I just bought my first song/EP that was promoted directly by the artist on iTunes’ Ping social network. There are still issues with the Ping experience, like unclear linking and finding the Ping profile versus the artist’s page of products, but once you “follow/like” them, they start to show up in your iTunes Ping area. One of the updates that the artist posted included his track, and that’s where I listened to a sample and decided to buy the track.

Artists
I’m surprised to see that even major artists like U2 and Shakira only have a few hundred thousand followers on Ping. Are your favorite artists posting updates to iTunes Ping? Are they discussing and promoting songs there yet? I’d love to hear if you’ve found new artists or music via updates on Ping? Is it a threat to artists connecting via more proven social networks like FaceBook and MySpace?

Friends:
Have you found your friends and shared music on Ping yet? As of now, you have to search for their name and choose by city and music choices, if you know it, or you can email them to join you. I’ve only found a few friends via this method, so Facebook or other social network integration is a must before Ping really can grow. (You can search for “Charlie Browning” and find me in Austin, TX if you’d like to connect, but I warn you my taste in music is eclectic…

Apple will certainly have to put more effort into promotion and especially the experience of the Ping social network for it to be successful, but I’m excited about the direct connections to artist updates, in the context of purchase. Artists featuring a track, telling about the production or how it came about is very powerful, especially when users can purchase it and that information is automatically relayed to their friends… that social proof and sharing is very powerful.

BTW, the artist and track that I found was Krunksnatcher by Dom & Roland… great track if you like Drum and Bass.

I wanted to share some of the mobile focused resources that I’ve been interacting with recently. There are a lot of good resources out there!

– Mobile Web Design Blog “How to design web sites for the smallest screens on the Internet” – They have a great post on Mobile in Latin America too.

– Mobile Demystified, a blog by Waterfall Mobile, a leading SMS solutions provider.

– Nielsen Research’s Mobile Research Blog.

– Untether.tv – Great video interviews with mobile industry rock stars, by Rob Woodbridge.

– The Flurry Analytics Blog is a great pulse on mobile usage across all the apps and sites that use Flurry to track their efforts.

My favorite Mobile News sites:
– Mobile Marketing Watch.
– Mobile Marketer and Mobile Commerce Daily
– Mashable Mobile
– MobileCrunch

Organizations:

– The Wireless Industry Partnership connecting mobile developers to information, resources and people. Some great resources and worldwide mobile industry event lists.

– University of Texas’ Wireless Network and Communications Group, they put on the Texas Wireless Summit, next one is 16 Nov 2010 in Austin.

– Austin Wireless Alliance

– Mobile Monday Austin new meetings coming soon! and Mobile Monday Worldwide site, so you can find your local group.

– The Mobile Marketing Association another great resource for events and research.

– The National Retail Foundation’s Mobile Retail Initiative research. The executive summary is really interesting.

What mobile sites do you frequently use? Please share in the comments and I’ll update! More coming soon!

It was nice speaking with Ricardo Jimenez of Microsoft Cafe TV at the Arroba de Oro conference in El Salvador (more on the conference soon!). The intro is in Spanish, but I speak in English about the importance of social media tools and processes to facilitate collaboration INSIDE companies.

Here’s Ricardo’s MSDN blog and Twitter feed, and the Microsoft Cafe TV Facebook page.

What does your company use for internal collaboration?

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A few good links I’ve seen over the past few days:

10 Tips to Build Trust with Social Media
An excellent and super-simple list of tips to build trust and be authentic in corporate social media. We all know how to not be “that guy” that crosses the line at the company party (well most of us do), but we could all use the reminder of how to keep in touch online, especially when we are representatives of our companies in social media.

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Enterprise: List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines
A great list of links from large companies and a few interesting info graphics from the US Air Force on setting internal guidelines on social media participation. This is a great resource to bookmark or use as a research guide for setting up your own corporate guidelines.

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The Rise of the C-Tweet: Points to Consider for Twitter-Friendly CEOs and CMOs
The article helps us consider some good questions like

“And herein lies the greatest challenge of the C-Tweet: Where does the voice of the brand end and the voice of the individual begin?”

and gives a few good guidelines for leaders to consider before jumping off into a twitter account. But it doesn’t really go much into one of the best reasons for company leaders to engage with Twitter and social media: “To get better in touch with their customers and their needs.” It’s a mantra of so many business books and successful companies, maybe it’s just obvious. If you don’t have an AdAge account you can see the article here.

