department of a large conglomerate we worked for. His division was getting no love from the rest of the company. But he kept coming down to visit with our marketing team because, well, he had “the thing” that we needed. Or, less about being the thing “we” needed — it was the thing that our clients needed. (He was thinking about this rather, uh, holistically. We like holistic marketing.) In a specific subset of our client roster — this thing was, bar none, “the thing.”

But we had too many gosh darn silos to be able to make it happen.

He left the company frustrated – but, since he was not able to find an audience for “the thing,” he took it with him.

Thriving Business. Solution that actually ended up sorta rocking his industry.

And, because he was able to find the right audience elsewhere, a nice little business. That the conglomerate is still unaware was the one that got away.

Let me ask you: Where’s Your Company’s Blood Sausage?

 

Written by Dave · Categorized: Holistic Social Media · Tagged: Blood Sausage

Dec 01 2010

What’s Wrong With 80/20

The 80/20 rule
Thanks, jagoinvesor.com

Pareto, while brilliant, forgot one important point.

If you’re familiar with the 80/20 rule – credited to Vilfredo Pareto, the 20th Century Italian economist – you’ve probably committed that line of thinking to memory. 80 percent of the money is made by 20 percent of the people. 20 percent of your clients will bring in 80 percent of your revenues.

In fact, you can read about the 80/20 rule in this post from Online-Social-Networking.com and Larry Brauner.

And Larry’s a smart guy, so I won’t argue with the basic premise – and how it applies to social media marketing. There’s also something to be said for how it applies to Holistic Social Media, too.

But here’s the thing: just because one column is “80” – doesn’t mean the other column is “20.”

It’s not a requirement that the two columns add up to 100. In fact – they often don’t.

Think about a consulting firm that brings in 1 Million a year, and has 3 big clients and, let’s say, 22 small ones. And the 22 small clients are each tiny engagements – $1000 each. The rest of the revenue comes from the other 3.

Revenue: 1 Million. Revenue from 3 big clients: $978,000. Revenue Percentage: 97.8. Percentage of firm’s clients: 12%.

This is a classic “97.8/12” business. (That adds up to 109.8.)

And just because 12% of your business brings in 97.8% of your revenue – does that mean the other 2.2% should be abandoned?

What if the 2.2% serves as a proving ground for junior staff? What if the tiny revenue stream is also insanely profitable, high-margin work – perhaps something that can be replicated, scaled, sold again and again?

Something to think about…as you build your business.

Written by Dave · Categorized: brand communications, CEOs, Holistic Social Media, Martini Glass, Nichification

Nov 23 2010

NEW: 5 Categories of Holistic Social Media

Fitting that this is Post #100 – gives us a chance to premiere some stuff that, while not groundbreaking, may be groundbreakingly simple.

5 Categories. Holistic Social Media.

Not too too difficult if you think about it. There are new sites, new tools, new ways of looking at the same old stuff launching seemingly every day. But, as we shared – and learned – during BOOM Camp 2010, big charts and graphs are great if you’re knee-deep in analytics all day. Most people aren’t.

So, to borrow from Lloyd Bridges’ Admiral Benson character in Hot Shots:

“Give it to me straight, Ted. Dot every comma.”

 

5 Categories of Holistic Social Media
(c) 2010, Area 224

So, behold. The 5 Categories of Holistic Social Media.

You can argue with the categories if you’d like – for instance, we expect to have a few darts thrown our way when we talk about “Microblogging,” as that category also includes “Sharing” and “Bookmarking.”

Oh, and we think that Geo-Sharing – the Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Facebook Places landgrab that’s going on – well, it deserves a category of its own.

A couple other things to let y’all know about before we begin our javelin-catching exercise:

1. YOUR BUSINESS is at the center. Duh.

That does mean, though, that the whole thing may not make sense for you – maybe you’re B2B and Geo-Sharing seems like a wasted exercise. Fine. You don’t need to do it. Because…

2. It sorta kinda resembles a body for a reason.

Blogging is the head, the nerve center. Your business is the heart.

If the Video leg or Micro-blogging hand don’t add up to that much for you – well, these are not the most critical components.

Happy to take any darts or comments from the peanut gallery.

 

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Written by Dave · Categorized: 5 Categories, Facebook, Geo-Sharing, Holistic Social Media, Twitter, Video

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