Indianapolis Social Media Marketing | Indianapolis Internet Marketing | Digitalia

Social Media Face-to-Face

Last night I attended my first Tweetup - a time for local twitter-users to get together and… what? Hang out?

Meet-ups have been around for a while and provide an opportunity for like-minded people to get together.  The tweetup concept though is a strange one. How often to do see facebook-ups or AIM-ups? Never. That’s probably because your ‘friends’ on those social media outlets are people you know in ‘real life’. You know their phone numbers and what they look like and you can hang out with them any time. 

Very few of my personal friends are on twitter so I didn’t know anyone when I first arrived. However, I quickly made friends over the quirky gadgets also in attendance, discussions about how social media is like the “wild wild west”, and a shared sadness related to recent twitter technical difficulties. It wasn’t ‘networky’, and those in attendance came from all different age groups, interests and backgrounds. I don’t know if anyone could tell you exactly why they were there or what benefits they were getting from it.

But it was fun.

Sometimes I feel over socialized from all the media outlets I use to stay connected. Twitter can feel like talking out loud to yourself so meeting face to face with the people that I talk to all day was a nice change. Personalities came out, real conversations were had and it wasn’t near as much work as twitter lurking is.

See you at the next tweetup!

Julia Yoder

 

Americans Are Mobile More Than Ever

According to most accounts, we're still a bunch of overweight couch potatoes, but at least more and more of us are reaching for our mobile phones to surf the web. A new report by mobile media research firm M:Metrics, reveals that social networking and commerce sites are leading Americans to spend an average of 4 hours and 38 minutes per month browsing the mobile Web - an 89% increase since March 2007.

"People are becoming increasingly engaged in the mobile medium," says Mark Donovan, M:Metrics senior analyst, "and consumption is quickly evolving from brief transactions, such as checking the weather or flight status, to time-intensive interaction with mobile Web sites."

The top domains browsed in the U.S. are Craigslist, Ebay, Myspace, Facebook, and Go.com. On the days in which users visited the sites, they spent an average of 22 minutes on Craigslist, 29 minutes on eBay, 16 minues on Myspace, 14 minutes on Facebook, and 18 minutes on Go.com.

The study, also conducted in the U.K., shows that Facebook is the #1 mobile destination there.

I wonder how much of this increase is due to the release of Apple's iPhone last summer. I know that prior to receiving mine I was rarely online via cell phone. These days, however, it seems as if I am constantly connected.

Now is not the time to neglect a mobile marketing campaign.

What do you think? Are you surfing the web from your cell more these days?

- Chad Richards

Real-Life Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl is the biggest thing in the teen-drama circuit and a personal guilty pleasure of mine. Each episode is filled with Upper East Side scandal that is both fueled and spread by the anonymous Gossip Girl her (or him?) self. The messages are sent in a metaphor-packed micro-blog style in Gossip Girl’s distinctive malicious voice, and her sources are everywhere. The players in this game know the value of social media and they use it in the finest way. To see every one of those privileged Manhattan Prep School kids pull their phones out of their bags at the same time to receive a message about their Queen Bee is a beautiful thing. Oh the possibilities!

As the first season of Gossip Girl came to a close last week so did another social media scandal – MissITK. Miss In-The-Know (how clever) was an eighth-grade Gossip Girl copycat who was shut down when school administrators and parents found out and rained all over her little parade. On the cached version of her blog she claimed she is “here to supply you with all that's good, bad and scandalous in the lives of 2012's socially elite.”

During MissITK’s short life, she generated more than 300 comments and created a buzz big enough to reach national news when her posting days were so abruptly ended. While it seems as though she was violating the privacy of those around her, we’re also doing it to ourselves every time we tweet or post our weekend in photos on facebook. Social Media is going to continue to grow as these Gen-Yers grab on and take the reins. While this will make privacy even harder to come by, at the same time our worlds will become smaller and more community centered. This makes it possible to connect with anyone at anytime – even if you just want to tell your classmates that B has a secret that only time will tell.

xoxo
Gossip Gi  Julia Yoder

Internet Marketing Strategy: user-generated content

Stumbled upon this interesting site tonight – its called the age project. Essentially it’s a website that is built around people uploading the photo, their real age, and what they’ve learned. The site offers users the chance to guess the age of other users based on a photograph.

