MarCom Professional

Foursquare seems to be in the news a lot recently, and is starting to be exhibit a similar hype curve to that of Twitter.

The über adopters and innovators get on first, try it out (as they did at SXSW last year when Foursquare launched) and then tell their friends, build a fan base then the celebrities get on it and the rest they say is history.

For those who have been on holiday or off-line for most of 2010, Foursquare is a location based social media service where you can arrive at a location or venue and “check-in” (manually) to tell other people that you are there (or have been there). 

To those who have just stumbled across Foursquare for the first time, it seems like a great waste of time (remember what we all said about Twitter in 2007…).  For those Location Based Services (LBS) purists out there (and I can see you scrunching up your face as you read this post) you will hate Foursquare because the user has to physicall More...

There is a great Social Media conference being held in London next week and looking at the conference program,  it looks like being a great event and very timely. From their website…

Europe’s leading social media event. Two day event featuring four dedicated conference streams, workshops and exhibition to be held at Olympia conference centre in London.

Conference streams include: Social Media World Forum, Enterprise Social Media, Social TV , Mobile Social Media Cloud Computing Congress.

The conference will be featuring key speakers from global brands, organisations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, agencies, content producers plus many more. More...

I’ve just seen the details for this year’s MIPTV to be held in Cannes April 12 – 16th. 

From the conference agenda – where else would you find Shine Group’s Elisabeth Murdoch and Joanna Shields, News Corp’s Jonathan Miller, Sky’s Jeremy Darroch to name just a few. 

MIP Digital kicks off with a by-invitation executive brainstorming huddle featuring 40 senior leaders from the highest ranks of digital entertainment.

Companies set to attend include YouTube, Hulu, Facebook, AOL, Channel 4, The Walt Disney Company, France Télévision Interactive, Paramount Digital Entertainment, Starz Media, ITV Marvel Entertainment and RTL Group, amongst others. More...

As promised in a previous post “Why are clients still scratching their heads about Social Media?” I wanted to look at the additional skills that marketing leaders will need to possess from now on to understand the new world of social media and drive real benefit from it.

This post has been prompted by some research by recruitment firm Major Players covered by Revolution Magazine that claims online marketing growth “may be stunted by a sheer lack of social media knowledge in the talent pool.”

I’m not suggesting that we need to have a “Head of Social Media” AND a “Head of Marketing Communications”, because marketing leaders of the future will need to be multi skilled and be able to utilise all available channels – old and new. More...

I’ve worked with some pretty exciting companies and teams over the years, and I’m delighted to be helping Visible Technologies expand internationally.  Today they have announced a new round of funding ($US22M), and I can tell you that the future looks very bright indeed for this smart company that is helping brands and agencies navigate the new world of social media in the US and now globally.

Read on from the official release below.

Visible Technologies Secures $22 Million in Funding Led By Investor Growth Capital

Funding to Support Accelerated Technology Development and Establish International Operations

BELLEVUE, WA. More...

No doubt many people around the world are aware that Eurostar passengers were subjected to some fairly uncomfortable experiences over the weekend as 5 Eurostar trains broke down as they entered the Channel Tunnel.

The issue seems to be the rapid change of temperature a the trains entered the channel tunnel from the French side (freezing conditions outside the tunnel and the 25 degrees celsius inside).

The story “broke” on social media via Tech Crunch on Saturday morning via their post “As hundreds of Eurostar passengers languish, Eurostar ignores Twitter”

You can also see how traditional media such as the BBC reported the incident.

More...

I have the pleasure of rounding out 2009 with the final Carnival of the Mobilists for the year – and for the decade!

When I think back to where I was and what I was doing 10 years ago in 1999, and where I am the world is now – it has been an amazing journey.

10 years ago I was single and living in Sydney – working for Telstra Corporation in the Telstra.com area.  New Years Eve 1999 I will remember forever – we were at the Overseas Passenger Terminal on Sydney Harbour – directly opposite the Opera House and alongside the Harbour Bridge ready to witness the most amazing fireworks ever to welcome in the year 2000. More...

This article first appeared in the PointZero magazine, issue 2 October 2009.

It is often said that marketing helps consumers decide which product they should buy, and the customer service and operations department of any company is where this work can come undone in a flash.

As rightly identified by Dave Evans in a recent post titled “Social Business: the New Black”

Marketing sets the expectation, marketing creates demand, marketing helps a consumer differentiate why one choice is better than another choice.

Operations delivers.

Any gap between the two drives a conversation on the social Web. More...

This post looks at taking social media mobile and how the growth in social networks will drive mobile internet usage.

You can’t help noticing how fast social networks are growing around the world, and with the two that get the most press lately – Facebook and Twitter, the real question is what does the explosion of social networks mean for mobile?

With twitter it used to be “What are you doing?” but with the explosion of mobile services, it has rapidly become “What are you doing and where are you doing it?”  Even Facebook has changed their status update window to “what’s on your mind”, and the Facebook iPhone application remains one of the most popular free apps in the Apple app store. More...

Bena Roberts and the team at GoMo news asked thought leaders in the mobile space to share a mix of insight, due diligence and perception with us. What they got was a number of razor sharp articles piercing the heart of the mobile marketing, mobile advertising, barcode and mobile search space.

The resulting essays in mobile hope to make a difference, and can be read and enjoyed, studied, torn apart and used by vendors, workers, students and competitors to benchmark ideas or innovation.

The online magazine is presented below, and you can also grab your hot off the press copy at Issuu.  Well done Bena, Niamh and Cian, and thanks for asking me to take part. More...