Social Traffic | Social Media Marketing » Christmas Cheer 2008

If you believe in the spirit of x-mas – Join this cause!

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:08:59 +0000

The power of being ONE:

For a few days in a year, no matter where you are in the world, you are united in the celebration of the spirit of Christmas. For one moment – one day – this spirit gives us the strength, power and resolve to reach out and touch other people’s lives so that they can feel more comfortable. This spirit is about touching the people around us who may be away from home, or be worried about their job security, or tense about their socio-political conditions… and for a single moment, they can stop worrying and feel the comfort and warmth of knowing that they are a part of a global community of people who can, in fact, transcend boundaries and touch each others’ lives. A global community that can stand together for a moment to acknowledge each other and be one.

I remember how when we were young, Christmas season always brought with it cheers, happiness and joy. It still should – we’re stronger today because of the connections we have with each other. We’re closer today than we would ever have been without these social networking platforms. We have greater bonds today with like-minded people who believe in the same causes as we do. We can reach out to and influence thousands of people, just by introducing new ideas and thoughts.

Should we just sit back or actually do something about it?

We should be there for each other, and for those who are not so heavily connected, those who might be lonely or out of the country on Christmas.

I was thinking that we talk so much about communities, and all of you guys are full of so much energy and vibes – that what better time to put this traction into action than now? This is our time to shine as humans and people with hearts and souls. We need to think about how we can spread the message of love and smiles all through the internet, as a demonstration of how we can stand together as a global community – as a demonstration of how we can touch people’s lives by reaching out to them – as a demonstration of how we will not let global or political issues disillusion us – as a demonstration on how we can unite with people the world over to spread the message of love and unending support to peace.

Till Schilling, someone I deeply respect, pointed out to the bigger problems in the world today, which we can’t blindfold ourselves from. We can’t shut our eyes and act happy, when we know a lot of things need to be fixed. In his comment, he also pointed out to a solution which I believe we can implement starting today. He said “We need to shift away from fear based beliefs to a more love centered and tolerant community and environment – expanding from each home town to county to district, to country to the world over.”

I’m looking around on the blogosphere and social networks – and am surprised to see that very few people are talking about the spirit of giving and sharing – about spreading love – about adding color to our lives.

How can we spread the spirit of Christmas?

If each of us can proudly stand up together to show everyone that the Christmas spirit unites without boundaries, and to touch the lives of those who are lonely for a moment so that they can share the Christmas joy, we will in effect be part of making a global statement of peace and love.

This is a call-out to all of you compassionate, passionate and dedicated people – to open your hearts to spreading peace and love – to open our eyes to the people around us that we can reach out to and touch.

Become the “ambassador of the Christmas Spirit” this Christmas – Change your profile photo to one that represents the true Christmas spirit as a statement of proudly spreading love. Lead other people by example. Here’s how you can get started;

1. Change your profile picture to one that shows the spirit of Christmas. For those of who don’t have such photos (or can’t get them taken in time) can use the ElfYourself Facebook App to easily make creative Christmas photo for your profile pictures.

2. Add this note to your profile page to let your networks follow your lead

3. Find people on Facebook who do not have a lot of friends and share this note with them – let them be part of a bigger global community.

4. Let this spirit spread far and wide – as much as you possibly can. This is a statement that should make the world to stop for a while and take notice. A statement that believe in effecting lives, being one, global peace and the spirit of sharing joy.

Why would it matter?

If for one moment, people can forget their tensions and worries and be part of something that brings them joy; then we will have achieved our mission this Christmas. This is The Facebook x-mas love campaign – lets “Be the Change” by being the core group that spreads this message across thousands of people on Facebook.

Our objective is to blanket Facebook with Christmas love and cheer, to fight whatever it is that makes us tense and worrisome when we look ahead to the year to come, to share the spirit with other people all across the world. This participation – working on a common goal — is what makes a crowd into a community, a group into a tribe, a belief into a cult. When we make this statement together for a grander cause… for the world to follow suit… we will have earned the right to be called a community of thinkers and influencers, and more than anything else – a community of people with hearts and a lot of love to spread this Christmas.

This campaign is dedicated to Adin Ryneveld:

A friend of mine, Adin Van Ryneveld has taken the lead to spread this Christmas spirit by donning his hat at a charity party and putting it as his profile pic for the world to see. Thanks Adin, for showing us the spirit of Christmas – and for bringing in color into the otherwise dull Facebook world.

I’ll end this note with Michael Todd’s words, as they couldn’t have come out at a better time:

“we are all connecting here with a common vision. This is the age of consciousness. Where is the love y`all?”

Wear yours hats, take a snap – show us your love! The Facebook X-Mas Love Campaign Starts!

