Sharing is the key of Social Media

Sharing is the key of Social Media. To be successful in the social Space, companies need to prepare internally as well. The employees should be empowered with right skills. There should be proper social guidelines & corporate policy as well. The customers of the company should be analyzed with respect to their social behavior. This helps creating the strategy aligned with the trends. Analytic tools should be used to understand the consumer behavior. Social Media is a dynamic area & organizations should be aware of the changing social media landscape to reap benefits. Videos, Audio, Links, Content, information are some of the important sharing items in Social Space. This also helps increase the Brand visibility. Top brands are using the social space to connect with the customers.

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Real Time Search – The Future of Search

Real Time search is one where there is no time gap between composition & publishing. Twitter was one of the first websites to have successfully used the Concept of Real time search. Social Media has taken a big leap with real Time search. With the spread of internet & people wanting more information, real time search is the future of search. Google &  Microsoft have also introduced real time search into its search. However, real time search may not always mean the relevant search.  Relevancy should be built into the real time search to get meaningful results. There are also niche search engines providing real time search. Real time search helps find breaking news stories, status updates from Facebook, twitter & others. Social media has resulted in intense use of real time search. It is like the breaking news of the TV. However, many doubt if real time search is the future of search.

Surviving the Social Media Crisis

with Social media becoming a mainstream source of information for products, services & others it is important that companies should carefully devise the social media strategy. People are constantly talking about their experiences with the products, brands & this influences how others perceive the brands. If any negative or unfavorable PR exists, a careful plan should be laid out to tackle. Source should be checked & corrective actions to be taken. If there is a genuine problem, it would be better to accept the mistake & correct it. This would help build confidence in the customers. Conversations should be monitored as it would help gauge the consumer perception. Without a proper plan, if any steps are taken for the negative PR it might backfire resulting in increased crisis. Some of the examples include Nestle’s Kitkat social media crisis, domino’s social media & Dell hell social media crisis. Companies should put in place a proper strategy to survive. if they cant handle it, they should outsource it to PR companies who can handle it effectively. Also the crisis provides an opportunity for the brands & companies to get a foothold in the online social space. Sometimes the crisis provides the opportunities for the brands to explore the social media world. for ex, when Toyota had the problems in the US auto market, it started the Toyota conversation blog which collected all the stories about Toyota thus helping it in the crisis.

Viral Videos – A New Tool for Marketing

Viral Videos have gained a prominent place in the online marketing activity. While there is no correct procedure to create the viral videos. Several video sharing sites have come up after youtube. While some are niche others have all the categories. It is something which appeals for basic human emotions like being happy, sad & others. Viral Videos are found in many video sharing sites. Viral videos gain millions of views in a short time & climb the video chart. Many companies are also creating the viral videos as part of the promotion. They quickly become the talk of the blogosphere. Viral videos help drive traffic & increase the brand visibility. There are many websites which track viral videos on a weekly basis. “Lonely Girl” was one of the earliest Videos which went Viral on Youtube. Now it has become a new tool for marketing activity. Companies are also creating channels to promote the videos. Youtube has also introduced a number of new improvements.

Optimizing the Website for Mobile Search

iPhone OS & Android have changed the way browsing is done on mobiles. They have added a new dimension to the browsing experience. With the increase in the number of mobile users & smart phones, mobile search is taking off in a big way. Mobile users usually search for something which meets their immediate needs like directions, address & others. Hence it is important to optimize the site properly for mobile search. Sites should confirm to the W3C’s mobile standards & also content, images should be used carefully. In Mobile search, users don’t go beyond 2 pages. So website should be optimized to appear in top 2 pages. Top mobile search engines are Google, yahoo & bing. Websites should be checked on all the smart phones & also the loading time should be less. Web Analytics should be used to understand the user behavior & the important information from the analytics should be incorporated to the mobile site.  Analytics can give a sea of information. Top smart phones are i phone, Android, Blackberry.

Integrating Social Media & Search Optimization

Integrating Social Media with Search Optimization can help increase the Website Traffic. Top social Media sites are Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube & others. Links shared in Social Media websites can act as a top source of backlinks & drives traffic. Also the social Media conversation can be analyzed for the keywords & this can be used SEO. The traffic can be analyzed for the social media referrers & improvements can be in those sites to increase the traffic. Several Analytic tools are available to measure the social media effectiveness. Search Analytics & Social Media Analytics can be combined to get better metrics. Also when planning out for the Facebook, Youtube campaigns SEO should be considerd for the strategy. Social media is becoming major source of traffic. With More than 500 million facebook members, creating a fan page, group helps send a big chunk of traffic to the site.

