Posted via web from Byron New Media’s Live Blog @Posterous

Deano Wrote:
My mantra for the second part of 2009 was “the future of discovery is Local, Social & Mobile”

Local because people now use Google as thier Yellow Pages & Location based services and applications allow people to discover venues, people in thier proximity.

Social because people are by-passing Google and discovering content based on the recommendations of “friends” in thier Social networks.

Mobile because the rise of the smart phone means people can seek information about lesiure activities and purchases while on the move.

For businesses and brands it means basing your web strategy on entirely on search will have diminishing returns. Case in point this post is written on my iPhone via an applicaion my6sense which I purchased immedatley after a recommendation on Friendfeed from @louisgray

The era of location-as-platform for software development is just beginning. No longer of interest only to uber-geeks, everyday people are now reporting their physical locations online, often through their phones. Geolocation services are hot and ever more prominent ones (like Facebook) are believed to be right around the corner. This is a very exciting development for lovers of innovation. Today we asked some of our favorite web-heads why they are excited about geolocation and below you’ll find their answers. We hope you’ll share with us what you too, dear readers, think of this hot new trend online. 

We’ll start with three short responses from software developers, in order to put things in some technical context. Then we’ll move on to what it all means, with thoughts from writer and renaissance man Dean McCall, Warner Bros. music geek Ethan Kaplan, groundbreaking Georgia school teacher Vicki Davis and Baratunde Thurston, comic, pundit and web editor at The Onion.

For Software Developers

John Musser, ProgrammableWeb

Nearly everything in our lives has a geo component - so it’s a universally useful service. Geolocation + mobile devices + open APIs give developers the tools to create entirely new classes of apps, and at the same time can make existing apps smarter and richer.

Raven Zachery, Small Society Relevancy.

The advances in mobile technology and wireless networks have finally allowed us to make use of location services in a way that fits into our existing lifestyle. We’ve been talking about the possibilities of location services for decades, and we have the infrastructure now to make these exciting services a reality.

Kevin Marshall, Hive Mind

If I know 5 people that love coffee - I would love to see what’s the place they all frequent the most. This sort of data just isn’t available right now…but hopefully it’s on its way.

For Poets

Dean McCall, Idea Finishing School

For me its about predeterministic behavior: the idea that a location has a story about itself appeals to me. It allows me to make more informed decissions, to connect to new people and tell a better story about the world I am in. It’s still to be determined how our conversations about locations will evolve as well as our conversations with one another…more transperancy is my hope.

For Music Ethan Kaplan, Warner Brothers Records

Geolocation is super important to us because the best experiences with music are predicated on being proximal to it in its raw form [live performances]. Being sensitive and reactive to user location is the easiest way to bring the band closer — physically, metaphorically and figuratively — to the fan.

For Education Vicki Davis, Cool Cat Teacher

Well, here is the thing with Geolocation - it is outdoors. So, it brings in the nature learner by taking them outside - also the bodily kinesthetic learner. There is a book called Last Child in the Woods whose thesis is that we’ve pulled kids out of nature and actually calls it “nature deficit disorder.” As a “farm girl” I’m a big believer in taking kids outside to learn if possible. So, using geolocation opens that up as well as the possibility of using things like Scvngr to do campus tours. The only thing to remember is that we also have to begin making objects intelligent so that when they cannot get GPS coordinates (like inside) that they can gain information about objects (like on a field trip). We need to make our world mashable. This whole concept of hardlinking extends to GPS and Geolocation. So, this is the next major growth of the Internet as the Internet becomes a hardlinked network which incorporates the objects and locations in our daily life. And we have to empower students with handhelds that have these capabilities and are incorporating an excellent curriculum. Most publishers aren’t thinking this way, but need to. This is the great thing about having open educational resources - we can all build on our piece of it.

For Comedy Baratunde Thurston, Web Editor at The Onion

Geo-location will offer another tool for the forces of Good in the great battle between effective filters and information overload. While social media helps me find value based on trusted sources, geo-location will go a step further by narrowing my choices to what’s nearby. For all its ability to build connections, the Internet has in some ways disconnected me from my locale. I’m a “national” or even “global” citizen and I look forward to once again being where I am. The creative opportunities are also fun. I’ve left a bunch of easter egg “tips” in Foursquare and have a bunch more hijinks planned. Geo-targeted comedy is the future. That’s what some of our friends have to say about this trend, how about you? This is going to be a big topic in the near-term future, so let’s start talking about what we’d like to see from geolocation services. If you’re excited about this trend like we are, check out specialist blogs like LocationMeme and CheckinBlog, too. Finally, watch this space: location is the topic for one of our next research reports and for our next public in-person event. These are exciting times to know where you are and to have software that can do something with that information!

