6 Gorgeous Facebook Visualizations

Some new and repeat visualizations of Facebook connections and broad global span courtesy of Mashable.

It's a wonderful way of making the innocuous term "social networking"feel real and personal.









See the rest at Mashable.



From: http://ping.fm/DJuGh

10 Creative Contests Powered by Social Media..love the way SmartyPig selects contest winners! (http://ping.fm/ONsfk)

Twitter is Top Social Media Platform at Fortune 100 Companies

It's pretty amazing that more Fortune 100 companies have a Twitter account than a blog.

According to a new Burson-Marstellar survey 54 percent of the Fortune 100 have a Twitter presence, 32 percent have a blog.

Burson suspects that many companies are skipping blogs and going right to Twitter. Makes sense but surprised how slow corporate blog adoption has been in general.

I guess it's easier and less chance of corporate error to get the word out in 140 characters versus a paragraph or two.

To see the entire survey results check out the slideshare presentation.

B M Social Media Fortune 100

View more documents from guest338fbe.

Interesting visualization of books done for a Japanese band's promotional website. (http://ping.fm/p7wPc)

A Successful Magazine Launch? Sort Of. Customize Mag as DM piece. (http://ping.fm/bfgc4)

Dump Your Web Site and Move it to Facebook - iMedia Connection Blog (http://ping.fm/Eodc3)

Life Happens in Person (So Should Some Events)

Interesting video slideshow from Empire Force Meetings on the value of in person meetings thanks to the Brand Experience Lab Blog (http://tinyurl.com/lnwja9).

In a time when companies are slashing event budgets and and event agencies are banging the virtual meeting drums you can't loose site of the fact that sometimes real connections just need to happen in person.

All the coolest technology in the world can't replace looking someone in the eye, shaking their hand, grabbing an impromptu coffee or drink or handing someone your business card as a sign of interest.

Life (and meetings) do and should happen in person!

Social Media vs. Social Netorking...Who Cares?

Blogger Lon Cohen made a valiant effort on his blog to define the difference between social media and social networking. [http://ping.fm/wK3xm]

While his description and rationale are reasonable it makes you wonder why worry about it.

The key (and common) phrase is "social" and that denotes interaction. Without the interaction LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning, even Facebook would just be file sharing websites.

The lines have certainly blurred as more and more sites build in "social functionality" --commenting, sharing, rating, polling, chat etc.

And while there are certainly some technology purist who believe that having clear definitions for the categories and sub categories is crucial. To the average "Social Whateva" user it's just not relevant.

With more and more social services launching or being cobbled onto existing websites, users are more concerned with which ones are best suited to their needs and lifestyle and are simple enough to use...regardless of what the technoratti want to call it.

Remember there still people today that debate whether they are on "the web", "the Internet" or gasp..."online".

Let's get social!

The DoubleShot Team

Follow Us on Twitter: http://ping.fm/0BSd8

Patty on LinkedIn: http://ping.fm/NpzAu

Annie on LinkedIn: http://ping.fm/OGCpk

TED Presentation Skills 101

All public speakers (corporate, government, even PTA leaders) can take a page from the TED Conference speakers on best practices and how to thrill (not kill) your audience.

Garr Reynolds has a great post on the making of a TED presentation with lots of wonderful examples. http://ping.fm/MB8X4

He also shares the TED Commandments which should be posted in every green room, speech coaches office and conference room across the world.

1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.
2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story.
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.

Our favorites are number 4 (everyone loves a good story) and number 9 (damn thee teleprompter and notes montior).

Happy Speaking!

The DoubleShot Team

Social Media Learnings from Harley-Davidson

Interesting perspective on how Harley-Davidson uses social media and mobile marketing to get closer to their customer (http://ping.fm/QjwgS).

