Are you ready? Here it comes! One of the biggest Social Media event’s in Europe – Social Media Word Forum is knocking on your door. The speakers from Facebook, Linkedin, Bebo, Xing to name just a few social media mega brands who are involved in the event. Well if you have anything to do with social media that is the event you simply can not miss. So watch out 15 – 16 of March, London Olympia, see you there!

Important links:

Register: http://www.socialmedia-forum.com/register/online-registration.html

Event programme:http://www.socialmedia-forum.com/images/stories/agendac.pdf

Follow event on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SocialNetworkWF

Some thoughts on social media from Marcus Brown on Vimeo.

http://www.augmentedplanet.com/ 

http://gamesalfresco.com/

http://arnewsroom.com/frontpage

http://www.augmented.org/blog/

http://thomaskcarpenter.com/

http://www.augmentreality.co.uk/blog/

http://laboratory4.com/

http://thomaskcarpenter.com/

http://artimes.rouli.net/

http://richardleyland.com/

http://www.augmentedenvironments.org/blair/

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/

http://www.personalizemedia.com/

http://maverix.typepad.com/brandingunbound/

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/

By the way, I have to say thank you to Adam Broitman, for putting me on the right track and sharing some of his favorite blogs. 

Just a quick reminder for everyone about what’s happening in the marketing world in London. Well it’s the week of Technology For Marketing & Advertising – the event you simply can not miss if you work in Marketing or Advertising. If you can not attend but you still want to follow the event live, you can do it here:

Follow me on Twitter – @iGiedrius

Follow TFM&A social media mashup – http://www.infouk.com/tfma

Follow TFM&A on Twitter – @tfma_event, #tfma

The power of the consumers in social media can be deceiving. According to Taylor Ellwood’s recent post, only consumers with the large lists of followers can be actually influential. It is realy straight forward and natural assumption, but it presents quite and interesting opportunity for the brands working in social media. Why? Brands and people related to big brands (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Seth Godin) usually attract the biggest crowds of followers on social media properties. These social accounts has indisputably greater social influence than normal personal accounts. As a result they can be used as and opposition to consumer power (sometimes anarchy) on the social networks or other social media properties. .

Social Brands Network

Is it possible that brands will connect to networks in order to help each other to face growing consumers power on social networks? Yes, it is. I love the idea of the consumer empowerment by social media, actually this blog is all about that, but I think there has to be a balance in communication power between brand and consumer. The unintentional silly mistakes by brands (i.e Vodafone) can not be exaggerated by consumers to that level it sometimes is and should have an opportunity to be managed better. The appearance of strategic partnerships between brands could be one of the ways to solve this problem. Let me first define what I call the Social Brands Network:

Social Brands Network – It is a strategic partnership between network of brands or personal brands working in overlapping industries (related services, but not direct competitors) united by goal to share each others social channels during communication crisis or promotion in order to increase the reach and influence of the.message.

Social Brands Network could serve as a tool to battle consumer anarchy or amplify promotional messages when brand needs that extra power of influence to deliver its messages faster to a broader audience. Strategic partnerships are successfully applied in offline and online worlds .Therefore, there is no reasons why social channels should be an exception. The faster your brand will build this Social Brands Network the more likely it will gain a competitive advantage over competitors.

It would be really interesting to hear your thoughts about this idea!

Example of Social Brands Network

It’s all good news for social media citizens, I finally received the confirmation from SES London that I’ve been granted with a permission to report from the event. SES London 2010 looks really promising this year – great keynotes, great speakers, its definitely the event that you can not miss if you want to stay ahead your competition . Particularly I’ll be looking forward to attend Online Marketing Summit Day at SES London and these three keynotes:

• SEO: Where to Next? - 12:30-1:30pm, Wednesday, 17 February – Day 2
• Social Media Metrics - 9:00-10:00am - Thursday, 18 February – Day 3
• Augmented Reality: It’s a Brave New World  – 2:45-3:45pm, Thursday, 18 February – Day 3

