Rodney Rumford closing at Gravity Summit UCLA

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Great picture!

Gravity Summit in MediaPost

Tweeters Use Twitter For Business
Erik Sass

As a business-to-business marketing platform, Twitter has legs. About 56% of Twitter users say they use the online social communication site for business purposes, according to Rodney Rumford, a social media guru and one of the keynote speakers at the inaugural Gravity Summit on Social Media in Los Angeles Wednesday.

The statistic, based on a survey of 700 Twitter users, suggests the service's value as a business-to-business marketing platform, alongside its emerging utility for consumer marketing.

"Twitter is a goldmine," Rumford said, adding that a number of big consumer brands are already on the site--including Starbucks, which currently boasts about 6 million followers.

Rumford also noted that small businesses are using Twitter to advertise, citing the example of a gourmet Korean taco truck business in Los Angeles which since its launch in November has built a following through Twitter: "The driver tweets where the truck will be 20 minutes ahead of time, and literally hundreds of people show up," one conference attendee confirmed.

Marketers can use Twitter actively or passively, Rumford says--in the first case by reaching out with promotional messages, and in the second by setting up a "listening engine" that allows them to track consumer sentiment in public postings on the site. Any active marketing must be handled carefully to avoid alienating consumers with the appearance of dishonesty or inauthentic, impersonal messages: "It's not a campaign, it's a conversation," he said.

As with blogs, Rumford conceded that "people are going to be saying bad stuff about your brand, and that's okay" because it can be an opportunity for customer service interventions. "I love it when someone says something bad, because then it's a chance to show your true colors," he said.

Companies are still mishandling this kind of functionality, however: Rumford cited the example of Motrin, which reacted slowly to widespread criticism on Twitter of an ad about pregnant women that was perceived as misogynist. Rumford added that efforts to drive people to particular online destinations can be tracked and measured by Google Analytics; Google also crawls and indexes all the conversation streams on the site.

Justin Goldsborough, social media manager for Sprint, said the company uses Twitter to track consumer sentiment as well as for customer service. But Sprint also uses Twitter and a corporate blog to coordinate business-related activities, according to Goldsborough, who noted the site's growing penetration of all areas of U.S. business. "Retail employees are on Twitter," prompting some concern among management, but Goldsborough pointed out that it can connect these workers more closely to both their customers and their bosses. He also pointed to the example of BestBuy, which has a communal blog and chat site used by thousands of employees. On the negative side, Microsoft's plan to get laid-off employees to give back some of their severance pay was rapidly derailed by criticism on Twitter.

Meanwhile, politicians are also on Twitter. According to conference organizer Beverly Macy, the Republican Party is using the site to hold discussions about re-branding the party.

Online social media can be a highly effective advertising medium, but there are some pitfalls that can seriously damage a brand, the speakers warned conference attendees. The central theme touched on by all the presenters was the importance of honesty and transparency in Web marketing that relies on word-of-mouth.

David Reis, the founder and CEO of DEI, an online word-of-mouth marketing company, recalled the condemnation heaped on Belkin, an electronics manufacturer, for paying users $0.65 per post to write favorable reviews of its products on Amazon.com. "Basically, it's a simple problem: They lied," Reis said, emphasizing that marketers should always be forthright about their identities and mission.

Gravity Summit UCLA is Today

From Beverly Macy and Rodney Rumford - February 25, 2009

Thank you for attending the Gravity Summit UCLA event - Social Media Marketing for Business. It is our goal to help bridge the gap between the new Social Media Marketing tools and the business community. We seek to help educate and inform marketing professionals, small business owners, advertisers, and c-Level executives, and others, about the exciting new marketing and communications landscape that is evolving daily.

Now more than ever the value of social media has become apparent as a vehicle for your organization, your brand, and YOU to connect with those who hold the power to help you succeed: your customers, your fans, your constituents, your employees, or your partners. Building relationships within these networks and listening to the voice of the customer will reveal ideas to help you improve processes and loyalty. Seeing the bigger picture and learning from the valuable feedback these communities offer can help guide your businesses towards visibility, profitability, relevance and ultimately customer loyalty.

Gravity Summit is designed to help the business community navigate through these new waters. We want to help facilitate the conversation about how organizations like yours are being challenged turning the 'old world' way of thinking inside out and ‘trust’ the new model.

