I use Twitter as my news updater as you can now get the world happenings in real time. Remember when the plane landed in the Hudson in NYC? People were tweeting while standing on the wing to be rescued. The protests in Iran were another of those major global events – where you could learn in real time via social media- exactly what was going on. Both by the news media as well as those in the midst of the news stories.

One of my most favorite news publications is the Huffington Post started by Arianna Huffington – has been a long standing proponent of social media and they are doing a spectacular job leveraging Facebook connect and Twitter. They created a real time engagement forum for the TED conference series which I thought was brilliant. What sparked this post was an email I just received from the Washington Post - showing how they are now linking to Facebook connect, encouraging readers to SHARE articles and participate in the stories they read – by commenting on things you find interesting or things your friends are following.

It is now such an easy way to connect with like minded people for so many reasons. Friendship, business, information, opinions ideas and ratings and reviews to name a few. Best of all it works! The world becomes much smaller and the human approach that can be created for business is not to be questioned. Your customers are eager to get to know you. Just watch your nightly news which on many stations both in Canada and the US, cable and major network – that end their broadcast with “please find us on Facebook and Twitter and connect create.cultivate comments, stories etc.”

This week alone I met a Facebook friend in real time that helped me sort out my cell phone debacle. It was like we had known each other for years. Another Facebook friend in the same industry as myself have build up an admirable relationship and passion for the power of digital and the expansion of its tools – that we get to use – to support the success of our clients marketing and communications. We are now doing a small project together. Me here in Toronto – he in California.  How can we SHARE all of our resources for a mutually successful relationship? For growth of sales, growth of mind share, growth of ideas, solving problems, events, promotions, product launches – production knowledge and so much more.

Had a great social media week like me? We would love to hear about it. Drop us a line and let us know how the power of the digital world enhanced your life!

Best Nicole

What is always intriguing to me – is the way these events work and whether for those that attend – do they receive or perceive their attendance to provide value? How to do you get those who are not as apt in this face to face environment to engage? What makes them want to reach out? For me – I love meeting new people so moving around, seeing new faces, approaching someone new and introducing myself is fun and energizing. Learning new things and the interesting paths and journey’s that people take – is always inspiring. I tend to go with no expectations so that I get a surprise with – what may or may not occur.

The best part of networking is sourcing out that one or maybe many whose interests, thoughts and ideas may be synergistic to your own. You connect in comfortable ways and are eager to exchange information so that you might connect again. The idea on both ends – is a mutually beneficial relationship. Maybe it’s friendship, maybe it is a referral for the possibility of new business, maybe it is for ratings and reviews on products, services or experiences – with the things you both have mutual interest. Ultimately it all begins with a relationship of like minded individuals – who find delight in the discovery of one another and the opportunity to share information.

The beauty is that this wonderful offline experience has now been extended with the advent of social media. On the flip side social media communities are bringing their networks to real life – with Tweet ups for Twitter followers and new friends on Facebook, families and moms in forums and so on. The key always begins with a network and someone’s interest in sharing with someone else – for the exchange of information. Without it in some format – most of could not live on this planet – as it is how we move from one space to another, whether business or personal.

So how important is networking to you? How do you network, where do you network and what are some of the direct benefits you have received recently. Tonight I spoke to an inspiring marketer who carved a niche in the construction business and printers who are already looking to mold their business – to minimize the amount of printing product – that is not used and focusing on print on demand – so only that they only print the materials that are needed. They are also looking at online resources and offerings to supplement less printing. The really cool part is that – I will be able to access these interesting new contacts online and offline – but what is most important is the networking we shared – to launch a relationship and who can’t benefit from that!

Best Nicole

I have posted an interview from Collective-E, in lieu of this celebration. The interview offers some insight and thoughts from Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, that led him on his steadfast path to success. I think there are things that we can all learn from him. The most important is that he focused on his mission of customer service and leveraged social media by letting his customers do the marketing for him. On any given day, 75% of his orders come from repeat customers and word of mouth!!!

