2010 in review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2010. That's about 26 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 29 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 105 posts. There were 30 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 8mb. That's about 3 pictures per month.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, stumbleupon.com, booksbysandy.com, linkedin.com, and rapichat.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for what is marketing 2.0, sandy carter, sandy carter blog, different dance steps, and fiskateers.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
My 10 Social Media Resolutions for 2010! December 2009
7 Key Social Media Trends in India March 2009
BlogHer -- Fiskar's Use of Fiskateers!!! Great social networking case study! July 2009
The Seven Sacred Pools in Hawaii! A Story Lives in your Heart Forever! July 2009
Social Media Sandy's Take on IBM's Industry Symposium November 2010
11 in 2011 - My New Year's Predictions for This Year!!
My predictions for Social Business in 2011:
1. Virtual gifting will become mainstream. The research shows that people value virtual gifts as much as real gifts (now why did I spend all that money on Christmas?) Social dating sites already make lots of money on virtual roses and IBM did the virtual "hex" necklace for our great developers. What will 2011 bring!
2. Crowdsourcing will be used by the crowds. Crowds of successful companies that is. The most competitive and successful companies in 2011 will use crowdsourcing for new products and services. Enough said.
3. Social media and gaming will interconnect and gaming will become "the" currency in 2011. Games like Farmville will become the norm due to the popularity of gaming with all ages and the fun, teachable moments that encompass it. Aren't Foursquare and Gowalla just gaming platforms? Will everything become a gaming platform? I think so!!
4. Everything is Mobile. I am now on my iPhone more than my computer. In 2011, your cell phone will grow in its usage from wallet, ticket broker, concierge, bank, shopping buddy and more.
5. Cyberwarfare has just begun. With the Wikileaks publicity , cyberwarfare has just begun. It's power is great and its numbers more than we can imagine.
6. Talent will select companies who embrace social media. Talented resources will want to work for the uberconnected company. Beware -- those of you out there who still restrict your employees.
7. Put a ring on it. Engagement is Queen! Customer engagement is the winning strategy in 2011. Purchases are often the result of emotions, maximizing a customer's hands-on experience within the environment
8. Crystal balls are required. Social Analytics that not only tell you what's been done but predict based on that information will be the wave of the future.
9. Friends matter most. In the next five years, consumers will increasingly rely on themselves - and the opinions of each other - to make purchasing decisions rather than wait for help from companies. 2011 is the time to get yourself a group of Brand Advocates to assist your brand!
10. PR is 2.0. The potential for PR 2.0 is immense, and I don't think anyone realizes that PR 2.0 will educate citizens and influence so many in ways corporations and governments have not realized ... yet!
11. Social business not Social Media. Today, companies are using social media to talk to clients, to do sentiment analysis...all important. But 2011 will be the Social Business year. Social business is about being able to leverage social tools to have sell side analysts communicate to institutional traders, reinvented CRM systems, social learning, and process changes to incorporate social.
Crowdsourcing through an iPhone App-- CreekSide!
I love my iPhone and just last night were hunting for my next favorite app!
I came across a great usage of an iPhone app for crowdsourcing...for a greater good. It is called Creekside .. click here to learn more.
This application enables everyone to contribute to cleaning up our waterways -- crowdsourcing if you would for the world!
What is crowdsourcing? To me, it is a world of the future. It involves leveraging the "crowds" or all of us on the blogsphere to enhance products or services, provide a point of view, or even better the world.
In this example, Creekside involves crowdsourcing problems with our waterways.
How do you get started? You can download this from the Apple App Store and is free. It is very easy to use -- it took me only seconds!!
First, you see a waterway -- like a creek or lake that I stopped by yesterday.
Use your iPhone to take a picture and then upload the following information:
What happens next?
This social application then aggregates the data. You can see what others have uploaded or written -- that's the crowdsourcing magic!
As the data is consolidated, it is shipped to the water control boards in the local regions.
Watch the why s of the application!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/_--6KAptDL4&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390">]
Do you have another great Crowdsourcing Application? I'd love to see it.
WII Dance 2! A Social Game!!
OK! I admit it. My arms are sore. I can't get "That's Not My Name" lyrics out of my head. Yep...I am playing the new WII Dance 2 game with my daughters.
Besides this being absurdly fun and a great way to embarrass the kids while I jam away, these social games on the WII really enable social interaction unlike games played alone.
Gaming is at a crossroads. Gaming and Social Media are intersecting -- not just at gaming but also in many companies. Social media will change every aspect of business and their business models just as it will with gaming. It will change the way we play games .. aka Dance 2, and who plays games aka me and what a game is. The world we see today will change in the next 5 years with gaming being part of education for Fortune 500 companies, enabling the disabled to be better equipped for the world, and for even generating demand for goods and services.
The new generation learns from games ... and will expect this style of learning and fun to be prevalent in all their applications of the future.
Who knew that a simple WII game could impact the world!
What do you think?
Social Media Sandy's Take on IBM's Industry Symposium
The IBM Industry Symposium was in Spain this week -- featuring a business development day and 2 days with global clients.
My key take aways from the event:
1. Smarter Planet is an aspirational goal. Clients see value in the Smarter Planet value proposition and view the goals as their goals.
