Digital Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0, Web Analytics, Web Design

My dream finally came true, organizing my social media life, I even tried social media diet, up until CHNL was introduced to me, suddenly a life with out social content clutter, phew!!!

CHNL allows you to choose which social media channels is most dear to you and brings you the feeds in such an elegant manner, you simply create an account or log in using your Twitter or Facebook, and immediately start browsing social media content.

I am sharing with you the press release issued on CHNL crowd sourcing experience with Berghs School Students, I really adore brands who understand what “Social Media” is about.

CHNL, Berghs School of Communication Collaborate on Social UX Design Challenge

Students from prestigious media school in Sweden present CHNL with ideas for presenting outstanding service experience over next five years

March 5, 2013 – Los Angeles, CA – CHNL (http://chnl.it), the social content discovery browser, today announced that design students from the prestigious, Sweden-based Berghs School of Communication are working with the Santa Monica-based social commerce startup on a design challenge. As part of the challenge, the students envisioned what kind of content and user experience will appeal to CHNL’s socially savvy users in three to five years.

Berghs School of Communication is centrally located in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, and for more than 60 years has been consistently developing a program of study that mixes the strategic, creative and production aspects of design and communication into a cohesive unity. Berghs students were enlisted to design an outstanding service experience around users’ social media content. About 50 students worked on the project to help CHNL imagine what future services they could offer in three to five years, with the purpose of improving life through making social content more meaningful.

“Integration between disciplines and working with real clients has been a key to Berghs’ success over the years.” said William Easton, the program leader (formerly head of the school). “And for this project students in graphic design and interactive communication worked together. Each group started out by doing some research about people’s experiences with social media, before developing new services that would have the potential to exist in three to five years.”

Prior clients that have worked with Berghs on the design challenge include multinational players like Mercedes, Siemens, Microsoft, Nokia and IKEA. The students were excited to discover they would be working with a California-based start-up like CHNL, and as part of the challenge, have been divided into seven different “mini-agencies” who could pull different communicatron skills.

John Wander, CEO of CHNL, added, “It is fantastic to be given the opportunity to work with such creative and energetic minds. It was amazing to see the solutions they came up with and figure out how we can implement some of these service design ideas. The winning team was comprised seven individuals (Diego Fria, August Larsson Hernmarck, Carl Platon, Nils Bohman Strom, Eva Klingstedt, Karin Rapp, Marc Ostlund). It was extremely difficult to pick a winner as all the teams demonstrated out of the box innovative ideas for new features, technology, and new market segments”.

“CHNL gave Berghs an ambitious and challenging brief with few limitations and a commitment to work with the students to implement the best solutions into real services to engage users globally. It was great brief and I think the quality of the responses shows that perhaps one of the only truly renewable resources we have is imagination. When this is directed at a challenging problem really exciting things can happen!”

Since the announcing the addition of Groupon and Living Social, CHNL is set to become the brand of choice and trust when it comes to helping people improve their life through access, control and convergence of social content.  To set up your “CHNL,” visit http://chnl.it.

About CHNL
CHNL is the ultimate social content browser, bringing your online DNA — videos, photos, music, news, and deals — into one clean, simple and intuitive “channel.” CHNL allows users to discover new, interesting, and personally curated content while never missing what’s trending across networks. See what’s being said about a piece of content, engage in the conversation, and share your social feed content across all your networks, all together in one place, on any device — your channel. Located in Santa Monica, CA, CHNL is led by veterans of such companies as INgrooves, FiltrBox (acquired by Jive Software), and Topspin Media, with backing from the Giantstep Angel Network. To set up your “CHNL,” please visit http://chnl.it.

Twitter recently announced launching their advertisement products in the MENA region, focusing on GCC, Egypt, and Pakistan. The company partnered with Digital Ad Agency “Connect Ads” a pioneer in the region; the decision of sales representative selection was tough as they are introducing a whole new concept of Ad products. The interesting thing is that the Twitter Ad products since launched in 2010 have been well received and embraced by many popular brands internationally, among their first advertisers were Starbucks, Virgin America and Best Buy, their Advertisement sales formula followed the footsteps of Google and facebook, they have experimented with cost per thousand impressions and the Google keyword bidding module.

Twitter sells three products:

• Promoted Tweets: Promoted Tweets can be targeted to search results or to user timelines. Twitter’s geographic targeting increases the relevance of your message based on location.