Key Learnings:
-Engage! Ask questions, solicit input and listen (yes just like your Mom said listening is important).
-Share! Give customers insight into what your thinking and an opportunity to respond.
-Go Organic! Don't force social media down your customers throats. Provide a platform but let them climb aboard in their own time.
-Be Real! To talk the talk then walk the walk. Live in your customers shoes and use your products. Otherwise how do you have any street cred.

Food for thought!

Social Reef: An Industry Perspective

View more presentations from jeremiah_owyang.

Slicing and Dicing. The Importance of Audience Segmentation

Marketing and Innovation Blog had a great post on how Lego (yes folks, the people that make those little plastic pieces that are strewn all over the house by creative children) segments their customer base.

Lego, like smart brands do, does not believe in the one size fits all brand and marketing strategy. They acknowledge that just like in life they are experiencing different types of relationships with their existing and potential customer base.

Brands that segment their customer and partner base are doing so because it’s good business and it helps define how you communicate with your audience. It’s about not only establishing a relationship but fostering it and gaining value from it.

If you think of segmentation like life than it’s an extremely simple concept:

• Top customers/partners = Closest Pals. Yes, just like on Facebook sometimes in life you need to think about segmenting people in your life. Who are those closest pals, the ones whose status updates, photos, super pokes etc. you are just so eager to see, comment on and share back with over and over again through out the day. They are your trusted advisers who will actually agree with you when you are having a “bad hair day” and high five you when you blow away everyone on the field. Well take that to the business world and you know in your heart of hearts there are a group of customers you feel that way about. That segment of customers you are really hoping you can learn more about, foster that “customer intimacy” with and have as your “go to person” when you are seeking product input, needing a press quote or want on your advisory board.

• Active Customer/Partner Network = Your Frequent Peeps. These are like the people in your Gmail “most contacted” list or on your Twitter Faves. They are the group of people you communicate with often. Who you enjoy hearing from, like to bounce ideas off of, may have the occasional catch up lunch or drink with and always keep the conversation lively. In the business world you have that same group of customers or partners. The folks who can’t wait for the next version of your product to come out (so much so they’ve devoted at least 5 blog posts to it), they show up for every event you host, frequent the message boards, tell their friends all about you and your products and are happy to send feedback.

• Occasional Customers/Partners = The Lunch Bunch. These are the people in your life (friends, former classmates, colleagues etc) that you get together with maybe once a quarter, every six months or once a year. Whenever you do though it’s usually filled with lots of laughter, good stories and that feeling of “gosh I wish we did this more often”. This is a group of people who all have busy lives but still are connected and appreciate the bond of friendship and enjoy what each other has to say. In the business world this would equate to the customer or partner you may not see at every product launch, conference or promotion but who purchased or sold your solution a few times and still believe in what your brand represents. These folks keep tabs on your brand, appreciate receiving the quarterly newsletter or promotion and look forward to the next opportunity to engage with you.

• One and Done Customers/Partners = Some of Your Holiday Card List. Let’s admit it we all have folks on our holiday card list that we haven’t seen or spoken to in years, yet we feel inclined to drop them a note once a year. We enjoyed a nice connection with them once and who knows may do so again, so why not spend money on that first class stamp. This happens very often in business. There are a group of customers and partners who showed interest in your brand at one time. They even went as far as to buy your product or sign up for your partner program but for whatever the reason they have not stay engaged. And every year you struggle with how to win them back, do you keep them in the database or is it worth the marketing dollars to re-spark the brand flame.

• Target Customers = People You Admire or Spark Interest. We’ve all experienced meeting the friend of a friend at a party, restaurant or baseball game and thought “wow, they are really interesting and would be fun to get to know better.” Well those folks and your target customer have a lot in common. In both cases you/your brand seems to have something in common with this person, you already run in the same circles and each of you may offer the other some value--great insights into something you are involved in, a solution to a problem, a new way of doing things or having fun. You want to make the effort to get to know them but don’t want to be too pushy (i.e. seem like a freak and scare them away) and you are willing to invest the energy (i.e. time, resources and budget) in starting a new relationship.