It’s like a more interesting hot or not with an interesting snippet. As part of your internet marketing strategy: its worth considering a user generated content strategy.

   

Internet Marketing Strategy: Twitter to build emotional relationships.

Popeyes Chicken is a twitterer. Not only do they strategically put thoughts of fried chicken in your head around mealtimes (of course), but they actually monitor their follower’s tweets and reply.

Sure, these responses are chicken-flavored, but they’re also funny and entertaining, almost making fun of the fact that they are using twitter to promote themselves. They are appealing to the twitter crowd full on with their clever posts, a perfect example of how even the most random forms of internet marketing strategy and social media can be outright magical for a brand when used correctly.

Julia Yoder
 

Internet Marketing Strategy: The Gen Y Report

Get ready, Gen Y is flooding the workforce and is taking a completely different approach than previous generations. This generation feels as though their work and home lives don’t necessarily have to be separate, as long as their time is spent in meaningful and useful ways. A NAS study claimed that the Gen Y crew are ambitious and question everything, demanding productive tasks and recognition for their good work. They are the most connected, educated, and socially active generation to date and growing up with the Internet has embedded a sense of independence and confidence in them that may drive you crazy, but will also produce results.

This 2006 study titled “Generation Y: The Millennials, Ready or Not, Here They Come,” identifies some common Generation Y attributes:
- They are blunt and expressive. Self-expression is favored over self-control.
- They are impatient. Technology and instant gratification dominated the world they grew up in.
- They are image-driven.
- They are technologically savvy.
- They are efficient multitaskers.

Bruce Tulgan, the founder of leading generational-research firm RainmakerThinking called this “the most high-maintenance workforce in the history of the world. The good news is they're also going to be the most high-performing workforce in the history of the world. They walk in with more information in their heads, more information at their fingertips - and, sure, they have high expectations, but they have the highest expectations first and foremost for themselves."

Earlier this week I happened across fellow Gen-Yer Sacha Chua’s blog. The post that caught my eye, titled ‘The Gen Y Guide to Web 2.0 at Work’, was sketched by Sacha on her Nintendo DS, providing something fresh and new amongst the masses of blogs I sort through each day. Gen Y lives and breathes social networking and has expects you to as well. They like relationships, interaction, and creativity and posts like Sacha’s, which is informative while being personal and funny, is exactly what Gen Y wants to see. Keep this in mind as you develop your Internet marketing strategy, making it interactive and unique. Gen Y will love you for it.

Julia Yoder

Zenbe and the art of Email

When keeping in touch with my family and friends these days it’s usually via text messaging and Facebook - along with the occasional phone call. Email is used primarily for work purposes. I do have a personal Yahoo email account, but it is used mostly for registering with various websites and to send the occasional e-card.

I have been using a Zenbe email account for the past few weeks, however, after a friend sent me an invitation to join the private beta.

Zenbe is a beautiful thing. It has a simple, sleek, intuitive interface that is not cluttered with ads. A fully integrated calendar, task list, and address book are all easily accessible through an ever-present sidebar. There is a tab that allows you to browse all the files contained across your emails by type - images, documents, spreadsheets, audio/video files, and events. You can “star” emails to indicate their importance and hover over them to see a preview. It’s all very, well, zen-like.

Zenbe also features ZenPages. They are "build your own" collaboration web pages to email to your contacts with the following options: discussion, agenda, page activity, tasks, shared mail, shared files, links, Google chat, Flickr, photos, Picasa photos, Youtube videos, and RSS feed. Zenpage does limit the invitee’s access only to the page you have selected to share, so invitees would not have access to your inbox or the rest of the data in your account. Great idea, but I don’t know how much I’ll actually use it.

One of the features that I will use? Facebook integration! You didn’t think I could stray too far away from social media now did you? The Facebook tab in the sidebar let’s you easily change your status message, see updates from your friends, and get notified of new messages and friend requests.

Shoot me an email sometime at chadrichards at zenbe dot com. Maybe we can bring back that ancient art called email.

