on Sunday I gave a lecture at The Marker’s Customer Experience Conference. I spoke about: “The relationship between the brand and the consumer on social networks: From flirt to love.”

How should brands engage with consumers on social networks? You’ll see that the relationship between brands and consumers on social networks is very similar to the relationship between couples.  The presentation displays three examples of  brands that handle their social media efforts differently. HP, the third brand, clearly exemplifies how giving back to your community, being responsive and listening before selling is the best policy. Please note that the presentation is in Hebrew.

Last month we launched our Skype contest and announced that we would give out Skype Buddy Kits to the five people who could give us the best answer to the following question: “What Social Feature Are You Missing in Skype?” We wanted to share with you some of the best answers we received:

1) Roy Rubin feels that what is missing in Skype is “better integration with other social media services. Skype should have a much stronger user’s profile page, with links to twitter and FB for example.”

2) Anat Eshel wishes there was Skype share – the abillity to share part of the chat on social networks, such as facebook or twitter.

3) Doron Sanders suggests that Skype add a Chatroulette feature that will allow you to talk to random people on Camera.

4) Ilan Yogev simply wants a “e-hugging” feature.

5) Oren Todoros would love if Skype had a “Record and Podcast It” button. He wants a feature that would allow him to record the conversation (video or voice) and enable him to publish it straight to his blog, hassle free.

6) Benyamin Shoham would like to be able to add his friends from other IM services to skype: Import friends from Gtalk, Facebook chat, twitter etc. and show which of his contacts has skype.

7) Ted Russ suggests: “I’d love for selected people to be able to message me on Skype and have it sent to my mobile phone.”

8 ) Jesper Åström adds: “I am missing the feature of “Person x is currently talking to person y”. I would like to have a “Join this conversation” button and a “Private conversation” button for those convos that aren’t open. Perhaps a bit intrusive, but highly social. That way people would “hang” on Skype for longer periods of time, just random…”

9) Nir Soffer would love to be able to preselect certain groups (Friends, Family, Work, etc.) and have the capability to assign different statuses to each group (busy to work, invisible to family, online to friends), assign different forwarding numbers to each group (have a work phone, family phone, etc.) and assign a different SkypeIn number for each group. He would also love to be able message the entire group.

10) Skype’s lack of integration with other social networks was the most popular answer. As Jonathan Ross comically expressed: “There are times u just want to be able to see all your evil henchmen and collaborate via video on your latest project for world domination, (or is that antisocial media?) It would make it infinitely easier if Skype connected my Twitter contacts/ friends/ followers.”

We enjoyed reading all your creative answers and will make sure to deliver this feedback to Skype. You might just see some of these ideas integrated in Skype’s next version.

So with no further ado, the winners of our contest are…..(drumroll):

1) Doron Sanders

2) Jonathan Ross

3) Ilan Yogev

4) Oren Todoros

5) Jesper Åström

Congratz to the winners! Thanks to everyone who participated from Buddy, Skype and the Blonde 2.0 Team.

I will contact the 5 winners via Facebook and get your shipping details so that I can get Buddy on his way to you.

If we look back in history , we will find that much before Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, there was ICQ. For anyone who doesn’t know, ICQ was created in 1996 and is now wholly owned by AOL. ICQ was THE pioneer of social media and real time updates. It introduced us to instant messaging and a revolutionary new way to communicate with people instantly in real time. ICQ could have been Facebook or Twitter a long time ago. It’s taken ICQ quite a long time to get back to its status as a social pioneer but now with it’s new client, ICQ is getting back to what it was about all the way from the beginning – a place to interact with your friends everywhere. Everybody Everywhere is after all ICQ’s slogan and being an ICQ veteran myself, I am very excited to announce the launch of the new ICQ 7.

ICQ 7 is a client that brings together all your social interactions from across the Web. Instead of having to open a few different pages and applications to get my friends’ status updates on Facebook, to read tweets of my favorite people and to follow what’s happening on other sites as well such as Youtube, Flickr, Digg and Delicious.  ICQ 7 allows me to use one personal communication tool to integrate all my online social activities.  I am able to syndicate my updates to all of my social networks with a single click and get status updates & tweets from all my friends in my networks in one single platform.

ICQ 7 enables real-time updates from content sharing sites and top social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Digg and Delicious and will soon announce the integration of local social networks. Found side by side with the ICQ Contact List, users can find a separate tab of real time feeds and updates from their friends from their various social networks. Users will no longer need to open up a new browser and log in to separate networks that they’re members of each time they want to comment on their friend’s updates. From now on, consider ICQ to be your social networks’ one-stop-shop no longer will I need to search for content on different platforms – the content finds me.  ICQ 7′s interface is also improved with software that is fully compatible with all versions of Microsoft Windows, including Windows 7.

