Marketing tools
“Social Traffic” - Why this book topic:
“Social Traffic” - Event Marketing in a New Media Scape
Why this topic:
In 1958 Licklider saw universal networking as a potential unifying human revolution, which many years later resulted in the creation of the web. Till 2000, all we needed was a website to be considered ‘on the web’. The definition and usage of the internet has changed so drastically since then, that it’s imperative to think about it in terms of your “complete” web presence - which includes your profiles, followings, social networks, life streaming, blogs and much more. People, who aren’t part of this new social media landscape, are in essence, not really considered ‘online’ at all.
According to a research, as of today; it’s a fact that approximately 73% of online users read blogs. It’s a fact that 57% internet users are on social networking sites. It’s a fact that Facebook just recently hit their 100 million user landmark within months. It’s a fact that people are tuning in to Youtube more than mainstream TV with approximately 83% internet users having viewed online videos. Almost 40% of all the people on the internet subscribe to RSS feeds. On an average 16,500 tweets (twitter) are sent each hour. Most astoundingly, there is a massive shift in company brands when 36% of internet users claim to think more positively about companies with blogs. Should these stats matter to us as business owners, event managers or marketers? I just want to achieve one goal today - make you understand that being ‘present online’ and building a powerful business network isn’t as difficult as it seems. In fact, the principle ideology for online success in today’s world is much closer to your offline mind set than most exponents of online networking can see.
If I can convince any of you to take the leap, to take what you do naturally offline, online…then everything that I’ve done so far in my career would become worth it.
With its huge potential, Web 2.0 has opened up gateways for businesses. There are more than 400,000 entrepreneurs and developers on the Facebook platform - And this is just a SINGLE social networking site. Imagine if you tap into several, how big and profitable it can be for you. The key is to channel the intelligence and savvy of the collected group and make your space a user-friendly place for people to meet, connect and share. Online event marketing also has a huge potential now, more so than ever before, thanks to Web 2.0 techniques. People are no longer an audience who are “just a witness to the event taking place on stage” but are actually a part of planning and promoting it. Your audiences, customers or markets have the most influence in making your events or launches a huge success. Social media has taken things to the next level and the division between “you” and “them” has blurred and “we” has emerged. This book is about channelizing this force to your advantage.
Welcome to Social Traffic - Event anchored Marketing in the New Media Scape.
Book launches Wednesday November 5th. You Can Sign Up Here.
I hope you enjoy the book, as much as I enjoyed writing it.
“Social Traffic” - Have You Been Getting Any Lately?
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Top secret Intelligence agencies discover the power of social networking
I read an interesting article today on cnn.com about how CIA and FBI have built a social networking site, just like facebook, where their analysts can share information and have discussions. They figured that social networking platforms are the best way to gaurantee that there aren’t any unconnected dots or loopholes.
A-Space is ofcource highly classified and nobody without the right security clearance can access the space. However, I’m glad that agencies are finally starting to discover and utilize the power of social media to their advantage.
Here’s an abstract, enjoy!
“”It’s every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it’s much, much more,” said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis. The program is called A-Space, and it’s a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
Instead of posting thoughts about the new Avenged Sevenfold album or Jessica Alba movie, CIA analysts could use A-Space to share information and opinion about al Qaeda movements in the Middle East or Russian naval maneuvers in the Black Sea.
The new A-Space site has been undergoing testing for months and launches officially for the nation’s entire intelligence community on September 22.”
Coordinating private social events with AnyVite
How can any website that proclaims to be “the easiest way to invite people to an event” be anything but short of a miracle for event managers and marketers. Anyvite is one such nifty site with tools that help you coordinate private social events.
Though this site brings people together, yet it doesn’t claim to be a social network. It allows you to create real life events for free and keep your friends posted about them. You can put your contacts in different groups, thus making your life easier when it comes to inviting a certain group to a specific social do. Marketers and managers don’t need to sort out through their contacts in order to send invitations each time a new event is to be arranged.
The interesting thing is that you don’t need to send every member of a group separate invitations; once an event is created for a group, all the members will automatically receive an invite. This saves you loads of valuable time and you don’t need to maintain a checklist of guests.
Along with issuing invitations, you can start a discussion with any group about a related event. This feature provides a heaven-sent opportunity for event marketers and event managers. Pre-event arrangements can be made based on the suggestions and likes/dislikes of all participants. This active involvement of all players not only keeps them updated but also makes them feel special. It also saves the hassle and confusion caused by “reply to all” e-mails. You can keep in contact with all partakers through each and every stage of the event through the event feeder.