- Chad Richards

Females are dominating Social Media

Looks like females have the lock down on social media according to a new study by RapLeaf. The RapLeaf statistics along with an article in Business Week point out that while men are a part of social media, however they are more likely to engage in gaming and gambling online.

Why do you think women dominate? When speaking to my colleague, and social media whiz kid, Chad, he thinks women are naturally more social.  Chad also pointed out that he has noticed in our some of our ongoing social media campaigns, women are the first to respond and usually in a positive way. I thought about this question myself and noticed that I have more women friends then men (on MySpace and Facebook). I also recall that am sometimes frustrated when I send shout outs to my boys and get nuttin back (no response). There is an unwritten code with my girls that you always send something back - even if you really have nothing to say (unless you are mad). So maybe it is because we (women) are more social or maybe we want are just trying to be polite. Either way we are taking over this medium, and the men that are savvy will have an advantage in the future.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this please comment or email me.

Angela

Dead Brand Walking

Is it possible that branding can outlast its brand? Do you remember the canned coffee called Brim? No? I bet you remember their slogan: “Fill it to the rim, with Brim.”  Rob Walker’s “Can a Dead Brand Live Again?" in Sunday’s New York Times examines a few goners and what can happen when a brand becomes so much a part of consciousness, or “consumer memory” that it spurs the re-manufacture of a deceased product. It seems that not only can you grow a product with good branding, you can also use people’s memories of old brands to build a new product.

After hearing the Brim motto, did you remember that Brim was a decaf-only coffee? Probably not, and that’s how a brand can be resurrected, tweeked, and on the shelf again. “Brand equity” goes beyond just good ideas, it plays with and off of people’s memories. It doesn’t matter if you remembered Brim as decaf, you remembered Brim, and that’s a million dollar idea waiting to happen. That’s what the folks at River West Brands think anyway. They’ve redeveloped more dead brands like Salon Selectives, Nuprin and Eagle Nuts, and aren’t doing too shabby. It worked for Volkswagon recently, too, with a little car called the Beetle.

At Firebelly, we’ve been doing our homework and creating some memorable brand statements ouselves. This week, we unveil Pillar Group’s new brand statement, “Risk Managed. Rest Assured”. Last month we launched the IIFF’s “Reel World. Real Cinema.” Maybe they won’t inspire future generations, but we’re proud of them.

-Ben

Social Media Gets Connected

I just came across a new feature that Google is launching called "Friend Connect," and it looks really great. It connects your social media sites to almost any website. Myspace and Facebook both announced their new venture with Friend Connect last week. Myspace is only allowing certain sites this capability, but Facebook is opening the door to everyone.

With Friend Connect, you can sign your website up and put almost any type of
widget on your site. The type of widgets range from allowing a visitor to
add their own pictures and reviews, and invite their Facebook friends to
join up. Once a visitor is at your site, they log in and start using your
site's widgets. Depending on the widgets, the user can add comments or
pictures. Also, the user can invite friends from Facebook to come and check
out your page.

Friend Connect not only helps to drive new viewers to your site, but it also
works to connect social media pages. For instance, if you had a website
about flowers and Facebook had an "I Love Flowers" page, a viewer could
easily invite all of the flower lovers to start visiting your page, thus
driving search rankings.

Friend Connect also offers easy-to-use tools to keep track of page views,
who joined your page, and how many viewers and new users have checked it
out. Friend connect is a soon to be revolutionary tool to connect social
media to your site.

- Lain Ewing

Suicide, Sexual Assault and Social Media

Today is a rather dark day in the world of Web 2.0 with stories of suicide, sexual assault and social media dominating the headlines at CNN.com when I flipped open my laptop this morning. Check out these two stories:

The first article, "Mom indicted in deadly Myspace hoax", is about Lori Drew, a Missouri mother, who created a false account on Myspace to pose as a teenage boy ("Josh") and fake interest in a 13 year old Megan Meier. Their online relationship lasted for approximately 4 weeks before "Josh" called it off - telling Meier the world would be better off without her. Meier hanged herself the next day. Drew now faces up to 20 years in prison on charges of conspiracy and accessing protected computers to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.

