Live event blogging with G-SNAP!

My brother, Ramsey Ksar, talked with blogger/technology expert Robert Scoble about G-SNAP! and live event blogging. Creating community around an event is a necessity these days where users want to talk with other like minded-people and want to interact with the actual brand that is  producing the event. What’s great about G-SNAP! (again I’m Ramsey’s brother so I’m a little biased but I’ve been living and breathing social media and blogging for a long time) is the ability to create status updates with photos, videos, and even tweets from Twitter. The aggregation of content is key in an event cause people are creating content on numerous social networks. Watch the video and if you want to live blog your next keynote presentation, football game, or community event ping my bro @ramseyk on Twitter or @gsnap. And of course to test out G-SNAP! and embed their service in your web site go to http://www.gsnap.com

Speaking at Web 2.0 NYC

Hey everyone! Join me at Web 2.0 conference in New York City talking about community and social media at the below session.  Remember, to use webny09fos to receive a $100 discount or a FREE Expo Pass.

Real-Time Marketing: Operationalizing The Use of Social Media

Social media isn’t just for community managers anymore. The rise of Web 2.0 content and community is changing marketing operations – making marketers more efficient, customer-centric and prepared to make strategic decisions like product and service enhancements, feature prioritization, pricing and customer segmentation. And, the best part? It’s free and available in real-time so any size company with any size budget can leverage it.

Real-time marketing means understanding and responding to the movements of the market on both individual and strategic levels. This session will show you how to apply the instant, unprompted customer feedback from Web 2.0 to media buying, campaign optimization, creative development, customer community management, CRM, PR and promotions.

Hear from companies that are operationalizing their use of social media feedback as a source of strategic advantage, and walk away with 6 new ways to integrate real-time marketing practices into your organization.

Speakers:

Disney Online, James M Smith, Vice President, Advertising

Advertising effectiveness: Learn how Disney Online is quantifying ROI and effectiveness for its advertisers. James Smith is a pioneer in the fields of online and integrated media. Having launched media properties in the past decade in the US, Europe and Japan, James plays an instrumental role in the development of the Disney.com online strategy. Focusing on all aspects of Disney online, James creates revenue streams outside of standard media through cutting edge branded entertainment products, large scale cross media programs & the development of a newly created ad network at Disney.com. Prior to joining Disney Online, James held executive roles at Nielsen & United Business Media and also spent time driving strategy in the social networking space as an executive at Leverage Software.

Motorola, Randy Ksar, Program Manager

Community management: Randy manages the social media strategy for MOTODEV which is Motorola’s developer program primarily focused on mobile devices and Motorola’s latest Android handsets. He is constantly listening and engaging with the MOTODEV community via blogs, discussion boards, and numerous social networks like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Previous to Motorola, Randy worked on viral marketing programs for Yahoo! and online marketing roles at Roxio, Handspring, and Sony Electronics. In his spare time, he volunteers for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society running marathons, cycling century rides and raising funds to find a cure for blood-related cancers. Tweet @djksar to contact Randy.

Nike, Ricky Engelberg, Director of Digital Marketing

Influencer marketing: Nike has always practiced influencer marketing- the art of finding and cultivating tastemakers (online and offline) that are influential within a community. Web 2.0 technologies and social networks have created new avenues for influence to move along. Hear how Nike is incorporating these phenomena into the design and execution of key marketing campaigns and programs, in the US and beyond.

Undercurrent, Aaron Dignan, Founding Partner

Integrated social media campaign management and measurement: Hear from Aaron how he and the Undercurrent team craft effective social media campaigns for the the world’s best brands and comprehensively measure their success. Aaaron Dignan joined the founding team of Undercurrent from a background in brand strategy and brand experience at Brandplay, a boutique agency he co-founded, and whose clients included Coors and Pepsi. Aaron manages Undercurrent’s New York office, where the team explores the future frontier of social interactive – where consumers rule, and brands aspire to contribute and enable the most connected generation in history. His blog (Surveyvivalist) uses targeted research to explore these same topics and issues. A charismatic speaker (alongside Undercurrent’s Josh Spear) for brands like McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Virgin, Leo Burnett, Columbia College, and the University of Colorado, Aaron’s thinking on the “born digital” consumer is highly sought after.

Moderating: Scout Labs, Jennifer Zeszut, Founder and CEO

San Jose Rock-n-Roll Half-Marathon

I ran the San Jose Rock-n-Roll Half-Marathon this past Sunday and my brother-in-law, Justin Adkinson, filmed some clips of the race with his new tripod that he made. Pretty cool setup with a sliding bar to get a smooth side to side view. Check out the video below on his Vimeo account (one of the most creative talented videographers host their video on Vimeo!).

-Randy

Embed Your Social Feeds with Tinker.com

Interesting new social media widget from a new web site called tinker.com, parent company is Glam Media.  Saw it first from a tweet sent to @motodev where the user created an event on the site that aggregated all the #mds09 tweets. What’s great in the product is that there is moderation available so when you post the twitter widget on your site you can feel safe in preventing certain users, bad words, and overall comfortable with posting a live public chat feed. Also, not only is the twitter feed included in the widget but your Facebook streams too (although not fan pages).  Anyways, check it out at tinker.com, I think you will like it.

Here is a snapshot of their widget options:

Note: Currently as of 9/30/2009 the above were the only customization options. Especially annoying is the sizing options only allow for something more vertical than horizontal design. I tried changing the javascript code but got a File Not Found error when it was embedded in my page. Luckily, the company is open to feedback via their getsatisfaction board and a previous response mentioned they were working on providing more customizable options (message posted 4 months ago so not sure where that is within their product priorities).