Another interesting feature is the SMS functionality. Whenever you create an event or are invited to one, you’ll get a text message. This ensures that you remain connected with your buddies even if you don’t have access to a computer.
You can have fun even after the event as the site allows you to share photographs, videos and views on all that happened. From a business perspective, this is vital feedback.
Websites like Anyvite go a long way in making the job of marketers and managers as stress-free as possible, their performance and results will undeniably profit from such ingenious and handy sites.
Top technology uses in events
1- Quick updates via Twitter messaging through cellphone/wireless networks. Ally has a good post on this here.
2- Sensors for foot traffic calculations. This has been around for a few years, but its how the data is applied to streamline traffic, staff placements and reduce risks of bottlenecks thats important.
3- Interactive Video multi-channel dispay screens. Link this up with live web-casting and you’ve done a favor to all of those people who could’nt make it.
4- For parties, having LED lighting choreographed with music adds a level of oomph.
5- Gadgets for direct attendee data tracking to use during and post event analysis.
Wishlist:
6- Blue-tooth devises to track people from online networks (LinkedIn, Facebook).
Also, Julius wrote an interesting post on 5 signs your event is web 1.0. Great read!
Save money and touch up your event pictures yourself
You’ll hardly find anyone who doesn’t bemoan the perfect photograph being spoiled by that gigantic palm frond in the background or a fly landing on the cheek at the wrong moment to give you a mole that puts the black hole to shame.
We all have attics and storerooms full of junk but in all that junk are memories too. These memories are stored in form of old, battered and tattered photographs. No matter how well these treasures are cared for, time takes its toll on them.
wowApic comes to the rescue in both these situations. They not only touch up and improve your photos but also restore the old ones. They do it for a fee but as they have skilled professionals; if a customer isn’t happy with the result, they reimburse the money.
The site also allows you to earn money by becoming an “affiliate”. You can refer the website to other people or even promote it on your own website; either way you end up making some pocket-money on the side.
Such a website is nothing less than a treasure trove for anyone who is marketing or launching events. There should definitely be more of these. You don’t need to hire professional photographers charging exorbitant rates. All that is needed is a camera and someone to happily click away; an added plus is that both print and digital photos can be used. You don’t need to worry if an important personality is missing from a group shot or you have a curious onlooker ruining a picture. Thanks to digital technology, the missing person can be added and the unwanted can disappear into thin air. By allowing change of backgrounds, it allows you to pick and choose the proper setting for the event you are holding.
As wowApic allows you uploads from flickr, smugmug, facebook, fotopic.net, picasa, and photobucket, you can have all your previous photos upgraded as well. This in turn will help you revamp your image via your portfolio. It also allows you to update your web info quickly as rush orders can be met in only 24 hours.
Pre- and post-event activities can all be photographed and shared with the whole world. If your photos are attractive and eye-catching, your event is bound to be a hit. The opportunity to enhance the pictures yourself will allow you to have shots of each and every detail. It will also give you a chance to splurge all the saved money on some other arrangement which might have been dropped due to a previously tight budget.
Plurking events?
The website called Plurk is as quirky and eccentric as its name. Its tagline “your life, on the line” is definitely tongue-in-cheek as if offers to publish all your thoughts without censure and allows you to share your experiences with fellow plurkers. However, it favors brevity as it requires you to be concise by the limiting of each message to less than 140 characters. But as a plus it also allows you to share videos and send messages to mobile phones as well.
It is one of those social networking sites that is bound to make the event marketers and event managers thank their lucky stars. Through Plurk, a person can not only keep in touch with family and friends but also find and make new contacts, which is what social networking is all about. From marketing perspective, it means opening of innumerable doors and reaching people who otherwise would be inaccessible. Who needs grapevine and jungle drums when they can plurk.
As it has support for Flickr, YouTube, Photobucket etc., any marketing done on Plurk is sure to go places. Marketing through videos can become a whole new ballgame and building pre-event hype can be a whole lot quicker and extensive by using Plurk and all that it has to offer.
You can plurk links to your website or to a site especially built to promote an event. Using the private messaging system, marketers can send special notes or invites to important players.
Plurk allows you to share messages with the whole wide world or just a select circle, so event managers can send info to the general public or only to related groups as the event demands. It can help the managers perform better by keeping them on their toes as they will need to keep the information current. The feedback gained from post-event plurks can be very helpful in gauging the success of an event.