With all the social media explosion in the UK this year it’s definitely going to be a lot of talks how to integrate these two marketing tools together (social media and search marketing). Well I hope I’ll see you there, but if you can’t make it you can follow the news updates on Twitter or Facebook:  

@SESConf or #SESLondon

http://www.facebook.com/SESConf

First of all, I just want to make it clear that I adore both of these two innovative social media properties. Even though, I’ve noticed that the past year was all about the Twitter. Actually, it’s quite crazy how much coverage it has received from social media citizens compare to its “big brother”. Therefore, just to make it fare I’ll try to identify 5 main reasons which makes Facebook superior social media platform over the Twitter.

The 5 Reasons:

Size. Does the size matter? Well it does in Social Media or in fact in any media. In terms of the audience and reach there is quite a big difference between Facebook’s 400 millions and Twitter’s 75 millions users. Moreover with the Twitter’s growth slowing down up to just 3.5 % a month it’s seems its going to be very difficult to catch up with the social networking behemoth.

Engagement & Interactivity. We can argue that both social media properties are similarly engaging, but clearly they are not. The time spent on site statistics clearly show that Facebook users tend to spend much more time engaging than on Twitter. Mainly it happens due to the different nature of the platforms (micro-blogging vs social networking) which will be discussed later on the post.

Transparency & Personality. Facebook compare to Twitter offers much greater transparency mainly due to variety of content it is able to support on the site. Users can store and share much more information about themselves in order to show who they really are or more importantly for marketers how they want to be seen (creating needs in real time). The shared information is much more sensitive and personal. As a result, it enables the brands to build more personal and sensitive communities. As we all know social is all about sentiment and emotion.

Features. A response to recent post “3 Reasons why Twitter is better than Facebook” by Shaun Worcester  is – I disagree. Facebook has all the futures of Twitter, unfortunately not the other way round (just yet). Of course, we can argue that there are all these related Twitter services, but in terms of service quality Facebook is integral platform providing all the experiences within the site.

Innovation. Ok people may hate changing layouts and features on Facebook, but theses slight innovations keep Facebook fresh and new. It’s important to have that “newness” surrounding the brand as everyone want to be a part of something new. I can’t say that Twitter is not trying to keep up with Facebook (lists, retweet, new profile view feature is coming), but it seems that Facebook’s drastic changes creates more buzz and more buzz attracts more users to Facebook

Two different platforms

Having said all that, I still believe that both of these platforms are vital for successful social media strategy implementation as they are supplementing rather than substituting each other. It’s a tricky thing to compare these two social media properties bearing in mind that they have originated form completely different backgrounds and therefore have different functional communication objectives:

• Twitter has clearly originated or evolved from mIRC. Remember all the “#channels” lists or channel “status updates” by admins. Even the syntaxy is all the same as in mIRC: “#”, “@” ant etc. I would dare to say it’s mIRC “2.0” as it is all about chatting online. It is a chat/news channel.
• Facebook has obviously evolved from the dating site/network concept. It’s all about building and maintaining relationships, actually this clever strategic move from concentrating on creating “new”  relationships to maintaining and utilizing “existing” relationships is one of the main differentiators from them competitors. However, it is still a relationship building channel.

Of course, both of these social media properties has evolved over the time and the lines blurred between them, but its quite important to remember  their roots in order to use them efficiently.

Most of these models like advertising, affiliates, premium (“velvet rope”) services have been tried and work pretty well under certain circumstance , but  “Social value” model hasn’t been explored that much or hasn’t been considered as a valuable enough on its own. According to Paul Bradshaw , “Social value” model revenue is generated through social interaction by brand community (in the form of donations, support or spin-off). Actually it is often dismissed as very mystified and unclear , because social value is quite difficult to measure. But the times are changing. I think with social media going mainstream, personal branding growing bigger and bigger and evolving monetary systems online  – “social value”  model can be the next big thing. I was thinking about it for a while and after short brainstorm came up with this:

Consumer pays directly to author.