• Promoted Accounts: The Promoted Account is featured in search results and within the “Who To Follow section”. Who To Follow is Twitter’s account recommendation engine and identifies similar accounts and followers to help users discover new businesses, content, and people on Twitter

• Promoted Trends: this product is connected to the viral conversations that reflect some of the hottest topics of the moment. These trends are featured prominently next to a user’s timeline. Now advertiser can buy a Trending Topic and promote it on this section.

Twitter is not selling coconut; they are selling a much sophisticated product that will take the brands to the future of advertising. They are capitalizing on engagement; to Twitter marketing is no longer fancy polished clichés, to them marketing is a form of conversation with engaging messages that feels more authentic and natural. The logic is simple if you think of it; twitter matches the “Promoted Tweets” which is a popular product to the relevant conversations. They have developed it to a very intelligent level that this “Promoted Tweet” catches on real time conversations. This is really fancy and it’s all just simple “TEXT”!

The major misunderstanding about media and blogger will be resolved once you read this article carefully:

Brands Treating Bloggers as Media

Brands think that blogs are media too! Well, the time has come to slap you with the reality! Bloggers are not media people they are not authorized to publish content and they own no publishing license! They are free spirits and true personal voices using their own vision and perception to speak their minds about you!

Media agencies on the other hand, are established entities responsible for content publishing in a systematic and legalizes approach; content may be delivered via any medium such as the internet, television, print, and audio CDs… Publishing in definition is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information — the activity of making information available to the general public. Blogs however, is a form of publishing but is defined as a personal journal published on the World Wide Web. Blogs are usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often are themed on a single subject, the web self-empowered publishing tools such as “wordpress” has enabled individuals to get into publishing their journals. As a blogger you are not required to be a writer or a certified journalist, you are just someone with good writing skills writing in your own daily diary! (Definition by Wikipedia)

Now the first major misunderstanding is that brands think bloggers are Media! First and foremost if the media sends press release to blogger and the blogger published them this means end of “Blogging”! It’s no longer the personal voice reader is thriving to hear, it’s the media influence! This unfortunately leads to the dilution of “Blogging” as a concept! And not only that it also endangers media content to be misused, putting your content in the hands of an individual who may misuse it in any sense is your responsibility, the blogger in that case is not liable!

Bloggers are confused

Second misunderstanding is the blogger themselves acting as media, I personally do not blame them as they are young enthusiasts who got the attention of the brands and extremely thrilled about it! Brands themselves have confused blogger, brands must be responsible in directing bloggers and empowering them with tools and inspirations to blog naturally about them.

I personally am a blogger as you can see, and I appreciate everyone who voices out his thoughts and opinions in a blog format! However, the concept here is not being deployed properly. Brands must understand how to employ bloggers to their benefit, and differentiate between mediums as mentioned in my previous article.

Blogger Evaluation Criteria

The most important thing is that brands must know the criteria of evaluating a serious blogger who can be of benefit to their brands, there are too many of them and differentiating the influential bloggers is a task on its own. Remember that the number of “site hits” doesn’t say much about the blog performance, simply because in Web Analytics a“hit” is not a measurement value a “Hit” on your website is the retrieval of any file, like a page or graphic and other resources such as scripts like .js and .css files etc…from the web server (“Read my article about “hits definitions – HIT OF MISS”). The real measurement is to understand about the visitor page views; meaning the single impression made by a site visitor, which is something usually not announced by the blogger, also you need to look at the bounce back rate (the rate of site visitors dropouts).

Evaluation can be through looking at the quality of blog’s content, number of engagement, number followers, comments, and what type of comments is important, ask them for analysis of their blog visitors look further into the bounce back rate and page views, and most important google their names and see what is their reputation in the blogshpere. I would add to that interview the blogger getting closer to him/her before you decide to hand him/her your brand reputation.

Conclusion

Media must understand that bloggers are supportive channels to other major medias, there are smart ways to use them. Blogs influence the mass in the sense that its people talking to people, so communities can relate to their content in a much personal level than official media. Simple ways of using them is to call on them to speak about your brands in their own voice give them the freedom, don’t expect them to write about you leave it to them! All you need to do is to make them like you. Remember very well if the blogger starts writing about you only to show off then it’s no longer valid it’s fake and no one like that! This message is for bloggers too, if you are true to your blog then embrace the freedom of your opinion and be courageous!

The question I repeatedly get is “What will I tweet”, where will I get the content and how?!

