How social media made my life easier this week…

For those of you that didn’t catch my Twitter feed messages, you’re probably not aware that I had a major technological meltdown occur a few days ago. It all started Tuesday afternoon, upon commencing my regular morning “social media sunrise” routine. My laptop loaded as usual, however upon loading any application, it would display the much despised “blue screen of death”. I tried re-booting and starting in safe-mode, repairing my windows installation and booting from factory CD’s, however it would freeze each time.

Now, I should point out that part of me has always been a “techie” by nature and in the past, there have been very few issues with computers (which I usually assemble myself from custom parts) that I couldn’t resolve. I spent hours on this one trying every trick of the trade. To cut a long story short, it turned out to be more serious than I thought (malfunctioning hardware issue- overheated video card that corrupted my system files and most of my hard drive).

The point of this post however, is that even though I was without a laptop, the technological gateway to my work, I managed not to have it impact my work nearly as much as in the past.

Why is that? Answer: social media + public computer with internet access.

Here’s some common social media applications that helped me get through my work week without my own laptop:

• Experts-Exchange :Even though I know quite a bit of technical stuff, I decided to tap into this amazing computer technical support knowledge community. I posted a question about my computer problem and within minutes I had people literally competing to respond to me with the best answer (they get authority/expert points similar to that of LinkedIn). I received some great ideas on how to recover 2.5″ corrupt laptop HD’s that ended up working flawlessly.
• Twitter : This great little micro-blogging platform let me quickly inform regular subscribers to my blogs that I am having some tech issues and will be a little behind in everything I do until further notice.
• Google Bookmarks : Even though I also use other social bookmarking tools such as Del.icio.us for specific purposes, I found the most use out of Google Bookmarks, which loaded up my entire bookmark collection (personal and business). This made my web user interface exactly the same as on my laptop.
• Plaxo: Since my Outlook Calendar files were not backed up, my only resort was looking at my Plaxo account calendar which I had set-up to automatically synchronize with my Outlook calendar. All my meetings and appointments were salvaged.
• Google Reader : I shouldn’t even have to explain this one. Logging into my Google Account and browsing all my RSS feeds made me feel like I wasn’t missing a beat.

I should also add that I spent some time listening to my favorite blogs and podcasts (see my Blog Roll) trying to figure out which laptop to buy now that mine was toast (ordering the part alone would take weeks, which I didn’t have). I finally decided to go with a loaded Dell XPS 1330 based on many direct and indirect recommendations from the online community.

Now I play the waiting game…arrival of my new laptop is scheduled for Decemebr 10th, I’ve been told that Dell usually beats it’s promise by a few days. I hope this will be true in my case as well (RichardatDell, feel free to pull some strings! lol).

Until then, I’m fine using any computer I find, anywhere I am.

Why “Mommy Bloggers” are a hot target audience for public sector marketers

I have been wanting to write this blog entry for over a month now. Back in mid-October, I attended a local Ottawa-based Social Media meet-up group called Third Tuesday (organized by Joe Thornley). The speaker that evening, Canadian “mommy-blogger” Danielle Donders was talking about the rise to fame of her mommy-blog “Postcards from the mothership“. I was in shock as to how many sponsorship and promotional offers she claimed to be getting on a weekly basis. Advertisers were sending her everything from diapers to family ski-trips in Vermont.

Since launching her blog in early 2005, Danielle has written more than 950 posts, received more than 10,000 reader comments, and has been quoted in Ottawa Citizen, Chatelaine, Canadian Family magazine, and National Geographic Traveler Online Magazine. She got into blogging for fun, but now admits to enjoying the fame and the occasional freebie. She often rejects certain offers so as not to turn into a spokesperson for anyone in particular and will badmouth a product if its bad, so be careful what you send her. Blogger honesty and integrity are everything in the social media world.

Her presentation made me think of a social marketing strategy (not to be confused with “social media marketing”) we did for Public Safety Canada for their Get Prepared campaign. I can’t reveal all the details, but essentially the background and objectives were as follows:

Background

“Every year Canadians face emergency situations. Disasters can confine a family at home or force an evacuation. A flood, hurricane, ice storm, hazardous material leak or any other disaster could affect water supply, cut electricity, and telephone service for days or weeks. In recent years, disasters have forced more than four million Canadians from their homes and caused billions of dollars in damage.”

Objectives

• Behavior objectives seek to increase a percentage of the target audience who obtain information about emergencies, complete an emergency plan, and assemble or purchase an emergency kit.
• Knowledge objectives focus on increasing a percentage of the target audience who know more about emergency situations and how to respond
• Belief objectives focus on decreasing a percentage of the target group who believe that there are many emergencies that you simply can’t prepare for. In addition, the campaign was designed to increase the number of Canadians who believe there is a sense of urgency about getting prepared and that preparedness is necessary for their own and their family’s safety.

Typical to government, the majority of the promotional budget went towards TV advertising (30-second spots). Getting back to my point, if PSC had used so much as 1/1000th of the TV advertising budget to send some kits to the top 100 “mommy-bloggers” in Canada, I would not be surprised if the ROI would be above the roof. Better yet, a simple conversation with some key mommy-bloggers about the issue at hand would likely create significant buzz since its a social issue that affects their families and is interesting!