Social media is all about disintermediation. Therefore, it is is quite a straight forward model, but if developed it would present a real shift in consumer’s perception – paying for the content when you don’t have to ? Madness? No! It would be all about the social status and personal brand building!

It could be very attractive idea for bloggers who already have well established personal brands and maintain their own platforms. In order to implement this model the author would have to provide superior social platform where the relationship building with the community would have to be considered as main priority. According to Paul Bradshaw people never paid for ‘content’; they paid for a package and a service that included content – “They bought a newspaper (brand), not ‘the news.” In this case the newspaper would be a personal brand which would have to provide best social engagement possible. The personal branding  would have to work both ways – not only author would have to get paid for well developed brand and top content, but consumer would have to receive some social points back as well. Lets say consumer could leave his name and contact details on the contributors list or virtual good system could tweet automatically that a person just made a reward or donation. Also, this model could work really great in B2B environment as the parties are much more aware about mutual benefits of marketing and social interaction .

Consumer pays author – author pays media platform.

Author sharing revenue with the media company – basically paying money for the platform to speak (or to be heard).It may sound ridiculous, but this model could be very attractive for less established writers who has interesting ideas but have no strong background to support them or have no capabilities/resources to build their own platforms.

In order to implement this model the two conditions would have to be present – strong media brand and qualified but now well known writer. Young writers would be interested to have their material published on big platform for greater audience in return sharing their revenue with the media platform. Furthermore, the media platforms would be interested to maintain their brands and attract good journalist/bloggers because of advertising dollars they would bring – specialized and engaged communities created under big brand could be well targeted.

The outcome.

If these models are implemented the outcome would be quite dificult to predict. It’s clear though, that the personal branding and community building would gain major importance in the media strategy. The content would improve and there would be less “noise” in media in the long term, because of “natural selection” process.  The  big media brands could concentrate on their core capabilities managing the talents rather that content production itself. Who knows maybe one day we will have our X-Factor of media?  “In my dreams I have a plan If I got me a wealthy man I wouldn’t have to work at all, I’d fool around and have a ball”. – and that would be the song to sing for the audition, just the wealthy man would be the authors who bring wealth with the valuable content  and community. But most importantly consumer would get to be a king, it would be able to influence, participate and gain from the process .

So what do you think about it? Please share your thoughts whatever they may be and submit your answer to a quick poll:

Here is the list  of top articles and presentations analyzing the new media business models:

Making money from journalism: new media business models (by http://onlinejournalismblog.com)

What does the “Media Business Model” mean? (by http://www.longtail.com)

The Freemium Business Model: Anything There for the Media? (by http://rebuildingmedia.corante.com)

I was just reading this great post by Robin Carey , the co-founder of Social Media Today, about the maturity of social media and the challenges it faces on the way. One of the main challenges for the businesses is monetization of social media. I completely agree with the thought that “Information does want to be free, free to move around at any rate, even if we’ll increasingly seeing value put on that information in various ways”, and who can evaluate or put the value on the content best? The Consumer. The recent news about News Corp plans to monetize the content again, it kind of reminds me this video of Prosumer, where corporations are trying to control the free movement of the content but at the end they loose the battle. Do not get me wrong I am not against paying for the content, but sometimes I don’t understand why can’t I pay for my favorite blogger or journalist directly? I think that’s about to change. I believe that “freemium” business model and payment systems will have to evolve to become more flexible and provide more choices for the consumer. I can easily imagine the media platform (i.e.  Social Media Today) where I come to read the news and with a click of some sort of social “pay me” button I could pay for the good quality post and support my favorite blogger/journalist directly without any intermediaries by donating 10-50 p for the post. The emergence of such function could massively improve the social media content quality as there would be kind of “natural selection” in social media because people would be motivated to build up their personal brands by creating valuable content (monetary motivation always helps). Furthermore, the media brands would be interested to attract good journalist/bloggers to maintain their brands who in return would be willing to share their revenue stream with the company because big brands attract more visitors. The more I think about the more clear it gets , that such kind of system could be a game changer and a win-win situation for everyone . What do you think about it?