You see when you can start thinking about your customer and partner relationships like your personal relationships it gets much easier to see where they fall on the effort scale and how best to engage with them.

You are probably not going to throw a sheep on Facebook at someone you just met and friended two days ago so do you really want to throw a direct mail piece, weekly email and telemarketing calls all at once at a target customer? Likewise you wouldn’t ignore one of your best buddy’s emails, tweets or phone calls, so why would you not frequently touch base with a customer or partner who have spent significant money on your brand, attend all your events and rave about you to their friends?

So think about your customer and partner relationships, determine where they are on the intimacy spectrum and remember every good relationship involves more than one party so keep the lines of communication open.

“Relationships of trust depend on our willingness to look not only to our own interests, but also the interests of others.” --Peter Farquharson

We look forward to getting to know you better!

The DoubleShot Team

Spring Cleaning Those Event and Marketing Plans

With the first day of Spring comes the renewed sense that anything is possible; it just depends what angle you look at it from.

So with that in mind it’s time to dust off those creative briefs, marketing plans and event strategies and take a fresh look at what’s working and just as importantly what’s not.

A lot has changed in our profession over the past year—budget’s being further squeezed, ROI top of mind and leverage replaces out of the box as the latest buzz phrase. But not all change has been for the worse; a number of new or revisited technologies, concepts and methodologies have created additional opportunities—social media, brand storytelling and visualization to name a few.

These changes create a new lens through which we can view our goals, creative, strategies and plans. It provides an opportunity to pull those old ideas off the shelf and give them another look, to step back and admit that the square peg just might not fit in that round hole, or be energized to fly in the face of adversity and try something new or risky.

In this spirit we have created our own personal list of things we would like to see head to the spring cleaning dust pan and those we would like to see given a chance to bloom as we look forward.

Creative and Marketing

Dust Bunnies and New Bloomers

Dust Bunnies	New Bloomers
Wow factor Creative	Content driven Creative
Event in a box	Virtual events
1 to many event and marketing	Community building
Slideware	Storytelling
Brand awareness	Brand value
Social media as flavor-of-the-month	Social media as an integral part of event and marketing strategies
Blue Man Stomp de Soleil* acts	Emerging talent and virtual global jam sessions

*credit to whoever coined this catch-all phrase

We are sure you have your own thoughts to add to this list (and we would love to hear about them). Whatever they may be though, we hope this Spring you find the chance to do your own spring cleaning and move forward with some fresh ideas.

"And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."-Anais Nin

Happy First Day of Spring!

The DoubleShot Team

Let's Get Visual!

I have to give a Standing Virtual O to the creative folks at Pepsi who developed a visualizer for all the Twitter conversations going on around this year's South by South West (SXSW) Conference.

If you haven't seen it you really should check it out


This conversation virtualizer as well as other similar efforts really underscore how hard it is to keep up with all the discussion that occurs online today--status updates, tweets, feeds, comments etc.

Sometimes our best intent to stay informed and engaged can be fruitless because of the overwhelming amount of real-time updates (particularly when you are looking at 344 new tweets just received in the last 10 mins). So topic trending applications, tag clouds, visualizers etc. can put a visual face on conversations making it easier for users to engage on their own time at their computer or on their mobile phone.

Some popular and obscure but fun apps to let you do this are:

• twistori
• twitter venn
• cloud.li
• webbr (more of a visual social network than just a conversation)
• twitscoop
• twittearth
• facebook friend visualizer
  
• twitter trend (iPhone app)
  

Has Twitter Become It's Own Country?

Twitter is being brought up in conversations now a days almost as often as Pitt-Jolie, The Obama's new dog and the Jonas Brothers.

Just this past week Ellen DeGeneres got a lesson on Twitter from Diddy and now joins the ranks of other celebrities like Britney, Martha Stewart and Ashton Kutcher in the Twitter craze.

So how big is Twitter? Well according to recent stats big enough to be it's own country.