Requiring an organization and brand to become an integral part of the conversation and contribute to the discussions as a peer sounds easy and logical but can be complicated. How do you actually do this? Which tools do you use? Who in the organization is responsible to keep this conversation going? What about policies and procedures, legal ramifications, etc? These questions can cause skepticism and doubt.

And it’s no wonder. The transparency and immediacy of Social Media is daunting to some and exhilarating and liberating to others – but clearly here to stay in some form. Bottom line, the conversation about your brand is going on, whether you’re engaged in it or not. And at the end of the day, everything that’s transpiring around us is actually improving the foundation for our businesses, from service to marketing to product development to sales to executive management, and everything in between.

There is no way we can bring you everything you need to know in one day’s time. Our goal is to help start this new conversation and to help you navigate your way through. We want to become a resource for you and hope you’ll join in the Gravity Summit community where we’ll do our best to help keep you informed.

Social Media News Roundup

Thanks to Mark VanBaale for submitting Social media News Updates! Does Social Media Make Us Better People? Mashable - San Francisco,CA,USA My question: is there a case to be made that social media - the fact that everyone is now a publisher and a distributor of content - might improve our ... See all stories on this topic

Social Media: How Important Is It MyNC.com - Raleigh,NC,USA By Anora McGaha, User Submitted, 11 hours, 8 minutes ago As I prepare listings for an upcoming class on the business value of social media, by internet ... See all stories on this topic

10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009 Mindanao Examiner - Philippines Social media today is a pure mess, so says social media expert Ravit Lichtenberg, adding that they have "become a collection of countless features, ... See all stories on this topic

Use social media networks to create a 'personal brand' DesMoinesRegister.com - Des Moines,IA,USA It's easy to get overwhelmed by social media - until sites actually start to make life easier and create opportunities. Get control of your online presence ... See all stories on this topic

Is The Corporate World Ready For Facebook, Social Networking?

By Scott Campbell, ChannelWeb
1:59 PM EST Fri. Feb. 20, 2009

Social networking is the hot topic at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this week. And why not? The ability to share thoughts, pictures and video with friends seems tailor-made for the mobile community. What's not as clear, however, is the how businesses may utilize that same technology.

But even that's not going to stop manufacturers from touting their new products featuring social communications at the conference.

MySpace, owned by News Corp., detailed new deals at the show with Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Palm, which will adapt their phones to make uploading photos or video to the social network possible with the push of one button, according to Reuters.

"This is really just the start of where we're going with this," MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe told Reuters.

The number of MySpace members reaching the network through mobile phones quadrupled in the last year to 20 million, out of 135 million unique visitors in total, and Facebook has seen a similar leap, according to Reuters. MySpace also expects most smartphone makers will include its social networking features in new devices this year, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, INQ's Facebook phone or Social Mobile, a spin-off of Hutchison Whampoa's 3, won handset of the year by show hosts GSM Association, and Apple (NSDQ:AAPL), LG Electronics, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and others said they expect to incorporate similar networking features.

Even Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) is making what it calls "material" shifts in investments to give higher priority to chip products geared toward mobile social-networking content, according to Reuters.

But while the manufacturers see enormous possibilities in the consumer space, it's hard to gauge the opportunity in the commercial segment, where many companies are still wary of adopting social networking solutions for security or other reasons.

For example, Facebook and MySpace are blocked to employees at NMS Labs, a Willow Grove, Pa.-based clinical toxicology and forensic testing company, by the company's Websense filtering tool.

Joseph Tait, director of IT, NMS Labs, said employees are not clamoring to use the sites at work, which is one reason why the company hasn't moved to unblock them.

Tait himself is a heavy LinkedIn and Facebook user, but tries to keep their respective uses separate -- LinkedIn for professional relationships, Facebook for personal. It's a quandary many corporations are facing today, trying to balance how they might benefit from participating in social networking against security or legal issues that could arise.

"I did have one person who I know professionally turn down my friend request on Facebook, as he wanted to keep those friends separate from LinkedIn users. Perhaps that is prudent advice," Tait said.

Tait said he tries to stress that social networking can be damaging at a professional level and it is important to manage your online image from an early date.

"Our HR recruiting tool [Taleo] now has a structured 'Would you like to Google (NSDQ:GOOG)/Facebook search this person' button on it so the practice of searching the Web for a candidate is being built formally into the process," he said.