Simon U Ford

http://www.twitter.com/SimonFord

P.S: You never know, there just might be something under the tree for all us kind hearted, festive spirited Social Media tragics at the end. *shrugs*

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Visit my “event line blogs”

Social Traffic – The book

Let the Christmas spirit go on…

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:07:58 +0000

I wanted to take some time out this Christmas for everyone who matters to me. I am out on a holiday with my beloved family – a nice little break from work (although, I have to admit I brought my laptop along – can’t stay disconnected from the online world). There are other special people who matter to me a lot as well, and this note is dedicated to all of you.

Until just a few years ago, I would never have imagined considering people (that I have never met) to be part of my inner circle of trust. Today, I realize that you guys have given so much of your time to me, and we have shared so much value and insight together that I cannot close my eyes to the fact you are a huge part of my life now.

The Christmas spirit has to go on:

Vicki said the other day: “There are a lot of lost souls, and struggling families in this economic Tsunami we have been hit with. I try and lend assistance each and every day. Christmas 365/24/7”

This really got me thinking hard about the things happening around us. The economic condition is actually a blessing for us in many ways. It is a time for us to sit back and reconsider our policies, a time to rehash our marketing strategies to focus more on cost-effective guerilla techniques, a time for us to value the things that we used to take for granted, a time for us to expand our networks across the globe, a time for us to give a caring hand to those who are knee-deep in trouble or debts, a time for us to take time out for those who matter to us, a time for us to start those ventures we never got around to, a time for us to discover our inner potentials.

The whole world is open to new idea’s, we have been cured of the blind faith we once placed in our major financial institutions and every ones mind is set to explore new possibilities, new ways of valuing our relationships (with customers), a new emphasis on valuing and servicing what we have, without the distraction of looking for more. The economic downturn has cured us of this mind set.This is the only period in my life time where the entire world is open to new ways of thinking about everything. What an exciting period to be in business this next 18 months is going to be. Don’t let anyone talk you into seeing it any other way.

What makes a campaign a success? Food for thought:

The Christmas campaign has caught on so fast, that it’s an amazing illustration of the power of social media. Here’s how I perceive the underlying reason why a campaign like this spreads so quickly:

If you have the right cause people back it –- if enough people support a cause, a group of evangelists will always lead the tribe or community in it’s drive –- if these evangelists are natural born leaders the message behind a cause will travel across social media very quickly -– if the message is heard by enough people and told by people they respect, more and more people join in becoming evangelists of the cause –- if enough people join in a short enough period of time, the cause becomes validated as something everyone is participating in –- as any cause becomes validated by the masses, the individuals bound by the cause become stronger and tighter -– the tighter a community becomes, the more people want to join it, the more people who want to join a community, the more influential a community becomes.

This FB Christmas campaign has given testament to that fact – the cause that brought our Facebook community together was Christmas, the message was to spread Christmas cheer throughout an existing community and this message spread like wild fire, the cause influenced tens of thousands of people to act in changing our profile pictures to one that represented Christmas cheer. This pulled sections of our Facebook community tighter.

Christmas will pass soon and with its passing the community of people who have shared this campaign will loosen again and with this loosening so to will our ability to influence others into acting diminish. I want everyone in the Social Traffic group to remember how easy this Christmas Cheer campaign happened. Please keep it in mind because this can be extrapolated for other, bigger or smaller campaigns,.. where ever the leadership, fundamentals and motives are right. In fact this will be extrapolated in a much, much bigger way over the coming months by the Social Traffic group.

As many of you know, the Social Traffic group is taking on a massive Social Media campaign this April. Since the coming weeks will be a little lighter on everyone’s work schedule (most of the people will be away from work till beginning of January), we can channelize this time to make our roles and responsibilities in the ST group more clear. I have planned a set of posts/notes in the coming week after Christmas that I believe define a mind set we need to adopt as a group if we are going to set ourselves in a direction that will lead towards achieving something remarkable together, come April this year.

A growing tribe:

The leadership group behind Social Traffic has been working on a video montage of the Christmas cheer campaign that will be published in the coming days.

For now, here is a short image collage of a few of the people who have been touched and been touched with the Christmas cheer. If your picture is in there, tag it. If not, let me know. On December 31st everyone votes for the best picture.

Merry Christmas to all of you – and let us not forget the spirit of Christmas for the year to come. Here’s a link to the tagged image on Facebook, and here’s one to the post.

Facebook Christmas Cheer Campaign 2008

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Visit my “event line blogs”

Social Traffic – The book

Vote for your favorite Christmas Campaign Photo

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:05:19 +0000

As the Facebook Christmas Campaign has come to a close – I have to admit how exhilarating it was to see everyone catch the fever and spread the message. In the image that I shared with you guys previously, a lot of people were missing. I kept getting messages and emails from people who couldn’t spot their own photos in it. So, I have expanded the image to include most of the people that I could find around me in the Social Traffic group.