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Yahoo Search Marketing Blog has a good post (refresher) on choosing keywords. Good overview of choosing general/broad AND specific/narrow keywords. Example: “toyota” is general, “toyota camry” and “camry hatchback” are more specific. Make sure to have both.

There are lots of good posts on Yahoo’s Search Blog, make sure to read more.

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Social Media in Pharma and Medical fields
Here’s a great list of leaders in the pharma and medical device fields that blog and/or twitter. Some of my medical clients have been very cautious with social media because of the regulatory issues that could come up. Clearly you can engage with peers and customers as this great list shows. Good to see my pal Greg Rust on the list!

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Email and Analytics
Bronto Blog has a good post, although pretty technical, on setting up Google Analytics to measure your email campaigns. Google Analytics has a great tool called URL builder that you can compose to measure the source of the click, label different mediums and campaigns to give you full insight into where clicks are coming from. If you set up all your email links with these, you can A/B test different email or promotion versions, see trends in clicks/purchases over time or start to get insights into your customer segments and improve targeting.

Have a GREAT week!

I’m a new fan of Common Craft, a small consultancy that says “Our Product is Explanation.” Nice stuff.

Here is a good video, “Social Media in Plain English”.

My short version is “making it easy for your customers to talk about your business.” How have you explained Social Media to co-workers and friends?

I’ve been focusing a lot of my spare time on new social media conversations like Twitter, (CharlieNB) FriendFeed and the like. Sorry that the frequencey of my blog posts have suffered for it! But I think social media and “instant customer conversations” that happen are a VERY important trend that deserve to be investigated fully. I learn new things, meet new connections, repair relationships with companies, stay in touch with friends, and often get questions answered immediately. Good stuff! (but that’s not the point of this post…
As the various elements of “social media” emerge from person-to-person conversations to business conversations as well, measurement and return on investment become top priorities.

“Why should my business/employees be a part of Twitter, what’s in it for my business or customers? Why should we be looking at comments or blog posts?”

There is, of course the intuitive answer, of getting better in touch with customers and understanding their needs, but that’s pretty “soft” and may not fly with metrics-driven organization… and really who isn’t with this economy?
Recently there have been quite a few startups tackling this question. I’ve seen Radian6 and ScoutLabs, they seem to be strong startups with rich tracking, measurement and reporting. Mashable has a great overview of the Top 10 Monitoring tools, so I won’t reiterate the rest.

I guess I’m most excited about one of the heavyweights in the web analytics industry’s addition of Twitter measurement into their primary offering. Omniture has announced that Twitter measurement will be integrated into their SiteCatalyst product via an API. They’ve also mentioned a few new features/ideas on how some of this data can eventually be used to better inform search marketing campaigns. Clickz coverage is here, there doesn’t seem to be a press release from Omniture available yet though.

My dayjob is an Omniture customer, and we’ll likely be taking advantage of this, as I’m sure many customers will. It’s a great sign of a maturing trend that not only startups jump on with new products and services, but industry heavyweights do too.

I really enjoyed the story of how this new product feature came about, which Adam Greco (Omni_man) covers on the Omniture blog. It’s great to see an organization move so quickly and be so agile with their products.

Even more so, it’s great to see more measurement being brought to social media!

How is your organization measuring and particiapating in Twitter and other social media conversations? Are you talking to your customers and prospects?

Kudos to the struggling US auto industry for putting a great social media face on their image issues.

Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford has a great post on how Ford has and is making changes. From leadership, vehicle mixes, green focus, manufacturing technology and new product offerings, he makes great points on exactly what Ford is doing to change. These more specific messages that leave me with a much better impression of Ford than I’ve had. (I own Toyota and Honda cars, but some of the fuel efficiency, green focus and Sync technology may swing me over to a Ford in the future… if they work on their design a bit more.
Follow Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford, here on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/scottmonty

I’m looking for any official Ford blogs, but haven’t found them yet. (Scott?)

GM has a corporate blog with posts by several VPs, and Bob Lutz the GM vice chairman. With so much ongoing controversy around their offerings and the recent financial issues, I think this more direct route to customers, media and pundits is a great way to get their messages out, without relying on the “spin” of press. They also have some VERY actively engaged readers, with over a hundred comments on several posts… Many of the comments are several paragraphs too.

There are several other GM blogs are here, with Saturn, Opel, Tuner enthusiasts, European focused and Cadillac blogs. Overall, it’s a pretty good effort from GM in the social media and customer conversation/PR space.