My Status: Status updates I make on ICQ can be automatically posted in my other supported networks as well.  I can also easily share pictures and links.

Feeds from Friends: Updates made by user’s friends on leading social networks and content sharing sites appear in real time in the “Feeds from Friends” tab on the contact list.  The user can comment on these updates directly from his/her ICQ and the comment will appear also in the relevant social network/site.  ICQ users can see updates from all their friends in the various social networks – not just from friends that have ICQ.

My Box: The “My Box” tab on the ICQ Contact List is the place where ICQ users get all notifications of their personal online activity – who commented on my status and in which site, who liked the photos I uploaded, etc.

New User Profile: ICQ 7 presents a more enhanced user profile – both within the client and on the Website.  The user profile is the place where users can display who they are by sharing pictures and personal updates on their page.  The new user profile is now offered in color schemes that are fully customizable to suit the user’s mood. Additionally, the new user profile allows ICQ users to view their friends’ contact lists and add new people to their own contact list, thereby increasing their circle of friends.

Picture-Sharing Tool: A new, quick and fun application for sharing pictures with friends:

Faster, Lighter: ICQ 7 performance has been vastly improved with installation time reduced by nearly 50% and requested space for installation reduced approximately by 30%.

ICQ 7 offers a Social Messaging client that enables quick and easy communication friends from across networks, ability to view real-time updates from: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Digg and Delicious. ICQ’s Managing Director, Eliav Moshe, says:

“ICQ 7 brings Social Messaging into play, integrating users’ online social world with their personal communication tool.  The new version answers users’ needs for a quick and easy communication tool that also helps you be up to date with everything that’s going on in multiple social networks and content sharing sites.  With a loyal community of over 42 million users worldwide, we are working on the upcoming integration of local social networks into ICQ 7 as well.”

It is only fitting that the company that was the pioneer of the Web 2.0 era has now integrated this Web 2.0 world into one manageable space in the best possible manner.  Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think. In my opinion it offers the best solution we have today for one platform which integrates all my social interactions into one convenient platform.

Become an ICQ fan on Facebook

Check out their Twitter

(Disclosure: Blonde 2.0 is ICQ’s social media firm)

Many B2B companies ask me whether Social Media is right for them. This post is all about why social media and B2B go hand in hand. Social Media is all about conversational marketing and this is why it works so well with B2B strategy.

Social media is not about the masses. It is about reaching your target audience. Listening before selling and hearing before talking. Oftentimes businesses like to measure a social media campaign’s success by the number of followers its twitter account has or the number of fans their facebook page has, however, these measures are not necessarily the signs to a well-executed social media campaign.

Social media is all about the few rather than the many. The community you build up is ideally made up of the people who are most interested in your brand. If we apply the 80-20 rule here, we are speaking of the 20% who make up 80% of your business.

B2B strategy, just like B2C strategy is all about networking, conversing with the right people,  at the right time. The more in tune you are to things that are happening in your network, the more you increase your chances to be at the right place, at the right time.

According to eMarketer in 2010, these will be the results for online marketing spending:

As you can see, Website spending is forecast to rise 71% and social media spending will increase 60% in the next year.

It is apparent that companies are understanding that they need to: 1) Create a social presence within social networks and 2) Create a Website and/or blog that reflects an active online presence.

As to the reasons most B2B companies are using social networks, emarketer had the following results:

As you can see, companies turn to social networks to show their leadership in their field, to find new potential customers by communicating with the community, to receive customer feedback and give customer service. There’s no better tool these days than twitter to handle real-time customer service issues and many brands do this beautifully, including ComcastCares, Dell, and Starbucks. They also advertise and do market research via social networks.

What about the reasons that companies use social media?

The top reason B2B companies (just like B2C companies) use social media is to generate awareness about their brand. Second top reason is to engage with customers on an on-going daily basis. As you can see, the 3rd top reason that companies use social media is to engage with top influencers on the Web.

Monitoring online conversations and responding to feedback is an extremely important element of social media which only 14% of companies seem to understand.

B2B companies that are not utilizing the social tools they are given today, will find themselves at a major disadvantage to other B2B companies that are using LinkedIn, twitter and other such networks to extend their reach and create better communication between the brand and their customers and potential customers.

Next time you doubt whether social media is right for B2B companies, think about what B2B strategy is all about – it is about the relationships and partnerships you build with your colleagues and there’s no better way to do this today than through social media.