Although Tait sees potential opportunities through social connectivity, there's a lot of noise to filter out too, he said.

"One of my old college buddies might post a technical link and before you know it there are five responses. But then you get 'Brian is having his first cup of coffee today,' " Tait said.

Eric Vlam, IT director at Equipment Depot, a Waco, Texas-based heavy equipment sales and service dealer, said virtually all the professionals in his company use social-networking tools to reach customers and suppliers, though it's not something the company has actively promoted.

"We've had ours in place for over three years. It's been like a viral connection," Vlam said.

But like Tait, Vlam said social networking comes with a responsibility in the corporate world and must be managed appropriately.

"When you link together over social networking, they are the things that can be discussed over a beer and not through the corporate network itself. It's like an open microphone. If there are issues we'd like to discuss in a group, I like to throw them out there."

For example, if Equipment Depot is thinking of implementing a new technology, or new policy, he'll request feedback through a social networking tool, Vlam said.

"I use it as a barometer. I'll ask, 'What do you think of this?' If I get a decent response, then I'll try to begin some pre-due diligence before presenting the idea to corporate," he said.

Vlam is finishing a graduate degree in information systems and said the students regularly use social networking, a sign that the future workforce will be adept at using the technology. "Some businesses have started to put out an official Facebook site," he said. Vlam said his parent company, based in The Netherlands, and other European businesses use social-networking tools more than their U.S. counterparts. "I anticipate that changing," he said.

CIOs should at least make themselves familiar with social networking, Tait said, if only because they will be employing the Millennial Generation, for whom the technology is becoming a way of life.

"I am not looking to open up Facebook in the office yet, but if asked I would probably support it," he said. "Back when the Web was coming of age in the mid '90s, people started talking about why staff needs Web access. Won't it just give them a chance to waste time? My opinion then and now is that if someone is looking to waste time, they can do it smoking, reading the daily news or using the Web. Web 2.0 tools are just another source of content and the key is managing people properly."

The Top 21 Twitter Applications

From TechCrunch Twitter Applications	Monthly unique visits (Compete)
1. Twitpic	1,236,828
2. Tweetdeck	285,864
3. Digsby	233,472
4. Twittercounter	212,200
5. Twitterfeed	149,812
6. Twitterholic	147,164
7. Twhirl	143,333
8. Twitturly	88,793
9. Twtpoll	74,154
10. Retweetist	60,051
11. Tweepler	51,304
12. Hellotxt	45,754
13. Twitdom	45,411
14. Tweetscan	44,463
15. Tweetburner	41,754
16. Tweetvisor	31,621
17. Twittervision	30,708
18. Twitterfall	29,592
19. Monitter	25,433
20. Twibs	17,168
21. Twistori	16,229
22. Twitbin	14,98

Washington DC all A-Twitter

I've been writing and talking about this for months...twitter is like hotmail 10-12 years ago. All of a sudden, everyone's catching on to the best-next-new thing. Love this post today on Politico about how Twitter has hit Wasington D.C. in a big way

TOP TWEET: From Andy Stern’s Twitter feed: “just left White House where group from MoveOn to Chamber of Commerce but mostly progressives had cocktails with Prez and VP.” (hat tip: @BenSmith)

BUZZ — Unless you’re John Dickerson, you’ve been meaning to get on Twitter. Well, today’s the day. George Stephanopoulos tells you the lead of “World News” hours ahead of time. David Gregory reveals Sunday’s guests. It’s possible to gauge EXACTLY when Mike Allen sleeps. Early-adopter Ben Smith (@benpolitico, in Twitterese) proclaimed on his old-fashioned blog yesterday: “Social networking programs tend to tear through communities — high schools, upper levels of media — at exponential rates, and Twitter has now fully arrived in Washington's media scene.”

As @DavidGregory Twittered yesterday (after sending “happy birthday wishes for betsy@mtp”): “Is it me or is Twitter all anyone is talking about this week?” You don’t need any special software or anything — just open your browser to www.twitter.com and you’re rockin’. Jonathan Martin is mocking all the prolific late-adopter Twitterers – he says it’s like they found a new fire truck under the Christmas tree. OUR INAUGURAL TWEETS AT END OF PLAYBOOK. We promise not to Twitter any more fortune cookies.

