Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

How a Journalist Engages Fans

Kristof has 145,979 fans on Facebook (612,412 on 6/2014). He writes at The New York Times and he writes for his readers. He's humanizing his work by telling the stories of the people he meets through his personal lens. And he's doing that in a conversational medium that allows his fans to interact with him however they choose to do it - by comments, likes, with images. It looks like he's using his Facebook page as a place to put his field notes to capture what interests him and what he's learning. This is a great use of an interactive... Read more →

Marketing in 2010 (free eBook)

When we talk about brand awareness, consciously or not, we correlate "brand" with one specific phase in the marketing funnel. Many have defined brand as a set of expectations and experiences. These in turn generate stories we identify with as we develop our relationship with the brand and the company and people who represent it in our minds and interactions over time. Brands that set themselves apart command a premium. Brand impact in valuation has been a challenging, but not impossible, feat to measure. It's a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data collected about the brand's public profile, its present... Read more →

Ten Ways to Spot a Fake (when hiring a consultant)

You've probably been there yourself. You're in a situation where someone you meet or come into contact with pretends to be different than what they are. Market corrections and due diligence will take care of that. Meanwhile, since you need to get a project done and need to enroll help with it, what do you do? Well, it's easier than ever to spot a fake. Here's what you do. (1.) Their references lack sufficient authority to be credible - most people can find a few professional allies willing to say good things about them. Vet these. Are they in a... Read more →

Meet Bruce Christensen, the Virtual Gift Giving Enabler

When I met Bruce Christensen, I didn't know he spent his days managing equipment manufacturing in McMinnville and his nights dreaming up Facebook gift exchanges. Since I was curious about how his Facebook app AlbinoPhant works, Bruce gave me a demonstration by inviting me to a party. For the online White Elephant gift exchange to work, you need to have at least three people participating. You may select a price point for the gifts, and that includes an estimation of shipping costs. Right now, the app uses Amazon/PayPal but in the future the Christensen hope to be able to add... Read more →

Your Service is Content

The best way to tell customers about your service is by showing them. Service is content marketing, the most powerful kind of content that people will gladly share with each other when it's about them and their stuff. Think for example about the fascination we have with knowing where our books or other items we order online are. This is not so much because we're in love with physical objects, which, admittedly, we may be. It's about the idea that we bought a gift, and it is now in transit to its destination. Imagining the look of surprise when our... Read more →

Don't Try to Be All Things to All Customers

Or else you'll come across as not caring about one or more customer segments and needs. When it comes to branding, less from you is more. An additional lesson for companies is to stop trying to be a bad copy of some other company. "Me too" is the biggest branding sin of all - you're doomed for failure, especially when there are already two companies going at it in one category. The idea of picking one thing and sticking with it is valid on the service end of things. You position your company by making a statement with your message,... Read more →

How to Prepare Your Subject Matter Experts for New Media Interviews

During the recent Mediabistro panel in New York, I had the pleasure of meeting Shirley Brady who was community editor at BusinessWeek. Shirley explained that her role at the magazine ranged from running point and connecting readers with journalists to connecting journalists with stories. It was a comment from a professional participating in the event that brought about a rich discussion on crowdsourcing. Journalists started using this device more frequently to source additional information for a story they're writing. Often that looks like a question put out on Twitter or another social network. You can find a great example of... Read more →

Does Your PR Read Like This?

Do you want to run a successful business? Communicate effectively with your communities. Employees, customers, partners, developers, investors, whatever the case may be. If both you and the other achieve a mutual goal through communication, then you will be successful in applying social media to business as well. There are two dangers in communications: you don't have a clearly defined goal, therefore you don't know where you're going you're speaking a different language, therefore there is a disconnect in understanding In both cases, you won't be able to take the other with you. In essence, you'll be talking to yourself.... Read more →

Are Your Facebook Fans Truly Engaged?

There are five ways to keep your Facebook pages working for you - and your fans - without running into cycles or idle chit chat, says Italian digital media agency Frozen Frogs. They did some work to figure out fan engagement rate and found that: (1.) New product releases Let's face it, our brains are wired for novelty. Hence the love for shiny new objects. What if you don't have a lot of new product releases? What would constitute new? How about new uses for a product? Maybe suggested by your fans somewhere else - in forums or at your... Read more →

You Cannot do Social Without the Support of the Organization

In other words, if you just hired a junior person or team to get you on Facebook and give you a helping of Twitter - good luck to you. This is the reality of business, and these days of the marketing side of business, that it wants to shave costs as much as possible. In fact, it trades growth for a predictable (if lucky) future. Of course, you know that you can indeed have a few people on social media, even on behalf of the organization, without the organization being fully vested in its own success with social. It's an... Read more →