Archive for November, 2006

Brand Socialism

Published
by
Dave
on November 28, 2006
in Conversation, Marketing, Relationships, WOM, adaptation and communities
. 1 Comment

Are you ready to share ownership of your brand?

Customer-driven communication tools like blogs, cellphones and email are making Word of Mouth (WOM) the most significant channel in marketing and branding today.

Brands are now subject to public customer feedback that’s far more influential than any big-budget ad campaign. So, pushy messages are generally shot down, whereas authentic communication is rewarded.

Ads that extol your product’s virtues will fall on deaf ears – and in-fact, may alienate your market. Rather, be a brand socialist and share the credit for a great brand or product with your customers.The key here is collaboration, humility and involvement.

We need to move towards more involvement and less obscure ideas cooked up without broad-based customer involvement.
Brand socialism is about making the most of many minds.

Reg Lascaris has more…

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TECH4FRICA 2007: A web and emerging technology conference

Published
by
Dave
on November 27, 2006
in Conversation, Events, Relationships and social networking
. 3 Comments

Tech4Africa 2007

If you’d like to:

  • Hear international speakers and authors presenting in your own back yard.
  • Discuss what the global web and technology opportunities are over the next 5 years
  • Understand what technologies are making the biggest impact
  • Thrash out how the web can positively play a role in the development of (Southern) Africa
  • Create a fun, informative event where you can meet and interact with other people like you

…then go fill out the questionaire at technologyforafrica.org!

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South African Social Networking Site for SMME’s

Published
by
Dave
on November 27, 2006
in Relationships, communities and social networking
. 19 Comments

My Genius logoI’m impressed with a South African online social-networking service for business called MyGenius.

MyGenius allows users to promote themselves, build relationships and possibly collaborate with others. It’s been up for about three months, and already it’s got a nice size user base.

I created an account today and I’ve already been contacted with a couple of personal and relevant offers from the community of business people who use it.

Other members can find you based on keyword searches, your tags, your industry or anything you’ve written on your profile blog.

Go and sign up now, it’s a great way to pickup business and make good contacts.

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It just seems inauthentic, Samsung

Published
by
Dave
on November 18, 2006
in Marketing, Reviews, blogging and social media strategy
. 0 Comments

Me and Mike Solomon think Samsung SA is having a misguided attempt at promoting their d900 phone with a blog which is cryptically called “Sams World“.

It’s written by someone who knows faaar too much about the d900 cell phone, and says things like:

My D900 ain’t no land-lubber and neither am I.

Who talks about their cellphone like that?

There’s no indication of who the authors are, and there’s no disclosure from Samsung. Big mistake.

You also need to be logged in to comment on the blog. Are they scared of their consumers’ opinions?

It probably won’t backfire on them, but unless it’s changed it won’t really amount to much either – which is far worse. Such wasted potential.

Here’s some easy steps they could take to improve it:

  • Tell us who the writer is
  • Disclose that she works for Samsung
  • Respect our intelligence by telling us the purpose of the blog
  • Allow comments

UPDATE:

The blog is linked to from the official D900 homepage. An about section has been added, and we don’t need to register to leave a comment anymore.

I hope Sam continues to write the blog for this phone and subsequent releases… It’s a ctually a great idea to have a blog to showcase the functional aspects of a cellphone in a day-to-day context.

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