Follow GM Blogs Twitter with news and updates across their blogs:
http://twitter.com/GMblogs

Do you know of others in the auto industry with dedicated social media staff or efforts?

Good article by David Armano here with a new metaphor on the how the web is working nowadays.

Pick your favorite term for this stuff we are doing: web 2.0, community, conversation marketing, viral, viral loops, guerilla marketing, word of mouth, social media, etc. Now we have “velcro marketing”! Heh… I’m sure my mom will really understand what I do now.
While I find that adding another descriptive term to the pile slightly troubling, it’s an interesting metaphor and a good explanation.

Marketers, designers and developers alike are scrambling to figure how two things:

1. What are the viral “hooks” that capture people’s attention?
2. What are the viral “loops,” which create infinite engagement that spreads like wildfire?

David is one of my favorite bloggers (his Logic + Emotion Blog) for his great synthesis of trends down to simpler concepts.

For example, here is a deck he’s sharing on “Micro interactions composing the brand experience.” It’s not a ground-breaking discovery, it’s really just a reminder that “small things matter,” but he reminds marketers/business how much more true it is online in this “conversation economy” we have now. Here’s his summation quote:

“We live in a world where the little things really do matter. Each encounter no matter how brief is a micro interaction which makes a deposit or withdrawal from our rational and emotional subconscious. The sum of these interactions and encounters adds up to how we feel about a particular product, brand or service. Little things. Feelings. They influence our everyday behaviors more than we realize.”

Are you looking at the details of all your company’s interactions? The emails, the “thank you” pages, the phone system directory on your main line? What happens to customer comments? Try this fun little exercise: Get your granny/significant other to make a suggestion to your company… see how long, or IF it ever is brought up in your meetings or roadmaps.

Social media demands interaction… because its a conversation, not a campaign.

Nice quick report from B2B’s NetMarketing Breakfast in NY this week.

Paul Dunay, global director of integrated marketing at BearingPoint, said he actively reuses and retargets existing content in ways that make sense to provide value to customers.

Dunay said there is no “campaign” in social media: “It’s a state of being your company has to take on, and marketing has to lead the charge for that. You can’t be social this week and decide to be antisocial next week. It’s an ongoing process.”

Good stuff Paul, let’s get that message out there to the marketers and management that still think they can start a social network presence, forum or blog and not dedicate people to work/participate on it.

Loved this bit from an IBM social media manager Pauline Ores too. There is a LOT to be gained by keeping an eye on what your users are searching for and talking about online.

Ores said search and social media go hand in hand, and that by interacting with its community of customers, social media informs IBM’s search strategy. By “listening to social media” to learn what people are talking about, IBM is able to buy relevant keywords against those conversations.

Is your organization conversing and listening to what your customers are talking about online?

According to a new Forrester survey:

“In a recession, marketers typically cut interactive spending. But our survey of 333 interactive marketers revealed strong support for maintaining or increasing budgets in categories including social networking, email, blogging, and search optimization. Among 12 major categories only online displays ads looked soft. Professional services, financial services, and media marketers are most likely to plan increases in interactive marketing. In a recession like this, marketers should focus on the measurability of their online and social applications and think in terms of building long-term assets, not one-off campaigns to boost quarterly sales.”

Forrester’s Groundswell Blog shows a nice graphic of the results too.

I certainly have seen an increase in activity and interest around social media/online conversations, such as clients asking about blogging, site comments/reviews and either participating in online communities or even starting their own. I think the sometimes immediate results and very measurable nature of online campaigns give these a permanent place in marketer’s toolboxes.

I was a little surprised about online video and mobile marketing showing only 20-30% growth optimism. But I suppose the survey was at large to medium sized companies/agencies, and not all of their client’s business may have mobile or video content needs. I do think that many companies could give much more personal impressions if they used video more… for example, why not have the CEO introduce the company via video on the main “About” page of your site? Why not have the VP of HR tell you why you should come work for that company in a quick video? These are quick, contextual and very rich interactions that would benefit greatly from online video.

Email, the old standby is still working quite well and marketers are optimistic about in in the future. Although most of the emails and landing pages I’ve seen lately could certainly use some work, email is still producing results.

I was not super surprised about the only online marketing area not producing much growth (10ish%) is display ads. I know many websites depend on those types of ads, but between crap creative, poor targeting and obnoxious execution, as well as general “banner blindness” fewer customers are finding them interesting and relevant.

Are these results reflective of your plans for the next year?