Rolling Talks

European Social Media Trends- latest numbers

Don't look -yet- for Belgium though..  Via Websocial

Also worth checking: Social Media stats round up by econsultancy 

Iab Social Media Research October 22nd 2010

View more documents from Tom Smith.

Top global Google searches are Social

  " * Topping the list at no. 3 is Facebook.
  * No. 4 is tuenti, a Madrid-based "invitation only" social
    networking site,
  * no. 7 is Nasza Klasa, a "find old classmates" Polish site
    frequented mostly by older Polish but attracting more and more
    youthful members
  * no. 8 is wer kennt wen, a German "invitation only" social
    networking site that means "who do you know?"
THOT to Linda from Attentio

As for Belgium, the trend is even clearer: YouTube, Netlog and Facebook were the three most searched for websites this year.

Where in the world are social networks?

Source: Social Media Group

Little book of travel

Kris Hoet just launched a new blog the little book of travel. If you're a frequent traveller - or not so frequent- and have travel experiences who want to share in a funny way, drop him a mail. Or just go and rss it.
 

And if you wonder how I find so quickly a new blog (hot from today), it's because like thousands of Europeans bloggers I've become addicted to Facebook (now you know what I'm up to these days- am practising the 'Relax' concept- and not only with ultra sounds Luc). And I saw right on my profile page this late afternoon that my friend Kris has created a new group (invitations will be sent soon!). If you haven't done it yet, register NOW with Facebook. But you've been warned: VERY addictive..

Enjoy your new journey Kris!
This one's for you: "Travels instead of broadening the mind often merely lengthens the conversation" (Elizabeth Drew)

"I'm not just a kid- I'm a producer, publisher and promoter'

Interesting reading on the impact of SN in kids life and the influence on marketers. Chosen bits:

• "Kids want more freebies, more connection and more production utilities, and brands have the opportunity to jump in and facilitate." 
• "the majority of teens are spending more time with new media than traditional media."
• "Nearly half (47%) of 9-17 year olds, including more than half (55%) of teens, report participation in one or more advertiser branded activity types in the last month."
• "Overall, 20% of teens report adding branded content to their own websites in the last month"

On what they want:

Buzz marketing, WOM marketing, conversation marketing- what's the difference?

Buzz Marketing: entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand

Word-Of-Mouth Marketing: giving people a reason to talk about your products

Conversation Marketing:giving people a reason to talk about your ideas, beliefs, issues relevant to your product, organization.

Source Foghound communication &WOMMA

Who said PR agencies are slow to catch on social media?

While doing research for my first contribution to the Belgian Press Relations Center's newsletter, I was reminded 3 studies done recently by major international PR companies in the social media field:

• 'The business value of blogging' - a 30 page- pdf by Mark van der Wolf from Lewis PR (which was also referred to at the Euroblog07 in Gent and at the IAB European Blogging Workshop). Delivers an interesting 4 step guide to blogging and insights on the European and Asian cultural differences concerning blogging attitude.
• An explicit 'Corporate blogs are still outsiders in Belgium one page by Leads United (which initiated the debate over blogging organised by the BPRC in April).
• and the 'New wave of advocacy' from Weber Shandwick, introducing the 'badvocates' neologism, opposed to the brands' advocates.
  

The greedy me particularly enjoyed Mark's "Blogs come in different flavors".
Implying that " any decision on blogging should therefore start with an in-depth analysis of the business benefits that the various types of blogs might bring to a company." Mark, you've been warned, I'm going to use this- probably unquote ;-)

All of them are definitely worth reading. And now time for a guide on ' Crisis blog- the best practices' :-)

7 ways to pitch a blogger

I just read the '7 ways to pitch a blogger' written by Ogilvy. Since this paper dates back from March 2006 i must have read something about it somewhere the last days but i can't remember where.. Anyway, here's a sump-up (could be part of the answer to the question asked by a Belgian PR):

1- Before you pitch, read their blog

2- Help them get more trackbacks and comments

3- Bloggers are experts. Treat them like experts (note: i like that one :)

4- It's not always about their readers (note: AHHHH, this one i completely relate to , so here the full idea):

Many bloggers are writing for themselves, and their blogs serve as an online manifest of their personality and thoughts. While many blogs have huge readerships, ultimately most bloggers are wrting because they have a genuine passion for the subjects they write about. Therefore, bloggers won't write about something 'newsworthy" if it doesn't personnally interest them. And unlike journalists, they don't have to.  (Note: i would add i have no problem posting about some 'old 'document as long as it learns me something and i want to track the data - like this document ;-)

5- Giving them free stuff is ok - (note: Sure :-)

6- Know who else is talking about you so you'll have an idea of how they feel about you before you approach them

7- Don't throw away your traditional media relations playbook or in other words apply the best PR best practices

By the way Ogilvy offers more than a dozen feeds on blogs subjects mainly -looks like a cool ressource. I just added them to the great RSS reader Kris showed me. I started 2 weeks ago and i have now 80 feeds on my favorite subjects around social media.. I just thought it would be cool to share them with 'my community', to have some automatic check for the feeds we have in common and those we can share,  and to add those automatically. Great stuff for Great News ??

WOMMA pdfs online

If you're interested in word of mouth marketing -funnily enough i wrote at first worth of mouth marketing-, i highly recommend you click here .You'll find all the WOMMA pdfs presentations. A few titles to make your mouth water: Joining online conversation about your brand/ Using community outreach to build buzz/Online WOM: how it works and how it can be measured/Using blogs to speak With- not at - your consumers

!!!!!!!!!!!!!go go go!!!!!!!!!!I'm diving into it! See you in a couple of days...

Debate over blogging with Belgian PR

Yesterday i went to the debate organised by the Belgian PR Center and moderated by Philippe Borremans. You can see the video on Maarteen's blog so I won't go too much into details -the fact that i was typing with Simon's QWERTY keyboard combined with my natural inclination to be dyslexic while taking notes doesn't make me feel like going through mines, but i'd like to make a few points:

- yes there were some Voltaire's daughters bloggers too at the event, at least me. And i don't think there's less women who are blogging contrary to what was said: all the data i heard during the last presentations i went to over blogging recently seems to prove the blogging population is fairly representative of the online population - being more or less 50/50 male and female

- yes 2 out of 3 participants were Dutch speaking if not more - and 4 out of the 5 speakers- which proves once again than the Dutch speaking community is not only more active but also more interested in social media - vind ik ..

- yet yes the questions coming from the public showed that fear and control are still the first reactions when we talked about social media and that the potential is huge for those feeling like being evangelists - be it on the PR sector or others...

- but yes if you don't participate in the online conversations you don't exist. Bruno Segers pointed it out several times as  the 'I blog so I am' phenomenon

- and yes, sunny days for monitoring these conversations are here to stay and blossom

One professional -admitting not to know a thing about blogging - wanted to know how he could influence what's being said online. It sounds like ' don't tell me what it is about - because i'm scared to know?-  but how i can turn it to my profit'. Wrong way to start if you ask me...

Pretty interesting so - and good for my Dutch oral practise :-) and the networking part was not the worst of it: I was delighted to meet Bart from Metatale who told me more about his new product - which will be useful for an article i'll be writing over monitoring in a couple of days, along with Attentio's data Simon McDermott kindly provided me before the debate- and to speak with Phillipe and to be introduced to Robin! Now that i have listened to them, talked with them, i'm not scared anymore ;-) and to finish this post i wish a very dirtysomething to one of the naaicest members of this nice NL community ;-)