Earlier today I posted an article about how you should use the social movement to your advantage (instead of just running a campaign). Tapping into the power of people is simply more effective than any other means of communications.
One very good example of this is the recently created "fan page" for Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger, the captain of the Airbus plan that crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York (earlier this week).
It was created less than two days ago, and got 30,000 fans within the first 12 hours, but now it has reached staggering 305,469 fans (and it is growing by a thousand every minute). In comparison with e.g. Hillary Clinton's Facebook page, which only has 186,430 supporters.
(Actually, it grew by 13,000 fans during the time it took me to write and publish this article)
What we are seeing is a combination of the voice of the people (which is a force that has always been present), combined with the ease of being able to communicate to a global audience.
This was not possible 3 years, because back then we had no effective way to combined our voices and spread the message on a global scale.
Tapping into this power is the single most important change that you need to adapt to.
It is, however, important to remember that there are 4 unique social movements at work on the web. There is:
All of these are equal in size and impact (more or less), but the way they work is very different.
Earlier today I was reading Pev Research's report on "Older Adults and Social Media," and how that age group has doubled in size. It's a fascinating report.
We are now a few days past the announcement of Facebook Places, and you can read about my initial reaction in "Does Facebook Places Change Anything?"
After writing "What Matters is the Trend, not the Moment," one question immediately comes to mind; is Foursquare and Gowalla going to last?
You probably remember the chock wave that rippled trough the social media community after Forrester found that the location based market is insanely small (1% of users), and Foursquare is dominated by men (80%).
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard about the very successful social advertising campaign from Old Spice.
The new iPhone 4 is spectacular for many reasons, one of them being the camera. My favorite video camera is the Flip Mino HD, which I like a lot. But with the iPhone 4, you can do everything the Flip can, and much, much more.
There are three kinds of ads in this world. The ones made by mediocre brands that carry no emotion, don't make you feel, and are as effective as looking at a concrete wall for an hour.
The great thing about traditional media are that everything is campaign or event based. You put in a good amount of work, launch it, and relax. It is a very gratifying way to work. Social is not like that. It never ends. You have to be "on" all the time. There is no such thing as relaxing.
A couple of weeks ago, 8-year-old Harry Winsor (son of John Winsor, CEO of the ad agency Victors & Spoils), decided to send Boeing one of his concept designs for a new plane, done in crayon. The result was a crash course in social media for the plane manufacturer.
Today, in the Wall Street Journal, there is an article call "Entrepreneurs Question Value of Social Media." In it you can read how small business is starting to question the real value of Twitter - pointing to a survey that found that 22% made a profit, 53% broke even, and 19% lost money after engaging with social media.
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