The second article, "Teen alleging rape turns to YouTube" is about a 16-year-old Florida girl who has reached out to the YouTube community for help after her prosecutor dropped her case when a court declared her alleged "encounter" with a 23-year-old male to be consensual.

While this posting may be dark and depressing, I do believe it is our job in the social media community to report all that is going on - both good and bad.

- Chad Richards

Internet Marketing Strategy: Social Media: Social Networks vs. Social Communities - Part 1

Since life online and social media mirrors reality - I've been thinking a lot about the essential differences between a community and a network.

Perhaps it's my inherent skepticism in overt self-interest moved forward in a rapid sense. a.k.a. networking. Networking seems more like speed dating with binary outcomes based on superficial analysis (if you can call it analysis). Relationship building, on the other hand, is the basis of community. Grounded in the common interest and multi-dimensional variables, relationship building is less about amassing personal equity and more about the general good. It' also based on complex variables - rather than gain vs. no gain. Variales lik compassion, understanding, etc. etc. and maybe even gain, and no gain. The point being it's a lot of variables versus just the two.

"I don't want to use up all my social equity", said a friend recently. For some reason, this really rubbed me the wrong way. It reduces the complexities of human relationships to the worst possible level - gain and loss. While simplification can be important to make a point - this is not the type of relationship building that trust can be built upon.

Relationships are based on interactions, experiences and outcomes. Things go well, go wrong, and sometimes just go. It's the quality of these engagements that ultimately make up the relationship. Communities are made of like-minded individuals or groups. Our communities - real or virtual can be better places if we focus on relationships  on adding value when possible, but more importantly - engaging. I'm interested in keepin' it real (authenticity), I'm interested in storytellers, and I'm suggesting that we strive to make our overall engagement be made up of more good experiences than bad ones.

I'd rather have a smaller community of friends than a large network of people I barely know. To be continued as part of a bigger story on social media and our internet marketing strategy focus.

- Duncan Alney

Social Media Strategy: Community building – the News Feed

Remember the uproar Facebook created when its News Feed function went live? Suddenly we could see in one place what our friends were writing on each other’s walls, when they were breaking off their relationships, and whom they were becoming friends with. It was different than anything we’d seen before and while a select few embraced this new feature, most users reacted in a very negative nature causing a News Feed revolt of Titanic size. Facebook in turn created the ability for users to disable the News Feed – offering users choice.

Fast forward to now and look at all of the sites that have latched on to this oh-so-upsetting News Feed idea. Myspace picked up the very same concept without a hitch. FriendFeed was developed taking the Feed idea to the next level, allowing you to be constantly updated in one place of what your friends are doing all over the web. Firefox created My Social 24x7 to publish your FriendFeed in a sidebar on your browser giving you even easier access to your contacts’ actions.

The majority of my contacts on Facebook have their News Feeds enabled. After the original uproar why is there now such an easy acceptance for these feature?

I think that we in the Social Media sector get so excited about each new development in the field that we forget that others may need a little more convincing to see the benefits of these new ideas. Our internet marketing strategies will be more convincing if we start small and gradually build on those ideas as they are warmed to.

Social Media is here to stay and Firebelly is constantly brainstorming ways to decrease the anxiety that comes from the idea of all the facebooking, flickring, blogging, and tweeting, and instead display the excitement and sense of community that those of us already experiencing these things feel.

What do you think? What do you do to help newbies feel comfortable with actively maintaining a Web 2.0 presence?

-Julia Yoder

Mobile Marketing: Rethinking the Business Card

While I’m not the most technically savvy person, I am always hip to change when I find out about something personally meaningful. My newest “find” is the “M” Card (well that’s we call it at Firebelly anyway).

Let’s assume you’re working with a mobile partner - ours is textbyrequest. It’s simple, you select a key word that people can text to a 5-digit number – and they’ll receive all your contact info, including a short statement. What’s even cooler is they can even elect to have it emailed to them! As our friend Sally Falkow would say - "Hot Dog"!

For instance, if you text “Angela” to 71813, you’ll receive my virtual business card via text. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been caught without a business card. Now, with the “M” Card I can give people my contact info (as long as they have their phones or write the info down to text to later). And think about it, not many people eave home without their cell phone.