This is not a lesson just for entrepreneurs but for all business owners in every product and service category. Your customers are eager to engage and connect with you. Build a relationship with them that is transparent and valuable and they will pay you back over and over and over again! Who’s next in line for a multi-million dollar celebration?

Best Nicole

On the heels of Amazon’s $840 million acquisition of Zappos.com, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh spoke with Collective-E, a worldwide collective of women entrepreneurs, and some of its members.

If you had to explain why you believe Zappos.com has been so successful, what key reasons would you attribute it to?
I think it’s because of our focus on customer service and company culture. Our whole belief is that if we get the culture right, then most of the other stuff, like delivering great customer service or building a long term enduring brand, will happen naturally on its own.

We’ve grown from almost no sales in 1999 to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales in 2008. The No. 1 driver of that growth has been through repeat customers and word of mouth. On any given day, about 75 percent of our orders are from repeat customers. Our philosophy is to take most of the money we would have spent on paid advertising and marketing, and put that into the customer experience instead, including things like free shipping both ways, our 365-day return policy, and staffing our call center 24/7.

How do you feel businesses of all sizes should respond to the recession in order to thrive?
I think the true test of a company’s character (or even a person’s character) is how they behave when times are tough. For us, we’ve continued to focus on providing the very best customer service and developing our company culture. My advice to businesses of all sizes is to figure out what you want to stand for (i.e., what your core values are) and continue to make decisions based on that.

How important are social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to Zappos.com?
Our primary focus has been on Twitter. We have over 400 employees on Twitter, and you can view their tweets at: http://twitter.zappos.com/employee_tweets

As you can see, most of the tweets are not about business or marketing, but it’s a great way for us to connect on a more personal level with both employees and customers. It gives people a glimpse into our company culture, which is ultimately what our brand is all about.

What is your favorite thing about entrepreneurship?
I enjoy that there are always new challenges and that you have to be creative in figuring out how to attack those challenges.

What is the biggest challenge you face as an entrepreneur?
I think the biggest challenge is that there are so many great ideas but not enough time or resources to do all of them. The hardest part about being an entrepreneur is figuring out what not to do.

How have you created such a powerful and positive customer service force in Zappos? Even scheduling this interview, the level of positive and quick feedback was notable enough to talk about after we hung up the phone. How do you keep that spirit alive and thriving?
It’s a combination of making sure that everyone understands our vision of having the Zappos brand be synonymous with the very best customer service as well as making sure that we hire people that are a fit for our company culture. Our culture is defined by our 10 core values:

1. Deliver WOW through service.
2. Embrace and drive change.
3. Create fun and a little weirdness.
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
5. Pursue growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be passionate and determined.
10. Be humble.

Entrepreneurs seem to be very good at starting and developing projects. I’ve found one of the most challenging things for me is to figure out and then decide what to stop doing, whether it’s because the market is changing, it’s not profitable, or I’m just not good at something. Can you give an example of something you stopped doing and include how you made the decision, how long it took you to make, and the outcome?
We are always open to experimenting with ideas we get from customers and employees. For example, we had some customers that suggested that we try selling dog collars, and others that suggested that we try selling sunglasses. Neither of those categories have very much to do with shoes, but we decided to experiment with both.

As it turns out, the dog collars did not sell very well, but the sunglasses did. So we decided to stop selling dog collars and invest more heavily in sunglasses. Today, we have one of the best selections of sunglasses available anywhere, online or offline, and they continue to sell well for us.

How often do your Tweets turn into actual sales? Do you measure that in some way?
We don’t measure that because we don’t think of Twitter as a direct marketing channel. Twitter allows us to be more personal with our customers and build relationships with them over time.

What was the most effective thing you did to maximize web awareness?
Most of our awareness online or offline has been generated by word of mouth. We really just focus on WOWing our customers, and let our customers do the marketing for us.

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Best Nicole

Interactive media will represent nearly one of every five dollars spent by marketers on media in the U.S. next year, according to estimates released Wednesday by WPP’s GroupM unit, the largest buyer of media in the world. The agency holding company’s new global ad spending forecast predicts interactive media, primarily online, will represent 17% of the U.S. advertising marketplace in 2010, up from 15.4% in 2009, and making.