With eight million users in the U.S. alone Twitter has more residents than each of the following countries:

• Hong Kong
• Denmark
• Finland
• Norway
• Singapore
• Costa Rica
• New Zealand
• Ireland
  
• Jamaica

Growing at 33% in unique visitors in just the past month, Twitter could fly past France and Germany and be on par with Mexico by the end of the year.

So what makes it such a phenomenon? I'm sure everyone has their opinion on this but it seems to be as simple as giving people with limited time a platform in which to have a voice, share ideas and stay connected. In today's world of economic crisis, job uncertainty and information overload; Twitter is the perfect place to let off some steam and engage in dialogue "when you want to". And best of all Twitter requires you keep it "short and sweet".

So when you are thinking of where to plan your vacation this year or looking for a quick get-a-way weekend (even though the bank statement doesn't think it's a good idea) throw Twitterland into consideration with Aruba, Jamaica and the Maldives and you might be pleasantly surprised by who you meet.

Who's Statusphere is it Anyway?

TechCrunch had a great article on the impact of Twitter and other forms of social media on blogging.

They raise the question of whether microblogging, social networks etc. are diminishing bloggers influence in the "statusphere" (great word!).

TechCrunch has come up with their own way of measuring a blog's influence (pretty much based on how many other websites link to your blog) and they argue that leading blog's have been loosing "influence" while the number of blogs and blog posts in general continue to grow.

Certainly you can argue with their way of measuring influence is flawed or there is a natural diluting of influence as the number of blogs grow etc. But what's really interesting about the article is how new forms of social media can actually expand a blog discussion beyond a web page.

When you look at the number of links to blog posts and web articles on Twitter or commenting on articles on Facebook, Friend Feed etc. you realize that discussions are transcending the blogger's world into the greater virtual world at large. Hence the blogger's community (or "tribe" for you Seth Godin fans) is growing organically without the blogger's effort or potentially knowledge.

And when that happens it certainly begs the question of who's "statusphere" is it anyway? Does it matter whether the "influence point" is given to the original blogger who started the conversation or should the "influence point" be shared among all those who spread and embellished on the original thought?

If an idea or opinion is worth stating, certainly it's worth spreading no matter how that happens.

On Hearing the Dog Whistle and Showing Your Hand

Okay. So I'm over the moon about today's inauguration.. One of the most encouraging things I heard President Obama talk about on the campaign trail was his promise to be honest, even when he didn't have all the answers, and to listen, "even when we disagree. " Or even, he said, especially when we disagree.

Listening carefully, and being honest. This is a simple but powerful commitment, don't you think?

I think it's a powerful idea in business, too. In our line of work, dreaming up creative that people connect with is critical, whether you're moving emotion or appealing to intellect, through humor or artistry, persuasive ideas or compelling facts or all of the above. Listening and honesty are the fundamental ingredients to building creative solutions. Seems obvious, right? It's harder than it sounds.

LISTENING can be a challenge when everything in you wants to make the smart point, be the spark plug in the meeting, steer the conversation where you think it needs to go. There's a time and place for that--but not at every meeting. Listening is underrated, if you ask me. Often what's unsaid in a meeting--the dog whistle heard only by those who are watching body language, reading nuances, scanning expressions--- is as enlightening as what's said aloud.

HONESTY can feel risky. It can be especially hard to be candid and opinionated about something you believe in when the prevailing desire, (pressed, let us say for example, on a creative person by an account manager) is to accommodate a client at all costs. Sometimes the right thing to do for the client is respectfully disagree with their point of view. (Press A for "No problem, we'll get right on it." Press B for "No, seriously: that is a BAD idea. What about..." )

It's my great hope that we'll be inspired by the new administration toward a new era of honesty and listening. Some will say it's not possible, not realistic, that the die is cast in the corporate conference rooms and no good will come of crazy ideas and apolitical candor. But I think it's worth a shot. As our new president said this morning, "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has already shifted beneath them..."