A few basic problems of Plurk should also get a mention here. As more people come online, it slows down due to the load. It doesn’t have the option of having multiple conversations simultaneously. However, these issues can’t mar Plurk’s huge potential as a social networking site through which business and marketing opportunities can be expanded to new horizons. It will allow event managers to feed in all that is hip and happening to the public the very minute it happens through internet and the even speedier mobile messaging so happy plurking!
Is Yahoo Buzz all Fuzz?
After opening up to the public, it seems Yahoo Buzz has been able to generate quite some traction around the product. To me, the six month wait was rather disappointing in the sense that they didn’t blow me away with anything innovative. So far, it seems to be at par with Digg, Propeller and others of their like.
In Yahoo Buzz any one can submit their interesting story to a link and have an opportunity to get buzzed by the Yahoo community. The stories are arranged by category and is very similar to the concept of digging. Stories on that topic will get an extra boost in the rankings. You can also discover most remarkable story or video or can share it with other social networks.
Is there anything different that they’re doing? If you’ve benefited from regular traffic spikes through Buzz, share your stories with us.
Have sites like WedDepot and MomentVille changed the wedding planners landscape?
I was discussing with a colleague about how wedding planning has changed from what it used to be in the old days. Social media has changed the event planning landscape so much, that gone are the days when planning a wedding took months and arrangements were a headache with everybody on tenterhooks praying for everything to go without a hitch. Now all this can be done by a click; well a number of clicks to be exact but from the comfort of your home without you ever stepping out of it.
WedDepot:
I came across some interesting web 2.0 websites that were specifically designed for people who are planning their special days. WedDepot offers everything from pre-wedding events to honeymoon arrangements, in fact, even to a newly-wedded couple’s first home. It is a comprehensive website with a sassy interface and a large number of options to attract interest of even the most hardened bachelors. It is definitely a microcosm of the macrocosm as it brings together all wedding-related topics under the sun and presents them as a neatly wrapped up wedding present.
On one hand it discusses frivolous matters like: dove release, fireworks and ice sculpting, but it also means business as it offers tools like a wedding checklist and budget calculator.
WedDepot is a good way to get started with wedding management plans. It offers articles, photo galleries and info on bridal shows and wedding expos. It provides a list of vendor options for each subject, be it invitations, jewelry or the wedding dress. The portfolios of all these professionals are available and one can pick and choose to one’s own taste and convenience. It is also open to new entrepreneurs who are interested in getting their business listed.
This gives an opportunity to buy and sell stuff ranging from stationery to cake toppers. It even tells how to build a free wedding website.
MomentVille:
The topic of wedding websites brings me to another site called MomentVille. It provides a platform for building a wedding website in just three simple steps. It is attractive because not only is it free but also has no expiry date. It offers several different themes to choose from and a person can upload videos, slideshows and music along with photographs. The user can share the joy of his/her happy day with friends who can subscribe to the website and receive an email anytime the site is updated. It also lists several vendors for all sorts of wedding-related finery like invites, jewelry, shoes and even for cruises and hotels.
How Event Marketers can make the best of this trend:
All this bodes of a new world in which everything can be done if you have a computer and access to internet. You now have professionals who are willing to offer their expertise and skill to help you. Event marketers and event managers can use websites like WedDepot and MomentVille to maximum advantage. Marketing of wedding-related events like bridal fashion shows, jewelry exhibitions, opening of a new beauty salon, re-vamping of an accessories shop through such websites is sure to be a hit and is guaranteed to attract serious buyers. These two websites provide all the basic guidelines to any event marketer and manager on how to go about their business thoroughly. They show that everything needs to be well thought-out if they want to be taken seriously. All areas need to be covered and no stone is to be left unturned if an event is to go smoothly without any pre-wedding jitters.
It’s also a great way to get access to potential clients. If you can openly demonstrate your marketing services via these channels, then a lot of serious clientele can get access to you for planning their weddings. You can also get a chance to add these people up in your contact lists.
Searching for media files with FilesTube
Yes - so we’ve all seen youtube and other such websites make it big in the online world. A good search engine for files was inevitable and it was only a matter of time before someone launched it.
Our businesses require active research, and often times it requires alot of file transfers, downloads and exchanges. These files are from multimedia files to content, PDFs, podcasts and so on. FilesTube’s slogan “Download Everything” pretty much sums up what they have to offer.
So all of you who have to research often and find themselves on Google invariably most of the day, can bookmark this site for their daily site-visiting as well. Its good. Its fast. And it offers a whole bunch of things for downloading that we’d have difficult finding elsewhere.
This is especially good for event managers who want to upload videos of their events for other people to view and download. Great stuff!
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