I’d love it if everyone was in the know and ”in” on this technology. I’d never have to worry about keeping track of stacks of business cards, not to mention the fact that paperless transactions save trees. I know that this technology will not completely replace the business card, nor do I think it should. It’s just yet another way to get your contact information to people. Since this is fairly new – it’s also a great conversation starter and could help communicate your early adopter stance in life

If you are interested in getting the “M” Card please contact me at angela@firebellymarketing.com - I’d love to hook you up and save a few trees!

- Angela Alney

The 6 C's: Collaboration in action: Twistori

This site is just really beautiful and captivating - from the standpoint of emotions. Of course I believe deeply in emotions and the value of exploring them through individual's experiences with them. I even based my first two documentary short films on this notion - Happiness and Hope.

“… the first step in an ongoing social experiment, based on twitter. inspired by wefeelfine and drawing data from summize, hand-crafted by amy hoy and thomas fuchs.”

Amidst the chaos of everyday life of working on web marketing specifically social media strategy - our firebelly crew is often stopped in its tracks by beauty, authenticity, transparency, and the fragility of life.

 

We're more than our work. We're more than the sum total of our parts. We're people first.

- Duncan Alney

Sunday Night Post: Marketing Advice from Seth Godin via Jim Lefevere

Sunday night here and I'm contemplating my blog strategy for this week. Just came across this great post on Jim Lefevere's blog referencing marketing guru Seth Godin

The thought of the day comes courtesy of my go-to for something thought provoking Seth Godin

What Every Good Marketer Knows:

• Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.
• Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand. •Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.
• Share of wallet is easier, more profitable and ultimately more effective a measure than share of market.
• Marketing begins before the product is created.
• Advertising is just a symptom, a tactic. Marketing is about far more than that.
• Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
• Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
• Products that are remarkable get talked about.

Regardless of whether you're working on a website, internet marketing strategy or specifically, social media strategy - this is great advice!

- Duncan Alney

The 6 C's: Muxtape.com hits 5

There is nothing virtual worldish about Muxtape. But its got communication, community, choice, collaboration, and complex media (audio) in its DNA. Created by Justin Ouellette in March of 2008, its a website that allows users to upload playlists of MP3s to his website.

The site has a cult following worldwide and it's simple to the core. No searching, no frills, no rubbish cool to be cool functionality; this is elegant and it solves an essential problem - finding and listening to music. According to Ouelette - and I, Duncan Alney, agree - it preserves the integrity of the mixtape. Its about finding new stuff that you just don't know about.

The horrible behemoth known as the music industry will surely try to shut them down. But I'm hoping otherwise. Some other sites that provide a similar offering are projectplaylist, mixwit, anywhere.fm, seeqpod, and imeen.

So whether you're trying to share music with a client for a short video and want to do it in a slightly different way or you're trying to communicate a point to your soon to be honey - muxtape is worth checking out! It receives the Firebelly endorsement of good design and execution, innovative thinking and a fire in the belly! Not to mention certified risk taker.

- Duncan Alney

Social Networking: A Little Dab(ble) Won't Do Ya

I thought Angela made a great point in yesterday’s post “Debunking Social Networking Myths – Myspace” in which she stated that in order to have a successful social networking campaign “it must be an ongoing effort, updated often, and maintained to get the response that will pay off.”

I was in a meeting with a client last week who builds and manages luxury apartment communities in Indiana and Ohio. He had just returned from the Apartment Internet Marketing (AIM) conference in Scottsdale, AZ where many of the people he encountered were skeptical of the practical applications of social networking and social media marketing.

“Most had dabbled with it, saw no results and gave up, but they don’t have a full-time ‘Chad’ taking care of that for them,” he laughed.

I use a 3 phase approach to social networking - decorate, populate, conversate. I’ll expand on those in a later post. We’re currently in the “populate” phase. Once the pages were designed and branded, we were provided with the names and email addresses of every resident from every apartment community and have been spending hours upon hours finding and adding them on both Myspace and Facebook.

This particular client has been a joy to work with as he is one that really “gets it.” We’ve extended all of his brick and mortar communities online via Myspace and Facebook and he’s been both pleased and surprised with the results thus far.