Twitter as a Tool for Business: 25 Tips for Going Viral on Twitter

Friday, February 13, 2009; Posted: 4:49 AM - by Rodney Rumford

One of the great benefits of Twitter is that it allows for content to spread rapidly and virally across the network and allows for many people to easily discover and share your Tweets. Twitter is a conversationally driven social network with very few points of friction and allows for your messages to flow to large numbers of people quickly.

Twitter users will share content that they discover and that they find interesting, valuable, insightful or newsworthy that they think will benefit their network of followers. A retweet could best be described as the act of sharing content discovered on Twitter to a network of followers or to ask for your followers to echo and pass forward and share with their Twitter network.

Retweet sharing can have huge benefits for your business. Tapping this viral behavioral component and leveraging the psychological carriers is crucial if you want your Twitter messages to reach as large an audience as possible.

9 Lessons Obama Taught Us About Brand Identity

One of the best articles I've read on the "Obama Effect" in branding! Definitely worth your time. Thumbs up!

By Dick Bondy, iMedia Connection

• The No. 1 objective for rebranding is to define value in simple, unambiguous terms
• Empowering employee creativity and cementing their relationship to the new brand goes hand-in-hand with success
• Not many corporations have used the internet to support a brand transformation

The lessons of the "rags to riches" Obama campaign continue to inspire marketers of all disciplines, even those involved in corporate rebranding and launch events. This article applies the Obama playbook to the launch of a new corporate brand and is based on interviews conducted with communications leaders at major corporations, including Xerox, ArcelorMittal, Grant Thornton, and Thomson Reuters, among others. Read More

Social Media Strategy for Restaurants

Good info from Digital Media Consultant

The financial crisis is likely to hit the fine dining industry very hard. Already there have been reports of exclusive London restaurants slashing their prices in order to maintain a steady flow of clientele and therefore subsequent cashflow. Competing on price, however, is never a wise, or usually profitable, strategy, so dining establishments need to look for alternate ways to bring in the customers. One easy way is to develop a social media strategy to connect with your customers and create a community of regular diners.

While every restaurant should develop their own strategy in order to connect with their key demographic the ideas I put forward here should offer you an insight into how to go about it. The tools I’ll be using to implement the strategy are easy to learn and use. In fact you may already be using them, but not necessarily in the most advantageous way. Also the tools are either free or cheap so you should see a good return on your investment (ROI) in a relatively short period of time.

The core of the strategy is to open the lines of communication both from you to the customer and from them to you. This allows you to inform them about what you offer as well as allowing them to offer feedback about what you’re doing well and what you can improve upon. This later part essentially allows you to use your customers as a free, perpetual, up-to-the-moment focus group. Once you’ve opened up the lines of communication there’s then an opportunity there to create a community, which brings benefits like brand loyalty, reliable and trusted feedback and word-of-mouth marketing. read more

Beverly Macy Talking About SMM at UCLA

I never like to see myself on video, but here I am being interviewed by Mario Vellandi on Teaching Social Media at UCLA:

HOW TO: Attract and Engage Social Media Moms

Great article on Mashable. We discussed this during the Fall Semester when the Motrin Moms controversy broke out. Mommy bloggers ROCK!

Noa Gafni is a social media consultant with a focus on women and Gen Y. She authors Webutantes, a blog about Internet trends impacting women.

Moms are one of the Internet’s most desirable groups. eMarketer estimates that there were 35.3 million US mothers online in 2008, a number that is expected to reach 39.6 million by 2012. New communities and content sites for moms appear practically every day. Marketers and advertisers are constantly trying to reach this all-powerful group, who not only carry strength in their numbers but also in their purchasing power.

Although many attempts have been made to use Web 2.0 tools to engage mothers, only a few have been successful. The key to success lies in the approach. Here are a few tips to help you attract and engage moms online.

Watch the Shorty Awards Ceremony

The Shorty Awards are designed to recognize Twitterers in various categories. Below is a stream of the event last night in NYC

Why Your Retweets FAIL

Rodney Rumford is co-hosting Gravity Summit at UCLA with me on 2-25-09. He is also the author of an amazing new book "Twitter Business Book". In this blog post he discusses why Retweets fail AND offers a FREE white paper. Great stuff and recommended reading:

Why Your Twitter Retweets FAIL! You want your content to spread, your network to grow, your influence to increase and your followers to love your content and share it with their Twitter network. Retweeting behavior on Twitter is a science that is repeatable. I have done extensive analysis into what works, what does not, best practices and assembled this report to help you fully leverage Twitter and the power of the Retweet. Understanding the secrets to attaining the top 1% of Twitter Retweets is crucial knowledge that will allow your content to virally and quickly spread deep and wide via Word of Mouth.

