OverLinked

1. Go where your customers are.

Jacquelyne runs a tiny juice company called Chakwave. I met her in Los Angeles, standing next to an organic lunch truck. Like the little birds that clean the teeth of the hippo, there’s synergy here. The kind of person that visits the truck for lunch is the sort of person that would happily pay for something as wonderfully weird as her juice. And the truck owners benefit from the rolling festival farmer’s market feel that comes from having a synergistic partner set up on a bridge table right next door.

Great article. A must read for those who are willing to reconsider how they are doing business today, in a cash strapped economy…

The Blue Chip survey’s findings are broadly in line with a Reuters poll published last month, which predicted growth in the third quarter, though a brisk pace of expansion was not expected until late 2010.

“Debate now centers on the speed, strength and durability of the recovery,” the survey said.

It showed nearly two-thirds of respondents believed the economy was set for a U-shaped recovery, marked by below-trend growth in gross domestic product before stronger growth took hold in the second half of 2010.

I see the economic difficulties continuing well into 2010, mostly because of continued rates of job losses. Reuters’ survey & findings mostly indicate that popular opinion is on the rise that we are doing better, but this may be pollsters’ psychology at work.

The reason why your campaign’s a failure is because you’re not saying anything that your customers haven’t already heard before, from 101 other sources, who’ve been in the social mediasphere a lot longer than you have. So why should your customers bother?

Many companies are frightened of humanizing their organization, yet that’s exactly what successful blogs and social media are about: removing the anonymity. People like to interact with people, not entities. Social media allows them to do that. However, if all you do is tell your audience what you want them to hear, rather than what they want to know, you’ve lost the game. Social media is about your customers driving the conversation, not you.

In a nutshell, Gee has described the shift in perspective that CEO’s and CMO’s have yet to make when advertising in or around social media. His post title, “Your Customers Don’t Care”, is a refreshing look at the reality of advertising a brand with the old mentality. Yes, you can use your old tools, but your mentality needs to shift. Adding kexino to my blog reader now…

Netflix put out this deck that emphasizes how their culture, is one of the main drivers of their business, and empowers stakeholders, and specifically employees to do the best thing for the company.

Nearly one-half of black and Hispanic consumers reported having ever used the Internet via a handheld device in 2009, compared with only 28% of whites. Usage by all three groups grew since 2007, but usage by minorities climbed more quickly. By 2009, 29% of both blacks and Hispanics went online with a handheld device “on a typical day,” versus only 17% of whites.

This is very unexpected, but now that I have time to reflect on it, there is a general trend/fad/fashion to have the latest cell phone amongst young Hispanics that I personally know. Now let’s see if the imagery & messaging shifts to reflect this – so far it has been lacking in targeting niche demo’s.