Image credit: StickyMessage

(Guest Post by Dorine Sinigaglia)

For years, I have been using social networks like Facebook & Myspace to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. As much as I love my social networking time and devote hours of my day to it, I have become an even bigger advocate of LinkedIn – a social network that I consider covers my “professional side” – and feel that it doesn’t get as much recognition as it should in the social media world. My friend and I recently got into a brief debate about the effectiveness of LinkedIn, where I stated my strong views about this site being a great source for job hunting, and his response was: “LinkedIn? That’s not a fun website!” I disagreed immediately, for expanding my professional network is genuinely fun for me! This network has made such an impact on my professional career that I felt the need to share how much I value my LinkedIn profile.

Earlier this year, I moved to Israel after growing up in the US and obtaining my Bachelor’s degree. Arriving in a new city, new country, leaving all my former connections behind, I was a bit worried about ways of connecting with potential employers for employment opportunities and establishing myself again. I signed up with a few employment agencies and job hunting websites, and even got a few callbacks and interview requests to the hundreds of resumes I sent out. But I must say, the biggest influence on my professional network and what has helped me the most with my job search prior to getting an offer was my dedicated involvement with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has helped me connect and reconnect with so many people on so many levels. From former employers and clients to colleagues and classmates from college, my professional social network began to grow exponentially and my job search soon became fun and productive. Rather than simply sending employers standard emails with a simple cover letter, my resume and sign my name with my phone number (as if they would really call me, right?) I started including a link to my LinkedIn profile as part of my email signature. The added benefit of adding a link to your profile “enables people to see all your credentials, which would be awkward if not downright strange, as an attachment,” according to Guy Kawasaki‘s blog post in Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn.

But before sending my resume to any employer that somewhat appealed to me, I did the proper research about the company on LinkedIn to see if they had a presence. By checking on the company and by screening through their list of employees and who may possibly be holding a position I am applying for, I could get the inside scoop on the company, my potential future colleagues and managers and my growth potential within the company. According to Guy, the LinkedIn network consists of “more than 8.5 million experienced professionals from around the world representing 130 industries.” How cool is that?! Still, it was surprising to me as to how many companies I searched for that did not have a company profile on LinkedIn, and this factor sometimes made it easier for me to pass judgment on the credibility of the company and of their growth potential in their industry.

When it comes to connections – the more the merrier, as the more connections you have the more opportunities you are exposed to. Your contacts have the potential to help you grow your career, find a job opportunity, be a source for referrals and reference checks and expand your professional network. According to Guy’s blog post, “people with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.” The format to adding connections on LinkedIn (when compared to Facebook, for example) is a little more reserved, as it asks you to state where you may know this potential connection from. I found that by joining relevant groups or networks within the career field I was interested in, I could participate in forums and offer my opinions about topics within the industry, and this actually made it easier for me to connect to others within that group. Joining groups within the industry I was interested in pursuing – such Marketing & PR Innovators - opened many doors for me in terms of making new connections and expanding my knowledge about the industry.

Another way that I was able to connect to someone that I didn’t know personally was by turning to a current connection of mine to “introduce” me to their connection. This was a great way for me to express my interest in the connection’s industry, let them know I am interested in learning more about their company, inquire about potential job openings that I might be suited for – all while a formal introduction was sent through my trusted connection. I was amazed as to how many people accepted the introduction and were so helpful with my job search.

As I write this post and sigh with relief that my job search is over and am happily employed at Blonde 2.0, I know that I am where I am today because of the help of my professional network and can thank LinkedIn for providing me with that outlet. Since resumes can be long and tedious to read at times – and never simple to fit all of your accomplishments on one page – as employers suggest, having a LinkedIn profile is a direct and effective way to show people who you are professionally without confining yourself to a conventional resume. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Dorine Sinigaglia is the Account & Content Manager for Blonde 2.0

Dorine is a dedicated individual with experience in account management, sales and business development for large corporations. She gets to know all the ins and outs of each account she handles and gets up close and personal with everyone she works with.

In the years that I’ve been involved in social media, I have heard so many misconceptions and myths about social media that I am certain this article is long overdue. Here is a list of the top five misconceptions regarding social media:

1) Misconception #1: Social Media is only right for certain brands – Often time people ask me: ” Is social media only right for web services or for “cool” products? The answer is no. Social media is right for every brand as long as the brand is able to find its target audience within a certain platform and converse/interact with it in an effective manner. Of course it may be exciting to do a marketing campaign for Apple than for Charles Schwab but for either one of those brands a targeted social media campaign within social networks and the blogosphere can bring amazing results as far as: Brand awareness, Overall buzz around the brand, traffic, customer loyalty and ultimately revenue.
In fact often time it is the “duller” brands that experience the most growth out of social media campaigns because they experience a more substantial change in popularity between their starting point A and their ending point B than the “cooler” brands. Take for example Mint which is an online personal finance service and was just bought by Intuit for $170 Million. Not the most exciting of startups perhaps and yet Mint is a fine example of a company that did a great job in using social media to maximize the buzz around its brand, making its blog magazine-like with articles about tips for young parents and other interesting content. Mint made their content so interesting in fact that users/blog readers promote the brand on their own.