List of Top CEO, CTO, Fake CEO, Chairman, CMO & Other Blogs

The list of Top CEO, CTO, Fake CEO, Chairman, CMO & Other Blogs. The list includes the blogs by heads of many fortune 500 companies & other companies. Blogging has become a new tool for the companies to connect with the customers.

Top CEO blogs
1. http://weblogs.jupitermedia.com/meckler/ – Alan Meckler, CEO, Jupiter Media
2. http://wholefoodsmarket.com/socialmedia/jmackey – John Mackey, CEO, Whole foods
3. http://www.cnewmark.com/ – Craig Newmark, CEO, Craig’s List
4. http://www.calacanis.com/ – Jason Calacanis, CEO, Weblogs
5. http://www.blogs.marriott.com/ – Bill Marriott’s Blog
6. http://www.bobparsons.com/ – Godaddy founder
7. http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/ – Jonathan Schwartz, President & CEO, Sun Microsystems
8. http://www.blogmaverick.com/ – Mark Cuban, Owner, Dallas Mavericks
9. http://windberblog.typepad.com – Nick Jacobs, CEO of the Windber Medical Center
10. http://www.bccp-llc.com – Carrie Bekker, CEO of Bekker Compliance Consulting Partners
11. http://wceo.blogspot.com – Michael R. Flannery, Woolpert CEO
12. http://bduck1.blogspot.com/ – CEO of Black Duck Software
13. http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/ – Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
14. http://ross.typepad.com/ – Ross Mayfield, CEO, Socialtext
15. http://onlyonce.blogs.com/ – Matt Blumberg, CEO, Return Path
16. www.ceotutor.blogspot.com – George Cigale, CEO of Tutor.com
17. http://www.mwwstraighttalk.com – Michael Kempner, the CEO of the public relations firm MWW Group
18. http://www.michaelhyatt.com/fromwhereisit/ – Michael Hyatt, “From Where I Sit” — CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers
19. http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/ – Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman
20. http://marklogic.blogspot.com/ – Dave Kellogg, CEO of Mark Logic Corporation

Top Fake CEO Blogs
1. http://fakerichardbranson.blogspot.com/ – Fake Richardbranson
2. http://fakelarryellison.blogspot.com/ – Fake Larryellison
3. http://fakebill.wordpress.com/ – Fake Bill
4. http://fakeschwartz.blogspot.com/ – Fake Schwartz
5. http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/ – Fake Steveballmer
6. http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/ – Fake Steve

Top Chairman Blogs
1. http://www.mikecritelli.com – Mike Critelli, “Open Mike” — executive chairman of Pitney Bowes
2. http://fastlane.gmblogs.com – Robert Lutz, “Fast Lane” — GM vice chairman
3. http://www.jetblue.com/about/ourcompany/flightlog/ – David Neeleman, “Flight Log” — chairman of JetBlue Airways

CMO blogs
1. http://www.novell.com/company/blogs/cmo/ -John Dragoon, CMO, Novell

Some other Blogs
1. http://www.klynch.com – Chief Software Architect at Adobe.
2. http://www.drlaundryblog.com/ – Dr. Laundry, The Clorox Company
3. http://www.blogsouthwest.com/ – Southwest airlines blog
4. http://jnjbtw.com/ – Johnson & Johnson
5. http://boeingblogs.com/randy/ – Randy Tinseth, vice president, marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes
6. http://www.ingblogs.com/mycupofcha/ – Jacques Kemp, Chief Executive Officer, ING Asia/Pacific
7. http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/ – Phil Mooney, historian/archivist for The Coca-Cola Company

Top CTO blogs
1. http://www.novell.com/ctoblog/ – Novell CTO
2. http://www.rahulsood.com/ – CTO for HP Global Gaming Business
3. http://blogs.hds.com/hu/ – CTO Hitachi Data Systems
4. http://www.capgemini.com/ctoblog/ – Capgemini CTO blogs
5. http://dwave.wordpress.com/ – CTO of D-Wave
6. http://gilbane.com/ctoblog/ – A Gilbane Group hosted blog for CTO’s

is Twitter the new Branding Medium?

Twitter, the microblogging service, has become a new branding medium for products & services. It is reported that 20% of all the tweets have a mention of the brand. That means 1 in 5 tweet has a brand mentioned in it. This is a huge potential for marketers to tap into. With of millions of tweets every month, a brand can have unlimited exposure helping it increse the brand visibility. Some of the top Brands include the industries from Electronics, FMCG, Computer, Automobile, Retail & others. This can help in spreading the Brand awarness also. With Mobile internet exploding in recent years, it has become easier for the consumers to tweet about their product right from their point of purchase influencing the buyers. Companies are tapping into this with dedicated professionals helping the customers real time. Also a statistical analysis of the tweets reveals much more about the brand like whether the sentiments are positive or negetive. Twitter is also unveiling new features which help branding easier.