It boggles my mind how public sector marketers (especially those that use social marketing) are not all over Blogs, Podcasts, Social Networks, etc…Bloggers want good content, the quality of their content is what makes or breaks their blog readership, the same applies for other social media platforms. Social Marketing strategies are based on a societal issue that requires a behaviour change of some sort that will lead to a positive outcome for society. Why wouldn’t mommy-bloggers want to talk about these kinds of things?

In fact I was so curious as to what Danielle would do in such a situation that I asked her myself. Here is her response:

“Mike, I would be completely open to being approached on an issue like this, and it would likely even be something that caught my attention enough to blog about or reproduce (sometimes, I just dump the contents of my inbox into a big wrap-up posts of all the worthy pitches I’ve received but done nothing with.) A while ago, I reprinted a PSA release on water safety verbatim, because I thought the message was clear, appropriate for my audience, and interesting. The Emergency Kit example sounds like it would be quite similar. The key is in matching up the interests of the blogger and her (or his) audience and the message. In this particular case, exactly because it’s something I might blog about anyway if I came across it organically (AND it piqued my interest AND I was in need of blog fodder) I would blog about it anyway. Coming across it in my in-box as framed in a polite or friendly PR pitch doesn’t really change how I blog about it – in this particular case. “

Some thoughts I want to close off with :

• While the mommy-bloggers themselves may not be the target audience for your campaign, they are definitely key influencer’s for most social marketing campaigns that I can think of (especially anything to do with health promotion).
• Danielle’s Blog is read by thousands of influential moms each day. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to explain the viral exponential effect of that to you, especially amongst the most gossipy human beings on earth…suburban women.
• 98% of moms trust other moms as a source of information over any other form. Advertising is way down the list.
• In the 5 minutes it took me to ask her that question, I achieved the equivalent of many $ of advertising seeing as how my question and her response has been viewed by her entire audience and through the course of the week will reach all her regular readers.
• Now imagine, what PSC could achieve if it politely asked, as I did, the 50 top “mommy bloggers” in Canada to help spread the “get prepared” message…
• No paperwork, no money, no bureaucracy, no bullshit, just honest opinion and help in getting a message across to hundreds of thousands of members of the most influential target group of them all…forget all the buzzwords and technology, this is web2.0 at its best.

Comments?

Social Networks go V.I.P.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. With the overwhelming growth of Facebook and LinkedIn among general audiences, various powerful elites and accomplished businessmen have decided to create their own online social networks by invitation only (with a credentials check). Very much like the country clubs and private golf courses they spend their leisure time on, it only makes sense that these closed-gate communities have started joining the online social networking world in a similar exclusive manner. Here are some examples taken from a recent Business Week article:

Reuters Space

“In October, British news giant Reuters (RTRSY) launched a private online networking community for hedge fund managers, traders, and analysts. Dubbed Reuters Space (space.reuters.com), the industry-specific site leverages its own pool of proprietary data on thousands of companies to verify the employment status of applicants, be they futures traders or chief investment officers. Members each have a feeds page, where they collect news from Reuters and other sources tailored to their financial specialty. Each one also has a profile page—a personal blog where they post notes to colleagues and close industry contacts and set privacy controls to determine who has access to their contact information. The site has potential for companywide rollouts: For example, London-based Schroders Investment Management, a global asset management firm, is planning to adopt the platform to give more of a sense of community to its employees in 24 offices around the world.”

Inmobile.org

“Launched in April, 2006, INmobile.org is a network of more than 900 executives who work in or close to the wireless industry. To qualify, you have to be at least a director at a large company, a vice-president at a midsize company, or in the C-suite of a startup. So far, members include executives from carriers such as Verizon Wireless, content providers such as Walt Disney (DIS), and handset makers such as Nokia (NOK). Arthur Goikhman and Stephen Dacek, co-founders of New York mobile-games startup Cellufun, joined in February. They were able to make connections with Yahoo! (YHOO) on the site and struck a deal with the search giant to place ads with Cellufun’s games. “I’m glad it’s not a free-for-all,” says Dacek. “It really does make it a lot easier to network.”

Diamond Lounge

“This invitation-only social and business network, making its debut this month, relies on a selection committee elected by all members on the site. The committee has already chosen 100 members out of more than 7,000 applications that came in before Diamond Lounge (diamondlounge.com) went live. Members, who pay a monthly $60 fee, can hail from any industry and have two identities: a social profile in “the Lounge” and a business profile in “the Boardroom.” For the social profile, members set limits on who can view them based on such characteristics as age, physical build, and gender; for the boardroom they provide their income, industry, and job title. They can exchange gifts, much like Facebook, where members buy icons of cakes and teddy bears, for example—but Diamond Lounge gifts include real Gucci bags or tickets to business events.”

Marketers will surely be drooling over these “long-tail” audiences trying to figure out a way to join the conversation with them now that they are not invited (unlike Facebook and LinkedIn where brands and companies often create profiles and groups). Surely there will be less SPAM, but is this closed-gate community building a smart move? What do you think?