Have you used this product? Would you find it useful for aggregating feeds on your web site? Any other solutions you know of?  Comment on the blog post below.

-Randy
@djksar on Twitter

Social Media Seminar with Dell

I highly encourage you to attend this seminar to learn more about social media from Dell.

-Randy

What: Brands Council Webinar
When: Thursday, August 27
Time: 12pm Pacific | 2pm Central | 3 pm Eastern
Register Now! https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/582343299
For brands & nonprofits only.

Featured Speaker:
Liana Frey, Director of Communities & Conversation, Dell
Dell has over two billion customer interactions each year. Liana Frey, Director of Communities and Conversations, will share Dell’s learnings over the past two years as the company has embraced social media. She will provide examples of how Dell is empowering its customers to share their stories and ideas. You’ll hear how social media is organized, measured and, most importantly, what could be of interest to your company in the journey to enable customers to walk the hallways of your company.

Patience in Building an Online Community

These days companies equate building a community (online or offline) as easy as building a web site. Unfortunately, they are incorrect. It takes times, planning, and numerous other factors that are beyond your control. Here are some tips in building your community and knowing full-well it isn’t going to happen overnight:

• Say hi once and a while.  Especially on Facebook and Twitter don’t just overload their news feeds with corporate promos / mktg messages. Be a real person!
• Highlight a community member and the work he/she is doing. That person will appreciate and talk about your brand on his/her blog, twitter acct, facebook, etc…
• Internally evangelize community learnings within your company.  Let people know what you are doing and know how they can take part in this new type of communication.
• ask yourself is content more important than quality. Do you need a nice HD camera and spend the time rendering or do you just need a small Flip or Kodak camera and get your video up on your YouTube channel as fast as possible.
• Have a real conversation with one of your community members. Give them a call and  hear what they have to say in ways in which  your community and product can be improved.
• and finally it isn’t about how many fans you have, # of followers, how many registered on your site, but about how many are engaged and interact with you.  If you’re product launch is 2 years from now start building your community now step by step, fan by fan, follower by follower.

-Randy
@djksar

Why you shouldn’t have a corporate blog?

I was very intrigued by a blog post on the Conversation Agent where they talked about why a company shouldn’t have a corporate blog. Of course they were just kidding and it went over some of the internal reactions that you would get from starting blogging and essentially social media within your company. Here are my favorites:

• You get part time results for part time efforts – been a victim of this before, you gotta put in a lot of effort to write the posts and engage with your community. If you don’t then they won’t.
• You publish only “perfect posts” – blogs are meant to cover timely information especially in the age of social networks and instant communication and sharing with your contacts.  Quality lowers of course but the content is valuable.
• You think it’s a marketing job to write and edit the posts – the key to corporate blogging and social media is letting readers behind-the-scenes of a company and getting to know personal brands instead of corporate brands. Of course, there is a mix of the two but personal brands are key to introducing within a blog.

Do you have any other experiences from corporate blogging and social media? Any do’s and don’ts that you would like to share?  Post a comment.

-Randy
http://twitter.com/djksar

The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation Needs Your Help

hey everyone! Sometimes I’d like to get a little off topic (usually my blog covers social media news, viral marketing, and mobile) with a cause that is very near and dear to my heart – the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation! On Saturday May 30th, my soon-to-be wife Kari organized a team from the Lucile Packard’s Children’s Hospital called GI Janes and Joes. We walked in downtown San Jose for apprx. 2 miles to show awareness for this disease and to raise some good mulla! Of all the teams there $180K was raised for research and patient services. Great stuff but the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation still needs your help until there is a cure. I know times are tough but if you could donate $20 to help find a cure or going out to dinner what would you do?   Donate today

Here is a very interesting chart taken from 2006 financial data – check out the # of patients!

 

Organization	Number of Patients	Gross Revenue	$ Raised per Patient	Research as Percent of Expense
Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation	1,400,000	$40.5 million	$28.92	36%
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society	747,000	$240.3 million	$321.68	28%
March of Dimes	508,536	$244.8 million	$481.38	19%
Multiple Sclerosis Society	400,000	$219.9 million	$549.75	21%

 

For those that couldn’t make it to the walk here is a short (55 second) video:

 

If you have any questions ping me at @djksar on Twitter or email rksar at yahoo dot com. Remember to check if your company matches and corporate donations are accepted. 

-Randy

Waze: User-Generated Driving Map on Android

I just signed-up for an alpha of an Android app called Waze which is a user-generated driving map. I can use it to know how traffic is going on the roads via user-generated content which in my mind is much faster and more reliable than 511 or any police report.  It might make a few more people using their cell phones and data plan while on the road but is definitely helpful. Also, it allows for you to edit the map which is helpful if you are on a new road or one where there is no left turn anymore (like on most of the San Francisco roads!). Their taking sign-ups now for their alpha release so if you are daring (and live in the San Francisco Bay Area) sign-up at www.waze.com, follow @waze on Twitter, and read their blog. I haven’t tried it out yet, but once I get access to the alpha I’ll do a video and take some screenshots. Stay tuned and if you have used it let me know what you think.

-Randy

Going to Google I/O 2009

Just signed up for Google I/O conference in San Francisco May 27 & 28. Look forward to the Android sessions as well as meeting other developers.  Any meetups or tweetups that anybody knows of?  Post them here!