This morning I attended an event hosted by IBM. The topic of the half day conference was The Future of Interactive Technologies. I decided to title today’s post as The Future of Interactive Technologies is NOW. Why? As I sat beside many businesses – both retailers and suppliers such as myself – many of these business on the retail side or B-C sector, are just starting to implement their social media strategy. For me the future is now. Every business needs to be involved in finding ways to engage and build their tribe/community – as so aptly written – by one of my marketing guru’s Seth Godin. There were some great stats about the trends of social media, the emergence and importance of mobile and of course the value and power that is now wielded by your customer. Over the last 3 years we have written about all of these topics. The power of the brand ambassador, the idea that they are talking about you whether you are there or not, understanding how your target market wants to communicate and then focusing on those digital tools to engage them and featuring businesses that have been doing social media right. Read the rest of this entry »

There are many retailers that are still not online. Many claim they are not ready. Some are dabbling—but even the dabblers are unsure of how to truly leverage the success that can be attained. A few weeks ago I attended a launch at a major retailer. They have done a 360 degree turn in their brand offering and are certainly looking to expand their old reputation for a new contemporary one in order to attract a broader more modern customer. At the launch, they had some laptops sitting out with the idea that people could go and tweet from the event at the computer stations. Great intentions but from my perspective here are some ideas about how they could have kicked it out of the park.
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Measurement has been at the epicenter of marketing for many, many years. Traditional marketing and advertising as well as public relations all have concise ways of measuring the success of a campaign. That success becomes  an ROI for the client – as is mandated by the goals and milestones created for their brand, products and or services.
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I have been watching Whole Foods for a while now and have used their example in the world of social media to many clients. As a fan of the Whole Foods grocery store (even when those delicate personal conversations have touched a nerve), it is a  place where you can get organic foods—both prepared and fresh—with a sense of community attached in the shopping experience. And as a business model, Whole Foods lends itself to social media quite beautifully.
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It has been a while since I have used one of Seth Godin’s posts. Everything he writes is of value and I urge all of you to sign up for his blog. I have suggested, on many occasions, that having a strategic plan before you implement any kind of social media is vital. Many people have a problem with this as they can’t find the extra budget for this part of a project and time for this extra process. The decision makers for many businesses sometimes feel that they need to just dive in—the plan from their perspective was discussed in meetings. All the papers from the Economist to the Wall Street Journal talk about the success of social media so they dive in without a strategic plan.
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I have written and posted many articles about mommy bloggers and engaging moms online – so I will keep my commentary short today. I did get this article in my inbox today from Media Post and I thought that these five clear, concise points to engage mom’s online were excellent and worth sharing. They focus on getting and keeping moms on your website which is where they are spending much of their free time these days. Share with them in a way that is respectful and intelligent and you can count on them Share their dollars with you!
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I had a phone meeting with a dear friend yesterday and we are planning a mutually beneficial business relationship. We are discussing the launch of her new website project  and how I might support them through my business SHARE.  Their need is to create and implement social media marketing and community into their current website infrastructure.
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I am have just finished watching Larry King and yes Larry is now on twitter. His guests were Ashton Kutcher and P Diddy and they were talking about the benefits of twitter and why they tweet. As you all know I write about social media daily - it’s benefits, the  interesting people leading the way and why YOU must get on board and engage your community, customers, clients, friends etc.
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I am reading a book right now called The Travellers Gift by Andy Andrews. It is about the seven decisions that determine personal success. The first decision is that “The buck stops here.” I am responsible for my past and my future. The buck stops here.”
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One of the best things about the internet is that it is an open forum for everything. Blogs such as this one have the opportunity to use the format as a means to speak about what most interests the writer while attracting readers who will keep coming back to hear what the writer has to say (presumably, because they like what the writer has to say or, at least, how they say it!). In our blog, we want to continue to discuss a variety of topics that focus on marketing to women, while also exploring how we feel about social causes and the things we believe in, interesting marketing and advertising campaigns, projects and companies with products and services that catch our eye and so on. (I’m sure there are many more things that we will cover and want to cover that I cannot begin to even think about as this post is written)
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