But those results have taken time. Results will improve further as we spend even more time in the “conversate” phase – that one never really ends. It is true – a little dab(ble) won’t do ya. Creating a presence on social networking sites is free, but creating a lasting impression takes time – and that, as we all know, is never really free.

- Chad Richards

Internet vs. TV during Election '08

I wanted to know how much the Internet plays a role in being our source on information on the political campaign.

According to a December 19-30, 2007 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, nearly 25% of the population said they “regularly” learned something new about the presidential candidates via Internet – versus only 12% in 2004.

Traditional evening news television broadcasts and newspapers are still the primary source where people obtain information regarding the presidential hopefuls. The Internet has, however, beaten NPR, C-Span, morning and late night news, in addition to political programming on the numerous cable channels.

The numbers do change when you take age into consideration. Those, between ages 18-29, 42%, had used the Internet as their primary source for obtaining information about the candidates. However, of those between ages 30-49, only 26% had used the Internet to gain information on the hopefuls.

I use the Internet to find not only the political parties’ opinions, but to find the diverse opinions of others as well. I enjoy watching the candidates at work and learning about their positions through online video – something all of the candidates have embraced and incorporated into their Internet marketing strategies this year. It’s nice knowing that if I miss something on TV I can always catch it on YouTube.

- Lain Ewing

Internet Marketing Strategy: The Twitter Experiment

On Thursday I blogged about Twitter, joined Twitter, and became instantly obsessed with Twitter.

I had been a little weary about joining, thinking that Twitter would be just another toy to occupy (and contribute to) my increasingly short attention span, but it ended up being much much more.

In my post I referred to PR Squared, a social media and marketing blog penned (can I use that term? ‘Typed’ just doesn’t sound as nice.) by Todd Defren. Naturally, he was the first person I began to follow on Twitter – a very good move.

Next thing I know, my Twitter feed reads:

Twitter love in the finest form! And a link to the Firebelly blog! Not only did I gain a mass of Twitter friends, but also our blog hits met an all-time high and stayed that way for the entire weekend. Thank you TDefren!

I’m still not completely sold that Twitter is this amazing marketing tool that everyone must have in order to be successful. What it is though, is a connector, an instant community for those of us with a passion for social media. At Firebelly we sometimes have a hard time convincing our clients of the benefits of blogs and social networks. Throw microblogging in the mix and forget it. But for me, a newbie in the industry, it’s a wealth of information – blogs I should be reading, questions I should be asking, people I should be friending and new things I should be trying.

Now if only I could score a Brightkite invite and get off the waiting list. All of my Twitter friends have one – can’t I?

-Julia Yoder

Internet Marketing Strategy: Debunking Social Networking Myths - MySpace

So you own or run a business and you are thinking about a new and innovative way to get your name out there, right?  Social media, and specifically social networking, is the future of marketing. 

1. For me, the first thing I think of when I think of Myspace or Facebook is that it's just for kids. This is not true - 85% of users are 18 or older and more than half of the total people using Myspace are 35 or older. Can you afford to miss this audience?

2. Not enough people go to Myspace
Untrue. Myspace was ranked 10th out of the most visited websites in 2006.

3. Another myth about Myspace is that someone will post bad or untrue comments about your business. 
Mostly untrue. There are many ways to prevent such things from happening. However 9 times out of 10 this does not happen. The bad comments can also give you feedback and so you can work on different aspects of your business, and make a negative into a positive. Mostly your community will self regulate bad postings. And you have always have the choice to administer it out!

4 A quick Myspace effort can give you quick and lasting results.
Untrue, These social media campaigns are not built for one or two month’s spurts at a time. It needs to be an ongoing effort, updated often and maintained to get the response that will pay off.

The question I have for you: Can you afford to not reach all these people?

-Angela

Internet Marketing Strategy: The Pillars of Social Media – 6 C’s

I’ve received some emails asking about internet marketing strategy and specifically for the essential aspects of social media. Here are the pillars of this genre. The C’s make is more accessible and easier to remember for me.

Communication
Enabling people to communicate efficiently and effectively and in ways thought impossible only a few years ago.

Community
An online manifestation of the real world and there are norms and protocols – from basic to sophisticated. People are here and they organize themselves into groups.

