Return of the Ducks and why I never had that excitement at my college

I went to San Jose State University and never got excited about the sports teams there especially football. The football team was actually in my speech class and that was always entertaining. However, never went once to a football game and I think the only sports team I ever saw was the soccer team which was ranked #2 in the nation at the time (1998-99). Other division 1 football schools such as Oregon have an amazingly enthusiastic fan base as seen from the video below and actually got me psyced up to drive up to Oregon but it didn’t fit in my schedule.

Watch the video below which I know will go viral soon. I started seeing it at 300 views but by the time Monday comes around I believe it will be above 25K.

Question for all of you, do you think social media is a great way to increase your fan base at college sports? Have you seen other schools do a good job of using social media to get students and alum excited about the football or whatever sport team? Comment below. Look forward to the discussion.

I’m not a Stanford Graduate Facebook

I logged onto my Facebook account this morning and Facebook thought they would be smart and make me smart. Their recommendation engine thought because I have a lot of friends that went to Stanford that I might have gone to Stanford. However, didn’t they realize I already filled out my profile info with San Jose State University undergrad and no graduate school? I dunno I guess it was an educated guess but their recommendation engine could be a little smarter. Maybe this should be the logic:

If user graduated from with his undergrad degree and doesn’t have a master degree maybe they should have an ad for University of Phoenix..hehehe..but seriously if I didn’t input my master degree in my profile then don’t assume.

Look below.

@djksar on Twitter

Creating & Managing Social Content

Here is a presentation I did to advertising students at San Jose State University about creating and managing social content. Short and sweet but main point is “it’s not about the tools but the content!”. Let me know if you have any questions by commenting on this blog post.

Will Pepsi Increase Sales via Social Media?

spreading the word is a hard thing. How do you start the groundswell that people really believe in your cause and share the message with their contacts? Does it require money and a big advertising campaign and production fee?  It sure does in my experience from working in numerous marketing groups in the valley.  Questions for you reading this blog:

• How much do you think Pepsi will spend on this year’s social media marketing campaign in comparison to their usual Superbowl campaign?
• Do think consumer products like Pepsi can actually sell more via social media?
• How can you measure that more people buy your product if it is an offline sale?
• Can you name any other brands/products that have had a similar success or failure in a social media marketing campaign?

-Randy

P.S. After commenting on the above, help out the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society by donating before December 31, 2009. I’m running the SF Half-Marathon in honor of my friends Doug, Matt, and Marcella that have cancer. Go to http://tinyurl.com/teamksar and make a donation today!

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

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

Video Interview Tips for Social Media Campaigns

Social media evangelists and/or those that are communicating with the public via online communities need to be trained appropriately on how to respond to questions from a public relations perspective.  Opening the flood gates on all your employees to take part in social media is probably not the best idea to start with especially at a medium to large company (1000+ people). They need to be trained and get familiar with how to engage in conversations in a honest, truthful method.

In doing video interviews for social media purposes here are some tips:

• Write an outline of what you are going to talk about it (I assume those topics have been cleared by your PR team)
• Make sure you are comfortable in answering questions in an impromptu way. If the interviewer asks you a question, you better know how to respond to it directly, honestly, and all within the same shot
• Make sure with every video you do has a call to action – where do people go for more information? Make sure you know the web site url (or as Joe Biden would like to say the web site number, you know the ip address, right?..j/k 🙂 )
• Keep it to 30-seconds to 3 minutes. If the video is longer split it up into a series.
• Make sure the person you are interviewing is engaging and has a good, clear communication style. If you think people are going to fall asleep within 15 seconds of hearing him/her then coach him on how to change his style, tone, and facial gestures.
• The video should be in one continuous shot. Why? You really want the viewers to feel like they are there interviewing the person and not being coached by the interviewee. Style should be a causal conversation.

That’s all for now. What do you think? Do you have any additional suggestions for video interviews that are being distributed online via communities & social networks?  Add a comment below.

-Randy
http://twitter.com/djksar