15 Reasons Why Your Retweets Fail on Twitter
This free 8 page Twitter Report will show you…

• The Top 15 Reasons Your Retweets Fail
• The 7 Benefits of Retweets Best Practices Mastery
• Retweet Best Practices
• Metrics behind Retweet behavior and how to leverage
• 10 Reasons your content gets Retweeted
• What makes Retweets spread and work effectively
• Tools to use to enhance & measure your Retweet
• Tips to implement today to extend your content so that it reaches a tipping point

You can Download the Report Now.

Please feel free to share this and Retweet. Thanks for your attention.

Stop Asking About Money: Twitter's Aim Is Higher

(Newser) – At Twitter headquarters, the focus isn’t on how to turn the phenomenon into a moneymaking enterprise: it’s on changing the world, Will Leitch writes in New York magazine. “It’s another step toward the democratization of information,” said CEO Evan Williams. “I’ve come to really believe that if you make it easier for people to share information, more good things happen.”

Co-founder Biz Stone points to Twitter's role in events like the Mumbai attacks and Hudson plane crash as further example that Twitter is “about the triumph of the human spirit.” And while the service has 6 million users—far fewer than, say, Facebook's 150 million—the media can't stop talking about it. Many wonder how the firm can turn popularity into dollars, but Twitter’s priority remains improving itself. “We have a product, and we’re working on it,” said Williams. “The money will come.”
Source: New York

Gravity Summit Signature Event: Future of Social Media

Register Here

Call for discounts 310-860-478

Social Media thought leaders discuss the future of social media marketing with America's Corporations

February 9, 2009 (Los Angeles) Gravity Summit cordially invites the business community to attend the Social Media Signature Event - a 1 day immersive seminar at the UCLA Faculty Center.

Marketing and communications is undergoing a major transformation with Social Media and the "Obama-effect" of Engagement Marketing. Attention-getting headlines in Businessweek, USA Today, and Fortune plus new anchors on CNN "Twittering" live during newscasts has changed media forever.

Seating is limited for this classroom-like seminar, so register now. Come learn about the future of Social Media marketing and hear first-hand from top brands like Sony, Sprint, and Yahoo! on how major corporations are entering the Next Paradigm in Marketing and Communications.

Companies will be speaking on:
** "Social Media Has Evolved and Marketers Need to be Savvy about Brand Authenticity" ** "Facebook and Twitter as Business Tools" ** "Using Social Media as a Corporate Productivity Tool" ** "How Entertainment Franchises Use Social Media to Engage Consumers" ** "Search Engine Marketing and Social Media" ** "Small Business Succeeds with Social Media"

DETAILS:
Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Time: 9:00 - 4:30, please arrive early to start on time
Location: UCLA Faculty Center
UCLA Map & Directions
Parking: Parking Lot #P2

My Blog Ate My Career

A cautionary and humorous tale about social media and social networking and what I like to call Digital DNA.

If this were Facebook, my status update might read this way: "Linda is . . . terrified that her reckless blogging and social networking has rendered her utterly, irrevocably unemployable." In another life, I was a CNN head writer and senior producer.

These days, Google my name, and in a few clickety clicks, you'll find a sorry list of intimate grotesqueries I've catalogued about myself for all the world to read. I would like to work again full time. And if I were applying to be, say, Flava Flav's girlfriend or an unhinged Real Housewife on Bravo, I might well prove qualified.

But would I blame a proper boss in this brutal job market for ignoring me because of my online shenanigans? No. The fact is: I wouldn't hire me either. Further, I'm not sure I'd let me in the PTA, or even near my kid. An employer typically looks for someone trustworthy, helpful, courteous. My attributes, etched forever in the digital record, read like a perversion of the Boy Scout Law.

Disloyal I compared some unnamed news anchors I had worked for to my toddler -- discussing their flatulence, their bald spots, their screaming red-faced tantrums -- and declared my toddler more mature. Read more here

Social SuperBowl Ad Winner: Teleflora!