2. New language. LOB is becoming more important as a decision maker and therefore anybody needs to speak their language. For example, the newly introduce CMO agenda has CMO speak. The Industry Frameworks are in native language of the industry.
3. IBM Ahead on the Industry Frameworks. The Frameworks serve as the cookbook for the focus areas that make a difference.
4. Social business is mainstream. From Air Canada, to IBM, to 1800 flowers, to Oncor, Social business was part of CEO, CIO, and CTO conversations about how to connect to the client of today and tomorrow.
5. Becoming an Uber Connected Corporation is critical for competitiveness. The executive focus and dollars invested in the IBM ecosystem was impressive and completely aligned with the IBM strategy. For example, the new SVP Industry Authorization provides partners access to critical "ingredient" assets.
6. Analytics is the new black. Analytics for predictive capability is the way to dynamically reach your clients. Learn about it and hire the skills now. Enough said.
7. Show me the outcomes. It is now all about business outcomes. 2009 was about efficiencies and cost reduction. 2010 is all about revenue growth.
8. Industry experts are the new popular kids. Everyone the industry experts from clients and IBM went, a train of people followed. This industry expertise is the new hot skill in the market. Tell your kids.
9. Tolerance is gone. Given everyone is used to the interface of the iPad, iPhone, gaming, etc, the new view of IT is that it must be friendly and easy. I heard this in EVERY industry group I attended.
10. Vertical is the buzz. Enough said.
Social Media and Oncor: A Smart Grid Utility Company
Really? Oncor -- the largest utility company in Texas -- and the leader in Smart Grids, not only speak Texan, but social media? Texas utility Oncor is communicating with customers via social media in order to meet the needs & expectations of their customers!
I am live at the IBM Industry Symposium, and I heard from Mark Carpenter, CTO OnCor Energy. From knowing ahead of time that the power is out .. (his quote " We don't have to wait on the customer to tell us when their power goes out. We already know") to allowing bill and usage tracking from iPhones, they have embedded social networks in all they do to service clients.
Mark made some great comments about how they have transformed their customers service and operations by moving to social networks. to meet demand. Customers don't want call centers, they want tech centers, and they want the ability to access that across ALL channels through social media. So Oncor is delivering it in real time in all channels! They recognize that customer behaviour changing with text, mobile and social media channels. Do you?
Social Networks and 1800 Flowers: Live from IBM SIS!
Chris McMann, President from 1800 Flowers, says that Social Media gives his company a competitive advantage. They use this new dialogue both internally and externally.
For instance, for their call centers, since they are now remote, they leverage internal communities for keeping in touch with the corporate culture.
Externally, they had people staffing Twitter, Facebook on Mother's Day and Valentine's Day to resolve issues. Their competition did not leverage this media and their competitors saw their complaints grow, while 1800 Flowers, saw comments on their responsiveness, and care.
So now they Social Media to tell the story about their brand. They ask their customers to tell everyone about traditions, about their mom's for example. They took those stories and placed them in a book -- called "celebrating moms" and creating a space in the virtual world. They now sell the book as an offer on Mother's day!
Chris said he is trying to even learn more about his clients and their needs. He is engaged in the dialogue to ensure he keeps up to speed on what makes people smile!
China -- Sina Weibo -- Twitter Mini Me!
I was just in China -- and missed Tweeting. In 2009, the China Government disallowed Twitter in the country.
Whilte twitter brought the concept of the microblog to China, now there is a China version that the people of China showed me. It is called Sina Weibo.
Around 3/2010, Sina's CEO Cao Guowei revealed there were 5 million registered users of the service but claimed in May that they had doubled the number of members. In comparison, it took Twitter nearly 30 months to attract the same number of users.
From what I saw, the service is a Twitter mini me! It allows users to post 140 Chinese characters. However, my team in China told me that 140 Chinese characters can say a lot more!!!
I am very interested in finding out more about how this is used. If anyone has used Sina, could you comment back to me as I'd like to chat to you!
Top Social Media Tools for Small Businesses
Top 3 Tools for Small Businesses Using Social Media!
So in our latest onine survey of 1000 small businesses, we found that the top social media tools by small businesses were -- in order -- are: Linked In, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
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80% use LinkedIn on a monthly basis, and 56% visit it daily or weekly.
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68% use Facebook on a monthly basis, and 46% visit it daily or weekly. (YouTube 77%/37% and Twitter 50%/29%)
Results show that partners from smaller companies and in executive roles have a higher usage of these four predominant social networking sites.
Consistent with Experian:
These numbers are on par with new media survey results from Experian Simmons issued this summer.
The survey showed that 66% of all online adults today have visited a social networking site in the last 30 days -- and these numbers are up from 53% in 2008 and just 20% three years ago in 2007. (see here! http://www.smrb.com/web/guest/2010-social-media-report )
IBM has what it takes!
It was also great to see that an overwhelming 97 percent of respondents described IBM's social computing capabilities as moderately to much better than other competing large IT vendors. It means they value what we're doing -- our expertise and technology.
5 Don'ts in Social Media! A Video
So we did this video for our IBM business partners on the 5 Don'ts!
I'd love to see your comments!!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsAUTI_FneY]