 That makes interactive the third largest medium in the U.S., behind television’s 44.2% share, and magazine’s 18.4% share of 2010 advertising budgets. According to GroupM’s estimates, interactive media will overtake newspaper’s U.S. advertising share this year. Newspapers, which had a 14.8% share of U.S. ad spending in 2008, will fall to a 13.6% share this year, and a 12.4% share next year. Interactive media had a 13.9% share in 2008.

Radio’s U.S. advertising share also continues to erode, dropping to 5.6% this year, from 6.0% in 2008. GroupM predicts radio’s share of U.S. ad spending will drop to 5.2% in 2010.

Out-of-home media spending remains steady at 2.7%.

While the U.S. isn’t the largest interactive media marketplace in the world in terms of penetration, it is the biggest in terms of advertising volume. While the GroupM report does not break out the components of interactive media, it estimates that marketers will spend $23.9 billion on interactive media in the U.S. in 2010, representing 39.9% of the world’s $59.9 billion interactive advertising marketplace.

The largest market in terms of interactive media penetration is the U.K., where British marketers will spend 30.9% of their advertising budgets on interactive media, followed by Denmark, where interactive media will have a 28.4% share next year. Ireland has the smallest interactive advertising penetration of any major Western industrialized nation, with a 3.0% share in 2010, up from just 1.8% in 2009.

Globally, marketers will invest 14.6% of their worldwide advertising budgets on interactive media, up from 13.2% in 2009.

GroupM Futures Director Adam Smith, the author of the new forecast, said the only other major media to increase share during the global advertising recession are TV and outdoor media.

“TV and out-of-home have both added share of global ad investment, while newspapers continue to shed a point of share a year,” he noted in the report. “It may also be the case that TV and out-of-home’s relative cheapness compared to newspapers has encouraged this, and perhaps newspapers have been less willing to flex pricing too.”

So many people feel that if they put up a facebook page and create a twitter account that they’re off to the races with a social media campaign that will lead them to an instant increase of their goals. (For some it may work, but even those people have a plan in mind in regards to how they connect their campaigns.) For most, an “increase of their goals” arguably means sales. As social media and social networking are now allowing consumers to take control—to have a voice and be able to choose to speak to, and with, the products, services and people they care about—there is no more hiding from this marketing channel. What truly makes this channel great is when you have a strategy that partners with the offline channels as well. Email is terrific. But what happens when that customer who received your email goes to your bricks and mortar business? If there is not a seamless integration and continuity of that online message (we all remember it takes 5 to 8 replays of the same message for it to resonate) you risk the chance that your message will be lost or never received.

It is creating a strategy—a plan that includes your online, offline and in-store marketing channels—that will ensure that your message never gets lost. The post below from Marketing Profs, Get to the Point, gives you a few ways to see how this works.

What’s your plan?

Best Nicole

For too long, too many marketers have underestimated the value of email’s impact on offline retail,” say Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison in a post at the Email Experience Council blog. If you focus entirely on generating online sales, they argue, you might be missing out on bricks-and-mortar opportunities. They’ve seen retailers use multichannel “noteworthy tactics” like these:

In-store discounts that are unavailable online. The pair cite an email offer from Betsey Johnson touting a special perk for in-store shoppers: a gift card worth at least $25 for those who spend $250 or more.

Images and copy that heighten the appeal of an in-store visit. “Apple reminds subscribers … of their great in-store service by including a picture of a blue-shirted expert alongside store offerings,” they say, “and also by using beautiful store photography to make subscribers eager to experience in-store shopping.”

Personalized invitations. Have your sales associates write personal emails with an invitation to a special in-store event. Nordstrom, for instance, did this when inviting its most loyal customers to a special sneak-peek ahead of an anniversary sale.

The Po!nt: Link your 2D and 3D. “Remember that there’s likely much overlap between your most loyal email subscribers and your loyal store visitors,” say Harmon and Madison. If you haven’t leveraged that crossover, try using strategies like these to help make it happen.