Augmented reality is clearly the buzz word of 2010. There were not too many bloggers who hadn’t identified augmented reality as a top subject in their trend lists of 2010 and there is a simple reason for it – it is (or will be) the world-changing trend.

Consumer behavior

I’ve been browsing through the case studies and examples of augmented reality and it looks really amazing – bands playing live on you PC screen, journals and even buildings interacting with you (fool list at the end of the article). I completely agree with Adam Broitman that at the moment augmented reality is all about having fun trying the new technology, but it will be so much more in the future. If the technology like LED Contact Lens will take off it just hard to imagine what can be done, literally, the sky is the limit. It will simplify  our lives and will facilitate decision making process process by reducing the time dedicated to information search or looking for alternatives. It will completely change our personal lives as eventually this technology will become as the second brain where all the information will be stored in your personal server about the important objects from your everyday lives.. i.e. can you imagine wearing your Led lenses, you just take a quick look at you refrigerator and you already know what is in it without even opening it or browsing through the shop and not only getting additional information about the products but comparing the prices in the real time? Sound’s quite exciting and the best part of it that the technology is almost there. It just takes my breath away how much I’m going to love the world we will live in that I’m jealous for myself already. But what will it mean for marketers?

Brand communities and augmented reality

It will definitely be a game changer – Google’s is already trying to integrate real time ads on its “Street view” which will replace the old ads on the system. But at the moment, speaking about the subject we are concentrating on the technological development of augmented reality not thinking enough about social aspects of the technology, which I believe will be the key for branded communications. Almost 5 years ago, I came across this concept called branded learning which have never gained much popularity because the media channels couldn’t deliver the social experience and messages as well as they can now (mainly because of  the social media power ) But the augmented reality is about to change that. The art of connecting your brand with your brand community through augmented reality can be the next big communication challenge for your company. Augmented reality will create great opportunities for story telling, socializing and even greater personalization of the brand by providing that additional information in the real time and connecting your brand with your consumers through learning can be the one of the answers for you. Social media will facilitate this process enormously. How? Imagine this: You are traveling around the Europe and you’re visiting some famous building which you are not really familiar with, you just point your phone at it and here you go you have all the info you need plus you can see the other people who are visiting the place by reading their tweets, reviews or recommendations what else you should visit in the town. Even better example would be going to the shopping mall and getting real time recommendations from the customers, information about sales and trending products or competing for discounts in live promotions with other brand community members.
When you really embrace the idea of augmented reality, it’s just seems so clear what amazing opportunities it can bring on to the table: I was thinking about my last client 77diamonds.com (the diamond’s e-shop) and imagine that you could create the technology that you could embed some sort of really small code into engagement ring and whenever you feel lonely you just point it to your camera and you can see your engagement video or your wedding pictures on your phone, TV or PC screen , wouldn’t it be cool? I guess what I’m really saying is that this technology can carry not only additional information but an emotion with it and it can really make the things even more personal and that’s where all the branding begins – creating and building emotions. We will see, won’t we?

If you are really interested in augmented reality and want to find out what it is all about here is the list of TOP recent articles and videos related to the subject:

Q&A: Adam Broitman on augmented reality marketing (eConsultancy)

16 Top Augmented Reality Business Models (Personalize media)

How Will “Augmented Reality” Affect Your Business? (Harvard Business Review)

Augmented Reality: A New World for Advertising (Boss Creative)

Live Twitter Feed on an Augmented Reality Building

The Future of Shopping by CISCO

Augmented ID

Yelp Augmented Reality on iPhone 3GS

Pattie Maes & Pranav Mistry on augmented reality – the “Sixth Sense”

Augmented Reality in Marketing and Sales

Esquire’s Augmented Reality Issue: A Tour