Anna from IKEA

Have you seen this? I had sooooo much fun!!! Just go to IKEA US site, and find Anna - the customer assistant. And just ask! I have learned about her from David Meerman Scott's post, but as far as I can see, Anna has already a few fans on-line. You can find her best quotes here and here.
She is also inspiration for musicians?:

For me, well, fun. made me laugh. I guess it must be frustrating if you are looking for something. Personally I always get lost on IKEA sites , but hey, unlike Anna, I am blond;)

According to his blog Andy Sernovitz is on vacation now, but I just finished his book today (remember - had time only on the bus:P) and must admit that it is a great study for all companies unfamiliar with WOM Marketing. I somehow assumed I hardly know anything about it and happily concluded the opposite - I recognised all the main rules and tips given in this study. At the same time I was amazed how this book reflects the true nature (can one talk like that about business?:/) of WOM Marketing - transparency, reality and very down to earth Word of Mouth techniques - action>reaction type of thinking which might sound simple, but is the best solution here.
Word of Mouth Marketing is a) giving people a reason to talk about you and b) making it easier for the conversation to take place.' - this is his definition! (can be found on this site committed to the book with quite interesting content, do check it out!)

I would like to leave you with the words of his WOM Manifesto from the same source:
'1. Happy customers are your best advertising. Make people happy.
2. Marketing is easy: Earn the respect and recommendation of your customers. They will do your marketing for you, for free.
3. Ethics and good service come first.
4. UR the UE: You are the user experience (not what your ads say you are).
5. Negative word of mouth is an opportunity. Listen and learn.
6. People are already talking. Your only option is to join the conversation.
7. Be interesting or be invisible.
8. If it’s not worth talking about, it’s not worth doing.
9. Make the story of your company a good one.
10. It is more fun to work at a company that people want to talk about.
11. Use the power of word of mouth to make business treat people better.
12. Honest marketing makes more money.'

I think all WOM marketing consultants should treat it as a starting point. I strongly advice having it on our shelf!

(Actually I think the comments to his materials sound exactly like his preaching about WOM: 'Share This Article! I want you to pass this article on — it’s one of the best ways to generate word of mouth. You can post, copy, forward, or share this article with anyone you want, as much as you want. But you need to follow the rules: 1) Don’t change it, 2) Give author credit to Andy Sernovitz, 3) Mention that it comes from the book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, and 4) Link to http://www.wordofmouthbook.com. (c) 2006 Andy Sernovitz. This work is licensed
under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.')

the best social media marketing practices

Mitch Joel is asking a question about the best social media marketing practices and I must admit it took me a while to decide what is most important in my view...Consistency mentioned on Mitch Joel's blog is crucial, just as much as ethics of any engagement but I think we need to go back to the basics and ensure we know exactly what we are doing. An agency or any of the team members working on a project related to social media marketing must be well trained and experienced in social media themselves, they should study the audience they aim to traget and respect the rules of venues they plan to engage in their activities. Internet has its own rules and most of them can be understood only by people who actually ARE a part of the blogosphere. My personal experience is very small, but being my own blogging experience (together with presence in other places, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc) prooved to be crucial in my work. My commitment to respect people I work with and great amount of research into the theory of socal media marketing helped me so much! We must never forget that social media IS real people with power to speak up and expect - there is no space for traditional marketing!
(Here you go - I tried to be brief:/)
I also agree with what Chris Brogan wrote: 'Learn how to listen. Simple, I know. But it’s a best practice. ' and I hope to see more bloggers responding to this challenge!

I would like to tag Lolly, Girl , Tom and Colin hoping to see what they think.

BTW - If you haven't read the original post I believe you will be happy to know that you can share your opinion too, as long as you tag the post 'social media marketing best practices', link to original post and tag few other blogs. So, go on!!!

The F- word on social media?

When I started working in the UK I was a bit sceptic about the usage of the F-word, I somehow still am, to be honest. I need to be careful - my son picked it up once and it took me a while to convince him he is really saying FORK - he is too smart for it now, so I stopped. I do think seome of us misuse the bad language still - have you seen YouTubeSunshine project?
In this presentation by Marta Kagan however it does look perfect - I really enjoyed it! Hope you will like it too...

What The F**K is Social Media?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialmediamarketing marketing)

Cluetrain Manifesto - Old Testament of Blogging

'We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.'

- the most striking, since very, very true for our times, statement closes 95 Thesis of Cluetrain Manifesto. All of those are available (together with the whole book on-line for free - I love the idea!) on Manifesto site.
It's interesting to see how nothing has changed since the times it was written. We know Scoble's Naked Conversations, we see the lists of Social Media Marketing references. Still, those 95 points remain the same and ethics behind them seems to be grounded in basic blogging experience. I think every one of us, bloggers should have this book on the shelf.

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