Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

IKEA in Sweden have used a simple Facebook function, photo tagging, in a seriously genius way. Watch the short video below and see creativity at is finest.

Agency Forsman and Bondenfors created a FB profile for the store manager, uploaded storeroom photos and invited people to tag the photo with their name.  First to tag won the item. Thanks to Facebook’s news feed, update and forwarding function, this promotion spread like crazy.

Sam Mutimer of Lets Refresh - thanks for finding this one!

Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

I promise, I don’t intend for every post to be about social media, especially since I consider myself a bit of a classic marketer and try not to buy into new media hype without thinking about its benefits in the overall scheme - the communication relevance to me and to clients.

www.nitrolicious.com

However…  As this is now week three in my active use of Twitter, it feels like I’m progressing in dog years and all the online stuff is coming together, making a lot of sense. It’s as though everything I thought about in isolation (blogs, Facebook, SEO, Twitter) actually comes together neatly and for the same purpose: finding your ideal group of people and talking with them.  I’m not even going to use the word ‘customer’ in this context. Yes for business there is an underlying goal to make money from products or services, but lasting sales come from great conversations and we’re all savvy to whether a conversation is working for us or not. Especially when we’re on the receiving end and being sold to.

As of today (remember, dog years, it can all change tomorrow) it goes a little something like this for me: 

1. The Facebook personal profile is for my friends. It’s my own private community where I am me and not Behar Katz international marketing. I’m not selling anything. I’m not trying to crank up my friend numbers. I’m just talking to my friends and sharing photos.
2. The Facebook business page is still me, but it’s the work me and it’s two weeks old. As a small business owner the work me and private me are pretty damn close and can both be found with a laptop or blackberry at all times. (Is that sad?) As of today I have - wait for it -12 fans and I’d like to have many, many more. I’m using it as a cross between my Twitter and Blog, I update it with articles of interest, events, questions, ideas. If it becomes as interactive as my private profile then that’s great, if not, at least I’m giving it a go.
3. The Twitter account is in my name rather than the company name, but I see it as work-related conversation. There’s a lot of interesting dialogue going on all over Twitter and that’s the level I appreciate it for. I see the value in creating a large base of followers and sharing business ideas, directing them to my blog, and if eventually a business opportunity comes from it - brilliant. I’m not in a rush, good things take time and I’m enjoying the business feedback from people all over the world.
4. The blog is my soliloquy. It’s me reflecting on marketing things in a more lengthy, indulgent format (if I so desire). I’m writing it for an audience, which is why I publish it online and not in a secret diary. I’m hoping somewhere down the track a particular post strikes a chord with someone and compells them to get in touch and say “Hey, we have a project we’re working on and we’d really like you to be involved.”
5. I’m also on LinkedIn. I’ve been on it for a few years now and for me it’s a passive involvement. It didn’t take long to put up my business profile and I don’t need to do anything to update it. To be honest I’m there in spirit only and am not sure whether it leads anywhere at all. From my own anecdotal evidence via conversations with friends and colleagues, people are on LinkedIn to be on LinkedIn. Perhaps others are having enormous professional success through it? Brilliant if you are.
6. Naymz. I keep being invited to this. I think I joined. Is anyone on it? It hasn’t sparked a lot of interest for me (any in fact) and I can’t be bothered inviting friends to join because it might be rubbish. Although I did notice when I Googled my name yesterday the Naymz thing came up first. They have been busy, obviously trying to become relevant and carve out a piece of the social media pie. (They could be the number one social site in three months.)

This may all sound very similar to what you’re doing. If you’re a business and not doing any of this - why not? It’s not the fleeting fad you may think (or hope) and as you know in business, the more connections you have the greater the likelihood of developing that valuable handful of really, really good ones.

Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

I signed up to Twitter at the end of 2007 after my husband read a story about it in the Economist. At the time, we were the only two people that we knew using it so, as proud as we were of being such early adopters, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of relevance to it in our/my life. Not socially and not professionally.

Instead, I went down the Facebook path and just really embraced it. Facebook was (and is) a brilliant way to stay in touch with friends all over the world, you can have a flick through their photos and catch up with their lives in little pieces rather than having to find time to write long arduous catch up emails or even more alien, long phone calls. (Do people even have long phone calls with friends any more?)

In product lifecyle terms I don’t consider myself an innovator, someone who jumps on a new technology as soon as it surfaces, I’m probably more like a late early adopter. I love technology when people I trust and respect are also using it, but I’m not that fussed about being the first to do it.

So I’m happily Facebooking away to my friends, I’ve worked out all the little nerdy tricks of it even, synching it with my BlackBerry, uploading photos as and when they happen, ignoring and purging long lost “friends” and generally creating my own happy little community. I’m thinking yeah, I’m in with this social media thing and I’m 34, so what do you think of that that little Gen Yers - I’m right there with you.

And of course always having one marketing eye open I can see that it’s a great medium for clients to communicate differently, more personally and regularly with their customers. (Some clients. Not all. Only those that genuinely have an interesting thing to say on a regular basis.)

Meanwhile, in the background the Twitter thing is murmuring away, but out of some unspoken solidarity I still feel it’s a choice between that and Facebook and choose to ignore it. I have a friend, Michelle Matthews, publisher of Deck of Secrets (@secretshq) who is a very early adopter and has been responsible for getting me excited about everything from digital cameras to mp3 players to BlackBerrys and she has been using Twitter for a really long time. I still didn’t buy it… But I was feeling a bit less obstinate and I started following @miafreedman whose newspapar columns and blog I always liked.

Then I went to a seminar by a friend and colleague @robhartnett and talked to other business owners using Twitter, @jasewatson, @sammutimer, @leisahartnett and felt like a stubborn old dinosaur.

So look, to make a potentially long and rambling story short(er), over the last few weeks I have finally reactiveated that 2007 account of mine and started getting into Twitter. Even just two weeks ago I was asking friends what was so good about it and wondering whether I had anything of interest to say to strangers who may choose to follow me. I mean, on Facebook I know my friends are dead keen to know I painted a bedroom feature wall in Tuscan Gold, but on Twitter I’m not so sure… As a very positive consequence, it has brought me back into actively searching out interesting articles, people and information again - and that can only be a good thing.

I’m still a bit nervous about getting drawn into 24 hour conversations and of talking nonsense to that audience I don’t know personally, you do put yourself out there when you go down this path, but hey, you can always turn it off when you’ve had enough.

What are the good things about it?

- It gets you reading and finding out about new ideas, new websites, new businesses, new stuff
- It makes you communicate concisely, no waffling on, 140 characters to be exact
- It puts you in touch with people and therefore ideas you may otherwise never have known
- It makes you want to say interesting things
- It’s different to any form of communication you may have had in the past
- It could be here to stay, so you may just have to bite the bullet and get involved

PS. I must apologise to the first non friend on Twitter who tried to follow me and who I duly blocked - sorry about that. I get it now.

PPS. I even feel like a bit of a fossil writing an article about it because there are people out there already on to the next thing and I’m only just here.

Follow me on Twitter @bellakatz - I may have something interesting to say soon.