2) Misconception #2: Social Media is all about getting traffic and quickly – Social media marketing is a long term process that takes time. Once a brand enters any network such as Facebook or MySpace, it takes time to build that brand’s community. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a community on Facebook. If you want to do social media marketing right and not just spam the hell out of people, you must use conversational marketing to engage them. Conversational marketing is all about conversing with your community. Learning more about their likes and dislikes, listening before speaking and reacting based upon the customers’ feedback.
Whoever thinks that he will open a Facebook page and reach tens of thousands of site visitors on the first day, is dead wrong. Brands that use social media to promote themselves will see a steady growth in traffic to their sites over time as their brand names become more and more viral within the networks – due to the increase in number of fans, number of tweets, exposure in blogs, etc.
Sure there are different ways which will increase the rate of a brand’s virality on the Web. For example, creating strong social incentives for people on your site which will increase their urge to promote your brand is definitely a factor which will heighten the public’s awareness. You can read more about social incentives in this post I had written last year. However, don’t expect to get thousands of visitors to your site before you’ve been able to build 1) A strong loyal online community 2) A strong incentives system to increase brand awareness. Both these goals take time to achieve. From my experience, it usually takes about three months to start seeing effective results when using social media tools.

3) Misconception #3: “By using social media we will lose control of our Brand’s Image” – Executives (especially in big companies) often think that their employees will go wild and start telling every horror story imaginable regarding their brand because the company will open a Facebook page. So here’s the scoop: People will talk about your brand whether you like it or not. Opening a Facebook page is not going to change it and not opening a Facebook page is not going to make it go away. The question is: Do you want to be a part of that conversation or not? By having a presence in social networks and blogs, you as a brand show your customers and employees that you care about their feedback and that you are there to listen and satisfy their needs.
I’ll give you a real time example: My hosting company is Network Solutions. For a few days my blog wasn’t uploading and I started to get very pissed off. I tweeted “Network Solutions Sucks” and specifically addressed @Shashib – the guy who handles Network Solutions’ social media efforts. A few moments later I received a tweet back from Shashib. He wanted to hear what’s wrong and help me resolve the problem. He promised a Network Solutions agent would call me soon. Within a few moments I received a phone call from an agent who helped me fix the situation and upload my site. At that moment, Network Solutions won my customer loyalty forever (or until the next time they screw up ). Real time customer care is something that brands can utilize social media tools for (specifically twitter) like no other marketing tools they have had till now. We’ve already seen amazing examples of customer care from Zappos and Dell. Brands should not be afraid of engaging in honest and transparent conversations with their clients online but rather they should be very afraid of ignoring their customers’ complaints and pretending that everything’s fine when it’s not.

4) Misconception #4: Social Media Is Just a Fad – I often hear people who say that social networks are just a passing fad. This is what I have to say to them: Social media is an inevitable digital evolution of our desire as humans to communicate with one another. It is a desire that we always had and will always continue to have as long as we are human. I had written about this topic in the past. To say that social media is just a fad is to say that communication is just a fad. Here are a few stats that might help to change the mind of those who are still apprehensive:

1) 2/3 of the global internet population visit social networks and time spent on social networks is growing at 3x the overall internet rate, accounting for ~10% of all internet time.

2) Visiting social sites is now the 4th most popular online activity – ahead of personal email!

Care to change your mind?

5) Misconception #5: “I don’t need a professional to do social media for me” – Many executives think that they don’t need a professional to help them with their social media activities. They’ll just take a student who has a few hours a week and get him to sit on the social networks and play with their company’s branding. It’s inconceivable to me how on one hand companies can be so cautious regarding beginning to use social media and on the other hand they’ll give the work to a mere student who could ruin their branding in a few hours just to save a few bucks. In order to engage in social media campaigns that are effective and successful, companies should use social media expert services at least in the first few months just to understand the specific rules of each community. One must remember that Facebook, twitter, Mixx, Bebo are all communities with their own set of rules and it is crucial for brands to respect the community’s rules in order to survive. Just like a company wouldn’t take on its PR on its own without consulting with a PR expert first, a company should not delve into social media without consulting with a social media expert. After a few months of training, I believe brands can take the work upon themselves, but they must not forgo the training period as they could do more damage than good for their branding.