This image is nothing without tags. We’d want to tag as many people as we know in it. Only then, will the true spirit of campaign shine through. As the New Year dawns, we need to keep the spirit of this Christmas campaign in our hearts and minds for the year to come. We need to remind ourselves to open up to ideas, to be considerate to others, and to be good human beings. One of the best ways of being reminded of this message is by having an image that reminds us how quickly people act and how fast a message travels when the cause is a good one in our FB albums. To do that, we need you to tag as many people in the image as you know. I don’t know a lot of people personally, if I did, I would tag them all. If you know anyone and they are not tagged please tag them so that they can all have it in their photo albums as their memento of peace and love.

Visit this image to tag it on Facebook

But that’s not all. Let’s vote for the best (most creative, amusing) photo in the Facebook Christmas Campaign image. You can vote by following the link at the end of this post. The person whose photo is voted the most will become our Social Traffic’s “Charity on Christmas” Campaign Brand Ambassador next year. We will use their photo in all our marketing material for next years campaign that will be much bigger. For those who don’t know about it yet, next year we’ll be conducting real live charity events all across the globe on Christmas day 2009. These events will be promoted and planned by Social Traffic Inc, which is a leadership group that has originated from this community. Next year we will be promoting different venues around the world for people in the neighborhood to take spare food. Venues will be hosted by caring people who donate their time to make the food available for homeless people and the needy to come and get. Social Traffic Inc will provide the platform and get the word out across social media so thousands of people wanting to contribute some love can contribute their food and time to feed thousands of people who’s Christmas will be made so much brighter from the kindness that comes from this kind of feed.

The photo that gets the most votes today will become the face of this “Charity on Christmas” campaign. Now if all goes well, this campaign could get some real press coverage, now wouldn’t that be cool!

To finish off this years warn up campaign, here’s a high-spirited video montage made by John Lester, exclusively for your enjoyment. Enjoy and don’t forget to read the rest of the post (below the video).

The Social Traffic Inc community is strengthening day by day. I’ll be writing about the selection process that Glen has worked out for the directors and associate roles. I’m busy with my own company, so it’ll be good to have dedicated roles for other people to take ownership of as decision-makers which will happen this week. What I’m excited about initially is the Earth Day Birthday Campaign that most of you must have heard of by now. The reason why I’m thrilled about it is that the theme is very close to home for me and I feel like it’s a great way for us to bond with people all over the world. With wars being waged in countries without reason, cities being destroyed for some people’s economics interests, the global climate crisis at an all time high – I feel compelled to bridge the differences that I see around me. All of us share the same Earth. Everyone’s blood is equally red. It’s a pity that we can’t get over our own insecurities and look at the bigger worldly picture.

The Earth Day Birthday (April) is a perfect time for us to think about these things and more. The Social Traffic Inc will be promoting events all over the world in different cities and I’m eager to see how they turn out. (If you want to join in, you can put your name, email address and phone number in on my Facebook profile page, under my contacts box.)

We will be monitoring the efforts of everyone involved in the campaign at different levels; including the directors, the associates, and the evangelists. We will be using different tools to track the activities across the web, such as; Google Alerts, Yahoo Pipes (feeds), Technorati (blogs), BackType (comments), YackTrack (social comments), TweetScan (tweets), SocialMention (social search), and Serph (search). In this way HR will be able to keep a tap on everyone’s input so that they can be compensated in the form of free social media marketing training and metoring for evangelists or shares in the Social Traffic Inc company for associates and directors.

Sian Lindemann has a small surprise for us already. She is in contact with Patty Schnetzler, the author of “Earth Day Birthday” – who is excited about collaboratively developing a LIVE event on the big island of Hawaii as part of the Earth Day Birthday Campaign. This is great because it will also open doors to the first EDBD event creator as well as to various foundations, such as John Denver, Windstar, etc. Everything is seemingly starting off rather well – which reminds me of a quote I heard once: “If you put your head and heart to something, the world conspires to help you achieve it”. (The only difference in this case is that there are already many heads and hearts working towards this, not just one).

Have a great 2009 my friends!

I will be posting a note every day this week to outline the whole Social Traffic Inc opportunity from top to bottom starting tomorrow with a post titled, “Start ups”.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Visit my “event line blogs”

Social Traffic – The book

Christmas Cheer 2008

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:56:48 +0000

Christmas Cheer Campaign

I have come across people who have taken a serious stand on not spending money on shopping this Christmas. “What’s Christmas got to do with shopping?” they ask. Shopping and gifts became a way to celebrate Christmas joy, and for generations we have been following it with a blindfold on. Sure if you can afford it, get gifts for the family – but not to an ostentatious extent. Give that money to people who need it instead, or save it for some important family trips in the year ahead. What makes a campaign a success? Food for thought: The Christmas campaign has caught on so fast, that it’s an amazing illustration of the power of social media. Here’s how I perceive the underlying reason why a campaign like this spreads so quickly:

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Visit my “event line blogs”

Social Traffic – The book