Does Your Brand Have the ‘F’ Factor?

According to Trendwatching.com, consumers are increasingly tapping into their networks of friends, fans, and followers, to discover, discuss and purchase goods and services, in ever-more sophisticated ways. As a result, it’s never been more important for brands to make sure they too have the F-FACTOR.
From the report — a couple of brand-related, F-FACTOR statistics:
•    Three [...]

How the Department of Transport is Listening

The power of the public voice is growing exponentially. Every day there are more channels available for someone to voice a suggestion, or for a disgruntled customer to air complaints. Yet even with this wealth of technology at hand, some businesses are still lagging behind by failing to give consumers a venue for talking back.  [...]

Glueing together the social web

Someday soon you may see this cryptic new icon on some of your favourite sites. It represents a new standard–a micro-format to be exact–that describes one thing: what you’re doing to whom on the social web.
The standard, known as Activity Streams, aims to solve the problem of bringing together what your friends are doing from [...]

Social Media Masterclass Part III

Bernadette Schwerdt interviewed me for the Better Business Social Media Small Business Masterclass, here’s Part III.
Question: Many business owners want to – or think they should - incorporate social media into their marketing efforts, but they don’t know where to begin. Where are the best places to start?  Where do people with no experience begin?
Everyone [...]

Collaborative Consumption - How can your company benefit?

I was watching the live webcast of TEDx Sydney this past weekend and was especially inspired by the work Rachel Botsman is doing in the area of Collaborative Consumption.
Collaborative Consumption is defined as organized sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting and swapping stuff through online and real-world communities. The end result being the same [...]

Facebook Gets an ‘F’

A recent poll in the Wall Street Journal graded Facebook an ‘F’ for it’s handling of users’ privacy. I would go further and give Facebook an ‘F’ for ignoring two of the new marketing Values namely TRANSPARENCY and COLLABORATION.
When an organization ignores transparency the community finds ways to exert it. For example, a [...]