These are the top five misconceptions I’ve heard regarding social media although I’ve heard many more. I would be delighted if you guys shared in the comments section some of the misconceptions that you’ve heard.

Photo credit: Gary Hayes and Laurel Papworth

Guest Post written by Ilan Peer

For the past two years I have been active on twitter and only recently (as of June 2008) my close friends and colleagues began to show up on twitter and therefore increased the amount of related and relevant content for me. twitter has become a daily tool of communication which I use via Web browser, additional applications and on my mobile device.
Unlike other social networks, twitter is about connecting people in a way that appeals to me the most. The lack of
approval needed to follow others enables mass networking. The many-to-many interaction is fascinating and the academic world is starting to study the social behavior on twitter and other mass networking platforms.

I think eventually twitter (and other communication services) will change the way we think, act, make friends, shop and of course consume media.

Here are my personal twitter ethics and morals I live by:

Be nice, be polite – leave your rants to your blog or anonymous comments. Due to the vast search capability, it is likely you will show up on someone’s radar even if it wasn’t your intention.

Watch your language – if you tweet in other languages rather than English, make sure not to swamp your English
readers feed with a language they cannot understand. If you want to target one specific audience who are non-English
speakers, think about creating a separate account.

Think of your copy writing – try and conserve characters (even though you have up to 140 characters to begin with) If you hope to get retweeted , do not use up all of the 140 characters. Leave room so that when a person retweets the message, there is enough space for their user-name and the complete original tweet. This is a thoughtful way to make sure the entirety of the message is redistributed to the retweeter’s stream.

It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality – For a personal account you don’t actually need 30 thousand followers, and if you do – chances are you will lose the human touch (hey, that’s why we’re here in the first place). Try to find followers and be followed in a natural and organic manner. Don’t feel like you are in a race for increasing numbers. Get to know your community and let them get to know you.

Choose whatever twitter application is right for you – in my opinion there is no top application or service that beats them all. I’ve been using the same ol’ twitterfox for months now. I did try other tools but I didn’t stick with them.  twitterfox is  the most convenient way for me to tweet, and that is why I still use it.  As far as mobile goes, I can’t let go of my symbian application called Gravity. I’m so happy with that it made me a paying costumer even though there are other free mobile clients and apps.

Use all different kinds of media – take pictures with your mobile and upload them to twitpic or other twitter photo services, shoot videos and use twitter to spread them. Technology is so handy and these extra and rich tools add a lot of personal touch.

Be coherent and relevant – if you reply a tweet use the little reply arrow, this way the back and forth conversation between two users allows bystanders to follow the conversation.

Find your own way – there is no right or wrong, good or bad (you can even dismiss this whole post) on twitter. twitter is a personal communication tool where people  decide for themselves what is the best way to use the service. Try and get the most out of it and if you don’t see the need (nor understand the hype) give it a rest.  Somewhere down the line another service will come along and fill the  need for a mass communication tool.

if you want to connect with me on twitter, i am @ilan_peer.
Good luck!

photo credit to: gesamtbild

Have you heard the story of how Larry the bird became Twitter’s mascot? Larry’s owner got fired from his job and could no longer afford to keep him. The little blue bird was forced to flee his home, briefcase in wing, and find a job. He tried all the traditional routes: employment agency, newspaper job listings, online classifieds, but nothing worked. Then he signed up for a Facebook account and everything changed from there. Just like Larry found out, the best way to find a job these days or find employees is through Web 2.0 tools like social networks. This is what we call Recruitment 2.0. I talked about this subject a few months back. Check it out here.

Social networks have replaced job boards and companies looking for skilled, savvy employees now have a plethora of options for recruitment online. Recruiting through social networks allows unprecedented reach in terms of potential employees and amount of information available on each candidate, with the added bonus of being one of the most cost-effective recruitment tools around.

Watch the story of Larry the Bird:

If the mere thought of “big brother” watching you drives you mad, then you surely wouldn’t want to be a Wall Street Journalist right now. The Social Media rules for WSJ have just been revised into a much more strict affair. Here are a few that have drawn cause for discussion:

1) Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.

2) Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.

3) Don’t discuss articles that haven’t been published, meetings you’ve attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you’ve conducted.

4) Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter. Common sense should prevail, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.

Contracted Dow Jones site writer, Peter Kafka, responded to these rules by basically stating that he didn’t “have a problem with the bulk of this stuff… big organizations like to spell this stuff out, for both management and legal reasons. Nature of the beast.” Glad you don’t mind Peter!

Image Credit: lis_glass