Tom H. C. Anderson is the founder and managing partner of Anderson Analytics, a full-service market research consultancy that takes a “next generation” approach to research by fusing advanced analytics and traditional methodologies with leading edge technologies. Named the “Uncrowned Father of Web 3.0 Market Research” (Research Business Report, 2009), Tom is also a prominent blogger, recognized authority on social media, and the founder of Next Gen Market Research (NGMR), one of the most active networking groups for market researchers on the Web. Tom served as the elected U.S. representative to ESOMAR in 2010, an international professional association for market researchers and is chairman of the Foundation for Transparency in Offshoring (FTO). You can follow Tom on Twitter , Linkedin or Facebook.  Read the full story

David Siteman Garland is the Founder of The Rise To The Top, the web show for entrepreneurs, forward-thinkers, business owners and marketers, as well as The Rise To The Top TV show on ABC. David contributes as a writer and business/entrepreneurial commentator to CNN, CBS Bnet, Small Biz Trends and Personal Branding Blog.  David is also the author of upcoming book – Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business. You can follow David on Twitter or Facebook. Read the full story

Paul Dunay is Global Managing Director of Services and Social Marketing for Avaya, a global leader in enterprise communications, and author of 3 Dummies books: Facebook Marketing for Dummies, Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies and Facebook Advertising for Dummies. Paul’s blog Buzz Marketing for Technology  has been recognized as a Top 20 Marketing Blog for 2009 and 2008, a Top Blog to Watch for 2009 and 2008, and an Advertising Age Power 150 blog in the “Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs”. You can follow Paul on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin. Read the full story

It’s been a while since my last post, mainly because I was feeling a bit exhausted reading about the same stuff written over and over again – “top lists ” “twitter this” , twitter that”, “how to” and etc. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s brilliant that social media is finally getting the attention it fully deserves and the questioning about it being a fad almost gone, but sometimes I just get bored from reading the same stuff. I bet you understand.

I think that at these times, when you are feeling a bit tired it’s always good to go back and think why you’ve started doing what you are doing. I’ve decided to go back to the routes of my social media journey and write again about things I really care and intended to write about. Why I’ve started this blog? I always wanted to take a bit different approach in analyzing social media and analyze not the tools, channels or applications but the people in this environment – the people who make it happen, who live and breathe social media, who enjoy doing it just for the sake of doing it, people who explore and see not so many problems but the opportunities in our changing society, people that I call – Social Media Citizens.

Maybe it’s not going to be 100 % original stuff that you haven’t seen anywhere before, but I will try to keep it unique, personal and hopefully quite funny by answering some simple questions like:

• Who are the Top Social Media Citizens?
• Why and how they are staying engaged all the time?
• What are the daily routine of Social Media Citizen?
• How social media is changing the lives and behaviour?

It is quite specific environment and I want to hear different stories, from different part of the world, compare them and learn from them. Everyone is saying that social media is about people, so I want to ask “The People” what is it about?;)

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.”

I’ve just created a new tab in my RSS reader solely dedicated to Augmented Reality. I will share with you the blogs which are invaluable for people interested in AR and its affects on Social Media Citizens.Here we go:

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. 

I am not that much into religion, but was having some thoughts about social media community and it’s Teletubbic vibe or the goodness surrounding it. It brought me to this idea that goodness is very transferable and viral in it’s nature, therefore I’ve decided  to analyze what do social media people have in common with priests and what they could learn from this honourable profession.

We listen

Well we know that social media is all about good listening. Social media people are a bit like the priests in their confessionals, waiting for the users to acknowledge the “sins” about their need and wants, that they could “help” them with the brilliant content, products or services. I think one from the many things we could learn from the priests is that listening is not one way process  – you have to ask the right questions in order to get the right answers.

We preach

Well, I’m just being honest with myself – I love to preach. I bet that there quite a few social media professionals who feels the same way. The blogosphere is an ideal place for that; it’s like a big church where you can push your ideas to so many different audiences. The one thing to remember though, you have always to remember the purpose of your preachment – it’s not about you it’s about what your audience can take from your lecture.

We build communities

Religion is all about community building and transferring the values and beliefs to the community. It sound a lot like what community managers are trying to do for their clients – transferring the emotion, values and belief of the brands to the community. Social media citizens have to remember that building the real functioning community takes a lot of time, work and patience.

We work for a better cause

Ok, I’m under no illusions that blogosphere and social media enthusiast don’t want to earn money, but the thing I like about social media that you can add value for yourself by creating some added value for someone else as well. Everyone is doing what they are doing with some intention – the church leader wants to become a Pope one day as a social media professional wants to reach the new highs in his/her environment, but an important point to remember is how not to forget the main cause – to create value in order to get value.

Johan Ronnestam is a former snowboard professional turned out to be a digital marketing genius. He was a co-founder of Foreign, the digital marketing agency which won multiple awards in the Cannes Lions, D&AD, New York Festivals, London International Advertising Awards, and many other award shows around the world. In September 2008 Johan started Ronnestam Innovative Communication, with the blog Ronnestam.com which was voted Sweden’s first blog on innovation, future trends and digital communication. You can follow Johan on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin.

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

J: I wouldn’t say I’m in the social media business. I’m more into business development, advertising and communication with an extended knowledge how social media effects those areas. Social media is not important in itself. It’s extremely important though to know how it affects your business.

Read the full story

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

I just wanted to make a quick announcement. As you probably noticed there is a new logo on site "Supported by Nearby Digital" well the reason is that I (Giedrius Ivanauskas) joined forces with my dear friend Thomas Kulbokas founder of Nearby Digital. We are going to work as partners and will offer some  new, interesting and innovative solutions for businesses in social commerce, location based and social media marketing fields.

It’s not really going to effect the content of this blog as we will keep the focus on PEOPLE in social media and will try to analyse the behaviour of top minds in social media industry. Although you might notice a greater concentration on topics related to social media application in location based services and social commerce as we believe that these innovations combined with development of mobile technologies will present most interesting opportunities for the businesses in the future. Therefore, stay tuned as there are quite a few interesting interviews coming up with some of the top social media people in the industry.

Thank you very much for reading and supporting us. Wish us luck!:)