In a study by San Antonio-based market-research firm Pear Analytics who analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from the US and in English) over a two-week period in August 2009 from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM (CST) and separated them into six categories:

• Pointless babble – 40%
• Conversational – 38%
• Pass-along value – 9%
• Self-promotion – 6%
• Spam – 4%
• News – 4%

(wikipedia.org)

From the above stats you can tell that “Twitter” is all about “conversation” even the small talk “Pointless Babble” can lead to amusing conversations which will end up in engaging experience with another Tweep; for Example if I Tweet “I just saw a flying UFO” someone else maybe intrigued to “Tweet along” … the Twitversation may take nowhere but it will for sure effect the participants one way or another! This is exactly what you need to experience on “Twitter”!

So this is what I want you to learn is how to watch conversation flowing and pick up on them, whether you are tweeting as a person or company,  you need to jump in and join the babble otherwise you are not only losing the fun but you are defeating the purpose of Twitter!

To answer the urging question, how do I come up with “Tweets” I would simply answer initiate and join conversations. Remember conversations are defined as exchange of thoughts, opinions, feelings; and information, an act that you brilliantly practice every day. Twitter is another platform to practice this natural human act.

Initiators of Tweets:

1. Asking questions
2. Sharing information
3. Encouraging Dialogue
4. Giving Opinions
5. Intriguing interests
6. Talk with everyone about everything

Keep those “Twitversation Going”….

Yoda and Batman have big ears and superman has the ability to listen through walls – Learn from them

Why haven’t we thought about it before? All super heroes we know have the super power of true listening and as a result have the ability to save the world! So since we do have ears by default and hearts then combine both together and there you go; you have the secret weapon of “TRUE LISTENING”!

At this age and time customers gain control over brands; they are able to turn you into  a frog or prince whenever they wish. By all means you have no choice but to stand in front of this magical power of social media channels use the power of dialogue!

Establishing dialogue plays a vital role in marketing your brand, managing and maintaining brand reputation and expanding your reach.

Steps to join the Dialogue:

1. L —- I —-S—-T—–E—-N
2. Genuinely indulge in the process of creating dialogue based content
3. Be yourself!  Be Human
4. Close all the loops
5. Give personal attention to user regardless if he is a customer or not
6. Make it part of your daily routine

I have spoken about listening in the beginning and this is where the dialogue process begins. Indulging in the process allows you to be focused and able to captivate the user through cultivated content leading to a genuine experience. Real indulgence will result in a lasting relationships with your customers, and attracting prospects. This indulgence process is exactly what the customer expects these days, they are no longer satisfied with a greeting from your floor staff, and a “thank you come again note” from your cashier staff, the customer is expecting long and lasting relationship with the brand allowing him/her to connect to you farther than the sales transaction.

Be yourself, it’s very easy to spot a fake and you know that! So why embarrass yourself! The days of polished marketing messages are over, it’s now the time to reveal the mask and speak from heart to heart!

Closing the loops comes easy when you are both true to yourself and giving personal attention to the dialogue in action, so never leave a comment not responded to, or a question not answered or a good mention of your brand not thanked and of course do not leave a negative feedback unattended too and fixed!

Social web must become part of your daily routine just as emails are! Remember if you chose to be on social web that’s it! No chance to leave or disappear! You got to keep going and growing. To manage the multi channels and monitor your channels use the available tools on the web and be proactive about it, I’ll mention few but there are more of course: HootSuite, Social Mention,  Scoutlabs. You got to spot the sentiment of the dialogue and jump in when you need to.

Remember that Social Web is an emotional ecosystem show the human side of your brand and enjoy the process. So it’s all about being human, genuine and showing true emotions.

Regional players of the luxury industry convened to discuss strategies and share views on the market at the Luxury Forum 2010, organized by Leoron Events (www.leoron.net). Stylendubai.com took on a significant role as a partner to the event and a speaker where the co-founder Dawser Al Hadidi was invited to speak about the importance of the online channel in brand marketing.

Guests to the event included key players from various facets of the luxury industry such as fashion, jewelry, hotels, travel, and automobiles, to name a few. The primary goal of the Luxury Forum was to provide a market-oriented platform for attendees to meet and discuss business ideas and practices specific to the Middle Eastern markets. Guests were able to meet, network, and build relationships with other players of the luxury market in the region. In addition, the Luxury Forum provided guests a unique opportunity to learn more about the online channel and reach luxury consumers in an innovative way.

Co-founder Dawser Al Hadidi brought to the program Case Study: “The Web: Creating the Right Dialogue to get the Consumer to Connect with Your Brand”. A subject which has been hammering on business’ heads for a while now; her presentation focused on how businesses can build dialogue via the online channel to engage consumers with their brands.

“The web has given businesses the chance to connect with their consumers at any time and place,” says Dawser. “It’s no longer about polished brand messages that go one way, it’s a two way dialogue with conversational stream that is more human than ever.”