Choice
People want choice. It’s the basis of all successful web enterprises from Amazon to Netflix. The technologies enable the collecting and searching of information in a meaningful way.

---

---

Collaboration
It makes working together on fluffy and deep issues and ventures possible.

Complex (multi) media
It includes photographs, audio, and video (in a variety of formats and presentations).

Context - Virtual Worlds
People interacting in deep

Depending on whom you talk to - you’ll hear that the social media is new (O’Reilly and Batelle at the first Web 2.0 conference) or that its been around for ages (Tim Berners-Lee). How I see it – it's people to people, but in a deeper and more meaningful way.

- Duncan

Social Media Exclusive: YouTube, email and MSN Chat help unite cousins across the world

So I was at the pub today talking to a new friend – David Arthurs. His grandfather was immigrant from Greece who came to America and changed his name from Kritsalos to Arthurs. David was looking up his grandfather’s town and island (Glossa Skopelos) on YouTube. To his surprise, he found a video that was being narrated by a man named Kostas (nickname for Konstantinos) Kritsalos. David emailed Kostas and they began a dialogue, which soon moved to MSN. On Sunday, May 4th, they figured out that their grandfathers were cousins making them third cousins.

Here is a picture of Kostas (the cousin in Greece) and his prized motorcycle:

This is Firebelly's first breaking story! A global exclusive not covered anywhere else that communicates the power of social media.

Know your city. Know your market.

I love my city, and I often defend it proudly to any of its detractors. I stayed here for a reason: Maybe Austin is hip, San Francisco is the best and New York is the only city that matters, but Indianapolis is home. It’s not where you live, I’d claim, it’s what you make of it.

All of this changed when I learned of Richard Florida’s “Who’s Your City”. Florida debunks the myth of a “flattened world,” where an Internet connection is all one needs to be connected to the global market. Instead, Florida writes, "where we live affects every aspect of our lives," from dating to job markets to marketing and PR. He even offers a quiz to determine the top city for you, all with great visuals. My favorite is the personality type maps:
 
For marketing and PR strategies, it’s important to know what your market is. Understanding a city's personality and how it trends will maximize your efforts. Who's Your City is a great place to get a feel for the importance of place. My town, Indianapolis, is nowhere on his list of top cities for anything, but I’ll take it! Is there a map of inter-connectedness, how anybody worth knowing in this town is less than two degrees of separation away? Not yet on whosyourcity.com. But if there were, Indy would probably have a good showing.

Internet marketing Strategy: Don’t discount the brand experience

At a conference last week, I heard a successful entrepreneur talking about the death of choice. He spoke passionately about how consumers want to be able to make an instant decision online about leasing apartments. One of his former customers went on to point out that women in America make all life style oriented decisions and men account for budget decisions and that if companies don’t recognize this in their internet marketing strategies – they’re sunk. My first reaction was one of annoyance – men in American, even transplants like me, don’t need this sort of elitism or reverse discrimination. As my mind raced through the flawed logic – I realized that I was thinking about the wrong side of the equation. Making choices with products or services and more specifically considered purchases that will impact your life for several months or years – cannot be thought of a binary choices. These are deeply complex decision with many variables.

While we’re in a down turned economy – the fact is that people’s buying habits are more likely to be focused on price but don’t discount the brand experience. Experiencing, feeling, touching your favorite brand can change your price sensitivity. The reality is whether we like it or not, we have emotional relationships with our brands. Whether its evangelical in nature like an Apple user or a Mini Cooper driver or certain growing religions, or whether it’s based on price – like Walmart or CostCo; people have a strong sense of loyalty. The price-alone based model doesn’t allow for this consideration: experience-based emotional relationships.

But the brand experience has so many more facets and dimensions. Service, delivery, design, support, philosophy, and many more. Not to mention the fact that people do turn to the web first – thus the importance of internet marketing strategy and ensuring that your company includes traditional media and social media. To reduce the value of the human experience to price is the sign of a short sighted and unaware approach. Perhaps I’m not evolved or devolved enough to live in a post-human world driven by price alone. But I prefer to think of myself as a humanist that continues to survive (and even thrive based on the indicators you choose) in a massively Darwinian global economy. The Firebelly brand is fueled by passion. We care and love our clients like Yats – that continues to expand in a restaurant industry with slim margins and closures, or the International Film Festival with miniscule budgets, or our larger corporate clients that demand a higher level of service in general. Does that passion fueled brand experience translate into a pure price based decision? Usually not – people expect fair pricing but it’s far from being the only variable. The brand experience is alive and well. Ignoring it could be a fatal error in your business approach.

