Joe Pulizzi is the Founder of Z Squared Media, a content marketing firm specializing in best practices, strategy, and execution planning. Joe’s blog, the Junta42 blog: Content Marketing Revolution, is recognized as one of the leading blogs on business content creation, marketing and distribution. Joe currently serves as a board member of the Custom Publishing Council and was voted as the “Custom Media Innovator of the Year” by American Business Media. Joe is also co-author of the book “Get Content. Get Customers”. You can follow Joe on Twitter or Linkedin. Read the full story

Saul Colt is the founder of Saul! – The Idea Integration Company specializing in online and offline experiences, branding/communications and social media. Currently working with Ebay.com, Ziplocal.com, FreshBooks.com, Upstack.com and ChickAdvisor.com. Saul was named to the 2009 iMedia list of iMedia 25: Internet Marketing Leaders and Innovators. He is also a professional speaker  who has spoken at over 200 conferences, covering the topics of Entrepreneurship, Customer Service, Startups, Community Building and Word Of Mouth Marketing. You can follow Saul on Facebook,Twitter or Linkedin. Read the full story

Was watching this new inspiring TED talk by Seth Godin and remembered my earlier research about tribes and brand communities which are so important  in analysing the post-modern consumer behaviour . Here are some of the main concepts of tribes and brand communities reviewed in the research:

“In the post-modernity period which encourages a move away from individualism towards a search for more social bonds, these communities tend to reorganize themselves into neo-tribes, networks of people gathering homogeneously together for social interaction, often around consumption and brands (Simmons, 2008). From the marketers perspective it is very important to consider tribal relationships as it may be a powerful tool in building loyalty and trust among the consumers. Even though neo-tribes and brand communities are two different concepts they share very similar features and often are very related to each other. According to Cova and Cova (2002) the main differences are that the brand communities are explicitly commercial whereas tribes are not, furthermore, brand communities are concerned about relationship between brand and consumer, whereas tribes – relationship between consumers. Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) (citied in Ouwersloot and Odekerken-Schroeder, 2008) describes a brand community as a specialized, non-geographically bound community that is based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand. Mairinger (2008) suggests that:

• The brand community is not just formed around a brand; it creates the brand.
• The brand community is not just formed around a product; it is part of the product.

Therefore, the creation and development of brand communities is one of the most important tasks of the marketer as it can guarantee the company success in the long term. According to Mairinger (2008) brand communities can add real experiences and emotion to the brand, reach the long tail, address both individualism and collectivity needs and replace the celebrity endorsers with community brand advocates. Considering that 49 % of people made a purchase based on friends recommendations on social media property (Razorfish, 2008), social media can be viewed as an important channel and tool to interact, manage and enable these brand communities.”

Laurent Blondeau is the Founder and CEO of Buzzed-In, the business development and strategy consultancy in Paris. With 13 years experience in media business, previously managing the Business Development unit at Canal+,  he has become an expert in all kind of media activities in all kind of TV’s: Pay, Free, VOD and Web TV. Laurent blogs on Evidencesx’s World and BuzzedInlog, he also often takes positions on several top blogs like Social Media Today.You can follow Laurent on Twitter or LinkedIn.

G: How and why did you get into social media business?

L: I was definitely very curious and just wanted to “try” it. Some things happened to be interesting and weird: change was going on, I was a part of it, but I was not sure if I was there to “stay”. Then the magic happened: through fields and topics, I discovered “things” and “people” (we call them “friends”!), and I started to stare and listen: the whole social guide was rolling in front of me…I was always web oriented, but social web was expanding frontiers and capabilities. Finally, I was in, without any forecasted plan, and still continue to like social media, as it starts to improve people, relations and knowledge. Just think how Wikipedia changed the world…How could we live without it now?

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

L: I start the day by checking all the messages on my LinkedIn Groups publications, then browse through Twitter, Facebook requests and news; stare at interesting pictures on Flickr and ongoing mails and at the evening to I’m quite used to have a quite time to read, comment and share all my favourites on digital sites: All Things Digital, Wired, Mashable.
Read the full story

Adam Broitman is a recognized wizard in all aspects of the ever-changing digital media + marketing landscape and Co-founder of Circ.us, award wining communication agency in New York.  A thought leader in the industry, Adam is known for devising cutting edge, attention-grabbing marketing strategies for Kraft, The New York Times and Panasonic to LVMH.You can follow Adam on Twitter or Linkedin.

G: How and why did you get into social media business?

A: I have always been in media and marketing—social media is a natural progression. You cannot be in the media+marketing and not be in the social media business—that is not possible.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

A: As far as consistency goes, I am not doing so well with that these days. Prior to starting Circ.us I had a daily regiment—my blog was A Media Circ.us and my day always started with scouring wires and talking to friends about new advances in social technology. Today, I am doing my best to run a business and keep my social head above water. Seesmic Desktop helps a lot with that.

Read the full story

Darius Bagdziunas is a Co-founder and Director of Gaumina, one of the most awarded interactive agencies in Eastern Europe at the moment operating in UK, Ireland and Lithuania. Darius was involved in over 600 virtual projects and won over 100 awards while working at Gaumina. He has read 100+ lectures with topics related to digital media including University College London,  Mindtrek, TEDxVilnius. Darius was a jury member of the Young Cannes Lions 2009, Europrix 2010, Golden Hammer 2009 and  Irish Web Awards 2009. You can follow Darius on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter. 

G: How and why did you get into social media?

D: When I was a child I was dreaming of becoming a sort of magician who could create fun in people’s lives. The birth of the world wide web gave me a chance to enter a world of interactivity. In 1998 we started an interactive agency. Today some parts of my dream has been already fulfilled: we at Gaumina create mysterious journeys, adventures and virtual experiences.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

D: I read more. I write more. I learn more all the time.

G: How do you plan your social media activities for the day?

D: Social media is an exciting mash-up of topics, formats, channels, people. In order to communicate my message I have to select proper ingredients in exact proportions. When I’m planning my daily social activities I often wish I had 3D Excel.

Read the full story

Social media and social applications maybe didn’t change our lives, but they definitely altered our behaviour and perception towards quite a few things. I just wanted to share this funny video story made by Maxime Luère, where he brilliantly captures the silliness, but also the reality of our digitized life.

I’ve been conducting interviews with Social Media Citizens for a last couple months in order to understand better what social media means for different people working in different parts of the world in different sides of the industry and before moving on to the new series with updated question I want to take some time off to analyse a few answers. So this week there are no interviews – just plain analysis.

Who Are the Social Media Citizens?

I thought that there is no greater way to define this term than to hear the opinion of the top social media influencers about it. And that’s what they had to say:

• “We are all citizens of the world of social media. Whether implicitly or explicitly, our mediated lives have changed and whether or not you are an active participant in social media channels, you are in fact, a participant. – Adam Broitman
• A Social Media Citizen is an open minded individual looking to engage and collaborate across the digital sphere. They will give more than they take and always look to develop themselves and their relationships. – Chris Hall
• ‘Someone who contributes to the value of the Social Media space.’ This is really more to do with the nature of the social objects they share in the space rather than the connections they have. – Richard Sedley

Read the full story