Dawser’s presentation featured case studies of two renowned luxury fashion brands that used social media in their marketing strategies and received remarkable results. By reaching out and involving consumers in a more interactive manner, Coach was able to enhance sales and expand its market with its “Design Your Own Tote” program. Burberry also benefited in the same manner with its interactive “Art of the Trench” idea.

Using the successes of these luxury fashion giants, Dawser aptly demonstrated the need for businesses to consider integrating social media within their overall marketing strategy. “Luxury brands have been reluctant to use social media marketing for fear of losing control over their image,” she explains. “It’s time to gather their courage before it’s too late. Their existence on the social web is key to maintaining their image, and the fact that people are discussing their brand online with or without them being there is inevitable.”

Stylendubai.com serves as another successful example where brands have used the online channel to reach today’s luxury consumers. It is a unique platform allowing brands to reach their target audience in an exclusive and focused manner. In being the ultimate source for luxury fashion and regional designers; Stylendubai.com supports luxury brands in building the essential distinctive and prestigious platform associated with the luxury concept to directly connect with their consumers.

I added this photo cause I thought it’s really funny it is a myth that an Ostrich hides its’s head from fear of danger, the truth is it does  this sort of behavior beacuse it’s giving itself a free deep cleansing facial (Joking)

The new media on everybody’s mind and probably some agendas; some took it on and experimenting with it others are reluctant to dive in!

During the time I have experimented myself and then studied the subject I extracted some of the most common myths about Social Media which have been circulating around it:

Social Media is for kids and geeks only

Well that is true; if you want to spend time gaming and chatting with friends! but for marketers it’s no game at all, social media is powerful tool to present brand personality at times where consumer gains control over the sales process and has total freedom to post his opinion whatever it was!

So the truth is social media is a legitimate marketing platform just as TV, Print, Web, Outdoor is!

Social Media jeopardize business reputation

Well if you accept to be an ostrich with its’ head in the sand at first sense of danger! Well the danger you are hiding from is inevitable it exists whether you like it or not. Choosing to hide from it is the real ‘Danger’. Consumers are already discussing your brand so you technically are on social media without you knowing. Your passive existence will put your business reputation in danger.

Social Media no time to play

An excuse I hear often is we don’t have time for Facebook and Twitter, we are too busy working on real marketing strategies! Well not good excuse! And you won’t get away with it for long! Social Media is a real marketing platform which must be integrated with your overall marketing strategy with time and staff assigned to it.

Social Media is for free

This is not entirely true, social media is certainly not for free; it is in the cost effective and cost saving category. The real truth is you need specialized people to run it for you and this will cost you, you do have the option to train your existing staff but you need specialized people to train them. Eventually you must deploy the right measurement solution to maximize and optimize your social media presence and give you an overall picture of your performance including ROI that will cost you.

So Social Media is no scary monster, no play, not a free ride, join in with no excuses!

As  I was expecting Google to be intrigued by all the data posted on “Twitter”, it was not difficult for them to think of searching Tweets archive or even live Tweets search!

Google is introducing a new feature named “Google Replay” a search facility to allow users to go back and search for tweets. It will take you back to March 2006 to the beginning of Twittersphere! The engine will archive tweets and make them available for search after 6 months of their published time. The feature also provides a diagram allowing search for Tweets by hour, really cool, check the demo

This comes just in time with launching Twitter Search, a full-fledge real-time Tweet search allowing users to search by language, and a more advanced search with very smart filtering! You can even search Tweets by Attitudes, VS !

Tweetup is another engine allowing paid for search created by the old time bid-based marketplace  inventor Bill Gross. The service allows advertiser to pay per impression and calculates rankings based on an algorithm that uses data from which measure tweets influence.

“TweetUp is to Twitter what Google is to the Web,” Said (Steve Case, the former chairman of AOL Time Warner. )

Happy tweeting….

The Association of Image Consultants International (AICI) recently hosted its second Dubai Chapter conference, at which Stylendubai co-founder Dawser Al Hadidi was the event’s key speaker.

Presented at the prestigious Address Marina Hotel and Resorts, the conference was coordinated by Rana Saab, who serves as the official AICI Ambassador for the Middle East. Guests included AICI members, Image Consultants, and non -members of small business entrepreneurs and professionals attending the event to glean new ideas on social media from Al Hadidi’s lecture.

“Social media has become an integral part of any business’ marketing strategy,” Al Hadidi asserts. “My objective at this event was to help marketing professionals embrace social media and make it second nature in their marketing approach.”

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