For More http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/b_Ks3TfrJvg/why_geolocation_services_are_exciting_for_poets.php

Posted via web from Byron New Media’s Live Blog @Posterous

 Challenge

Social Media is highly distributed, so how do you ensure your Brand Identity is powerful in it's 100th iteration i.e. You share an update, Jack shares it with his network, who share it with theirs and so on.

Solution

Step 1 Know who you are as a Brand             

Step 2 Filter through a prism of  Social Media Cultural Norms and your Social Media Charter

Step 3 Create a Social Media Compass and identify true north for your Brand

How does that work for you? Would you like to know more?

Byron New Media runs 1/2 day or 1 day Brand - Social Media Redux workshop with your brand guardians (key personnel who are "the keepers" of your Brand's DNA. If you would like us to develop a Social Media Strategy for your brand drop us a line >> office [at] byronnewmedia [dot] com << or DM us on Twitter @byronnewmedia

Posted via email from Byron New Media’s Live Blog @Posterous

Posted via web from Byron New Media’s Live Blog @Posterous

Lately at Byron New Media, we have been writing and thinking a lot about the content we create and our clients create as part of Social Media Marketing campaigns. I created a Cinchcast Social Media Content for Brands, 3 Purposes outlining three major themes for the content marketers create for Social Media;

• Core Content - this is regular, consistent content that serves your community and reinforces brand image and values
• Community or Conversational Content - this is content that will demonstrate that you are listening and that you have empathy with your community
• Creative Content - this is high content and or high emotional value content that moves viewers to share

The video above is a great piece of branding. Highly emotional content that it NLP terms anchors positive emotion to the Robbins Brothers brand. I might be a softy, but I can imagine lot’s of people sharing this video with their friends. At the end of this “experience” people are reminded that this romance was brought to by Robbins Brothers, perceptually linking all those positive emotions to  Robbins Brothers.

The take home message. Be clear about your brand and invest in high concept, high touch content that reinforce Brand Image and Brand Values.

Facebook's Roadmap to the platform for Developers

Earlier today Facebook announced details of a roadmap for releasing more details of the intricacies of the Facebook platform for Developers. Ok again in English, because plenty of people will be discussing this news for the more technically minded. I want to make sure that business people understand how important this development is.

Facebook, the most inhabited Social Media network on the planet (more than 390,000,000 users spent between somewhere between 15 and 19 minutes a day on the site). Has since 2006 opened up parts of the pipes, bells and whistles that make Facebook work, to third party developers. This has increasing meant that savvy brands and small businesses have been able to create presences inside Facebook and to provide their regular website visitors with the opportunity to interact with their friends on Facebook.

Who cares you might say. However imagine this, imagine your business is a pool shop, summer is approaching you have crafted a series of articles about maintaining a clean pool. You start to share these articles via a Facebook page carefully crafted for your business which is building you a little bit of a fan base. Next you order a pallet of bags of a special salt for conditioning pools and announce a special on your website. Using Facebook Connect (code for some of those special pipes and whisltes) people placing their orders on your regular pool shop website with click of a button can let all of their friends on Facebook know about your Super Salt Special.

Now whether you run a pool shop, a restaurant, a golf resort, or a massage clinic I’ll bet you pounds to peanuts that people don’t spend an average of 15 minutes a day on your site. Not only that but the architecture and culture of Facebook is all about friends sharing with friends so, when that customer comes to your website and orders that Super Salt Special you bet that they want to share this kind of information with their friends.

A Facebook Page for your business is a great way to position your brand.

First, a huge caveat on this example, it’s super simplified, it requires a certain amount of technical dexterity to “connect the bells and whistles” and develop the kind of brand presence required on Facebook to have serious credibility. Lastly discounting is the simplest strategy in the book but it can seriously undermine your brand. It’s a strategy we all understand and makes for an easy example however your Social Media Marketing strategy need to be a component of your overall Marketing strategy (an increasingly important component) but not an add-on.

