online marketing

As promised, below are some notes from the second day of the event. Please note that it only includes notes for presentations by the following people: Shawn Ohler, Ernest Barbaric and Ken Chapman. I had to leave at the lunch break.

Social meida insights from Shawn Ohler, ATB Financial

• Social media campaigns are rarely a success, but when they work, the results are amazing.
• Asking audience "what do you know about our company?" is often a good first step to solve a brand recognition problem.
• Many companies say they care about communities, but in fact they rarely do. So, identifying a strong value and sticking to it is very important. The idea is to create a value that resonates with the entire company. ATB Financial found it as "we are Alberta".
• WeAreAlberta.ca, or any other social campaign site is not a place to sell your product. The company treats it as a place where conversations start.
• According to 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, the top 3 corporate reputation factors are: transparency, quality of product / service being offered and trust.
• Based on ATB Financial's experience, traditional media started the conversation and social media picked it up and continued.
• Asking your Facebook friends to contribute to your social campaign does not work. Instead, look at relevant conversations in relevant online communities, offer help, contribute, share value, then ask for help.
• According to Shawn, any social media project should accomplish 3 things: publishing (content development and distribution), engaging (starting conversations with the target audience), and influence (ability to influence audience's decisions based on the relationship formed during the campaign).

Social media trainer and consultant, Ernest Barbaric, Ernest Media

Ernest's presentation was of two parts: trends and social media campaign steps. Below is the summary of key points.

• Trend 1: Mobile. Smart phones are taking over the market. According to admob data, 50% of all phones are smart phones. 30% of mobile users access social networks from their phone. In short, our experience is becoming increasingly mobile. As marketers, we need to make sure we strongly consider this mobile revolution.
• Trend 2: Location-based services. It's about here and now. Yelp and FourSquare are two example of location based services that have been growing substantially in their user base. Google Places is a good example of bigger company concerned with location-based services.
• Trend 3: Augmented Reality. Conversations are happening outside of places they originated. For example, I wrote an article on my blog, distributed to my social networks profiles. As a result, my article is discussed on those networks, not on my blog. Another lesson is that conversations are happening where it's most comfortable for your audience, not you. Learn more about Microsoft Augmented Reality Research.

To be continued with more from Ernest Barbaric and Ken Chapman.

I just came from the first day of a two-day event by Acuity Forums in Calgary. I had an honor to present alongside with:

• Walter Schwabe, Founder / President / CEO, fusedlogic inc.
• Stephen D. Burns, Partner, Bennett Jones LLP
• Roger Kondrat, Director of Strategy, West17Media
• Jacob George, Manager Corporate Marketing & Communications, City of Calgary
• Rob Begg, Director Business Development, Radian6
• Doug Walker, Experienced Internet Strategist, pioneer in Canadian online marketing

Unfortunately I missed the first 3 speakers. I'm coming to the first half of the day tomorrow and will write an event in review post with more details.

My presentation on Social Business and internal social media tools was the last of the day. I also prepared a list of resources I used to prepare for this presentation - Social Business Resources. I hope you find it useful.

As I’m getting into more speaking engagements I start to think about proper tools. One of those tools is a presentation remote control or a slide clicker. So, I went into a bit of research before making my buying decision. Here’s some useful pieces of information I found in my research.

First, an good article on the process of choosing a clicker. The author goes into describing a few key characteristics of presentation remote controls and explains why you may need them. Choosing a Presentation Remote Control

Second, an article from About.com going over the main options for clicks on the market. Top 6 presentation devices

Finally, here’s a few product comparison pages from various vendors and portals on the web:

• Kensington 33062 Wireless Presentation Remote Control with Laser Pointer
• Keyspan Presentation Remote Pro presentation remote control
• PowerPoint Presentation Remote Controls
• Presentation pointers ar TigerDirect.ca
• PowerPoint presentation remote controls at NexTag
• Presentation Remote Controls at Yahoo! Shopping
• Remote-Controls Comparison at ZDNet

I hope you found this useful. If you did, share with others. Thanks a bunch!

Update: February 18th, 2010:

I ended up buying this one: Kensington 33374 Wireless Presenter with Laser Pointer... Already used it in a few talks. Very happy with it. Advantages: Plug-and-play, works flawlessly, simple.

I just finished reading this book last night. Although it may appear the book is a brochure with no substance, it's actually very insightful and summarized a tried approach to preparing for and making presentations.

I would strongly recommend this book to everybody who presents or thinks about getting into presenting. The book is full of examples of great slides that I personally learned a lot from. The book should also serve as a great reference guide.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me questions about linkedin.com and how I benefited by using it so far. I have been meaning to respond to her questions but didn't have a chance to do it. Now, I realized that this information may be useful for other people too, hence I'm sharing it here. Below is an overview of a few useful features on linkedin.com that I've benefited by since I first started using it.

1. One place for your resume
2. To connect with colleagues, past and present
3. To discover new connections
4. To join groups of similar interests
5. To help people solve problems
6. To stay up to date with your network
7. To recommend and get recommended
8. To look for jobs and apply for jobs
9. Search visibility and personal branding

Facts from Guy Kawasaki on the subject:

• People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.
• The average number for Harvard Business School grads is fifty-eight, so you could skip the MBA, work at Google, and probably get most of the connections you need. Later, you can hire Harvard MBAs to prepare your income taxes.
• All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees.
• The average number of LinkedIn connections for people who work at Google is forty-seven.