Notes:
1. This post has inspired me to write more on C Words. Look for more on this in coming weeks. Choice. Community. Collaboration. And more.
2. The overall strategy I recommend is a convergence strategy – one that is uses a combination of traditional (print, billboards, direct marketing) and online media (search engine marketing, social media – blogs, micro-blogs, video, social networking, and bookmarking among others)

- Duncan

Free Stuff Works

This is my first blog post and it feels like a lesson in value creation from a global band – Coldplay! I read Jonny Evan’s post on MacWorld yesterday about Coldplay’s new song. Since I am a fan I proceeded to the band’s website and entered in my email address and zip code and was sent an email to download the song. 

After listening to the song I thought this is genius! What better way to grow your fan or email database by throwing out something free.  They also put a time limit on it - which makes you act right away. At the end of it all – the online marketing did its job – free, created urgency, and adds value while creating hype! Everyone at our company Firebelly Marketing was talking about it this evening! It was innovative, intriguing and it made me happy to have a new song to add to my library. I now look forward to the album - Viva La Vida or Death and all his Friends'

- Angela

Twitter May Have Applications After All

Social Media is taking over my life.

I work it, live it, and yes, I even dream about Firebelly using social media outlets that are all in Portuguese.

But I do not tweet. I’m intrigued, I’ll admit, but I also fear the absolute addiction that will surely come from that little ‘get started’ button.

However, last week CNN told me about a student Twittering his way out of an Egyptian jail. After that, Todd Defren of PR Squared kinda seriously suggested to me that a PR person MUST become an active Twitter user if they want to have a meaningful career. Then when fellow Firebelly blogger Chad posted about The American Red Cross using Twitter to spread updates about where the California wildfires were spreading, I decided…

I had to do it. It’s for my own good. Without it I might get trapped in an Egyptian jail or a raging forest fire. My quest to be a social media superstar will never happen without it.

Five seconds after signing up a tweet appears from Rootfireember – ‘Welcome to Twitter. Expect to be flooded by strangeness now; enjoy the ride.’ Is it directed toward me? I don’t know. Will I enjoy this ride? Follow me at http://twitter.com/JuliaY and see. 

- Julia

Turning to social media in times of crisis

A new study in the May issue of New Scientist magazine reveals that social networking sites, blogs, and instant messaging services were better at connecting people and providing warnings during emergencies than traditional sources of such information.

Dr. Leysia Palen, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado, led a research team that studied uses of social media during last fall's wildfires in California and last spring's shootings at Virginia Tech for the report.

During the wildfires, the team found that the American Red Cross was using Twitter to spread updates about where the fires were to friends and family, and Google maps mashups were assembled to keep people informed of new fires and schools and businesses that were closed. This information was being distributed far more quickly than traditional channels, according to the report.

"The mass media were unreliable, the study found, as they struggled to access remote areas from which website users with an Internet connection could easily report," writes Andy Bloxham. The mainstream media was seen to be focusing on "sensational" aspects of the fire as well - such as homes of celebrities that were caught by the fire.

While local authorities were still trying to organize after the shootings at Virginia Tech last April, a Wikipedia page accurately describing the shooting was online within 90 minutes of the first deaths. Students created the "I'm OK at VT" Facebook in less than two hours after the shooting and began using the social network to connect family and friends.

On a much smaller scale, in my own life, when central Indiana was woken by an earthquake a few weeks ago, I received numerous Twitter updates from friends wondering what was going on and sharing that they were shaking in their beds. I immediately opened my laptop to find out what had happened and already had an invitation to join the Facebook group “I Survived the Midwest Earthquake of April 18, 2008.”

I’m not at all surprised that social media sites are the first place people turn during a disaster. Online tools are instant, personal, and they allow people a shared experience – even if they’re miles apart.

- Chad