Second, back to that Facebook announcement. The roadmap means that more of Facebook’s bells, pipes and whistles are being opened up to developers. That means more and more opportunity for smart companies and brands to develop a sophisticated presence in Facebook and to cross-pollinate with their own proprietary Facebook application and linkages between their own web properties and Facebook.

It means that if you don’t have a Facebook presence for your business now is the time to start, and if you do now is the time to innovate to ensure your Facebook presence and integration tightly matching your brand and business values, culture and objectives. Why, because 6, 8, 9 months ago having a Facebook page for your business was innovation, that is changing now and in the not too distant future it will be the rule rather than the exception.

If you would like to find out more about how Byron New Media can assist you develop Facebook presence for your business, please contact us.

It explains the psychology behind content marketing i.e. why educating and explaining has become the new sales beautifully. Epipheo Studios demonstrate their considerable skill in the production of a video that possibly owes a little to the Common Craft “… In Simple English” videos pioneered by Lee LeFever

While video is the most powerful modality in Social Media, it is worth remembering that the internet (search in particular) still runs mainly on text, and images and audio have an important role in a comprehensive Social Media Marketing Strategy.

P.S. Epipheo have struck gold with their “What is Google Wave epipheo” after it was picked up by Lifehacker and Gizmodo and at the moment is #2 on the Viral Video Charts.

Dave Carroll is a Canadian musician with a wicked sense of humor and apparently “hell hath no fury as a Dave scorned”!

Dave was sitting on a Untied Airlines flight waiting for takeoff, when he spotted a UA baggage handler … throwing his guitar case. Result, a broken guitar and a failure by the Customer Relations department to resolve the matter to Dave’s satisfaction, Check. Dave’s move, Dave made the Youtube video above the experience, Check.

With the video closing on 5 Million views, Chris Ayres, LA corespondent for the Times Online, estimates that the resulting fallout has cost United $180 M or 10% of their market cap. It’s not that United Airlines don’t know how to do customer service really well, Ravesh (see the link) gives them, the thumbs up. However I think it would be fair to say, that this incident has turned out not as they would have liked.

Moral of this Social Media Story.

Social Media has changed the communication landscape. Media is now created by everyone, People are “The Media”. This can work for your business (i.e. lot’s of positive recommendations like Rakesh’s cheery post above)  and against your business (i.e. a video like Dave’s). The best insurance for your business is to develop a Social Media Strategy for your brand or business and use your Social Media presence to build a relationship with your clients and customers. Oh yer… and work hard to solve problems that your clients might be experiencing, lest you cross a customer like Dave.

It’s the Attention Age, do you have it?

Update: United have offered to compensate, Dave says “no, it’s not about the money” and invites United to donate to a charity of their choice.

Does this seem amazing to you Dave an individual is now telling a multi-national Airline what to do. Welcome to the Attention Age, Dave has a lot of people’s attention (currency) and is now in a powerful position, his song is selling very strongly in iTunes (cash, old fashioned currency), and appearances on major networks, newspapers, and plenty of buzz online (more currency), Checkmate.

Your Move

If you don’t already have a Social Media strategy in place for your business, then it might be a good time to start. Byron New Media are creating a 5 video series on Developing a Social Media Strategy for your Brand or Business it might be a good time now to sign up for the FREE videos and the accompanying overview or you might like to contact us about engaging us as consultant to develop or implement a strategy  for you.

This short snappy video by was created by Sara Morris of BriteGirl and shows how Ginger Boutique in Winter Park, Florida, is using a simple Social Media Marketing Formula to put customers in their store.

Social Media can be a very direct medium, it’s quite intimate. Social Media Marketing is subtle, it can become direct but it starts more obtuse.  As someone wanting to market in the personal space of Social Media it is far more engaging to have a good time and allow other sot do the same.

The video above is brilliant touch in subtly, and watching it I found myself have a pretty good time. It will no doubt position BB&A (the company that posted it on Youtube) as being capable and great to work with. At no stage do they attempt to broadcast their brilliance but instead show themselves getting the job done.  I had a feeling when I met Mark and Gideon (founders of BB&A) on Twitter about a month ago, that here was a company and a couple of guys who really get Social Media and who will do well leveraging it to benefit their business. Tip of the hat lads! Social Media subtle like well … Elvis???