Chris Silva

Note: The following is a guest post from Chris Silva, Mobile Industry Analyst with Altimeter Group. We'll periodically feature guest posts from the people behind research we think you should know about. 

Are retailers doing enough to serve their mobile customers? Many are not. While nearly 50% of mobile phone owners in the US are carrying app-laden smartphones, 77% of smartphone buyers use them while shopping. With such rapid adoption, it's hard to understand why major brands aren't doing more to cater to these customers.

The report lays out a decision process retailers must follow to be successful and showcases how winning teams at Best Buy, Starbucks and other major brands are bringing their organizations to new heights with mobile by focusing first on the intended business impact of their mobile strategy, and then focusing on the right one of four application types, ranging from simple information-based applications to complex multichannel heavy applications that allow payment with a user’s mobile device.

Overall, Altimeter found many retailers in the “hitting turbulence” maturity group, somewhere between those getting started or “still on the ground” and those with successful applications that are “flying high.” Mostly this is due to fragmented organization around mobile and multiple false starts – even for established brands – trying to get a mobile app to market. Most of these applications struggle to solve a user problem or focus instead on the novelty of using am mobile device and not on the pains customers routinely feel.

Retail has been one of the first areas where the overwhelming push for mobile tools from users has outpaced the strategies of brands, but it won’t be the last. Retailers missing the opportunity to capitalize on mobile users may lose out to competition by the likes of Amazon.com whose price-check app this past holiday lured shoppers out of brick and mortar stores with a promise of better prices and discounts in exchange for competitive pricing intelligence gathered via their smartphone app. Who will win this battle? Right now it’s anyone’s game, with a very crowded battlefield.

Read the full report on Slideshare, or visit my blog for more on the topic.

Screenshot of the Kate Spade NY Pinterest

I am delighted to congratulate one of our most successful clients, Kate Spade, on receiving two nominations in the Fashion 2.0 Awards. The awards honor the most innovative fashion brands for their leadership in developing online communities. It only takes one quick glance at Kate Spade’s Pinterest, Facebook, blog or Tumblr to see that this is a brand that truly loves sharing and receiving inspiration from their customers. I sat down with Johanna Murphy, VP eCommerce, and Marissa Kraxberger, Web Art Director, to learn more about Kate Spade’s social marketing strategy, which lead to their award nominations in the “Best Blog by a Fashion Brand” and “Top Innovator” categories.

Looking at the Kate Spade tumblr, I noticed a lot of content that extends beyond the things your brand actually makes, like this photo of a book cover, and this deco swimming pool. Why did you expand the scope?

Marissa Kraxberger: Well, because I think Tumblr is a different medium. I think Tumblr is a space where it’s about not just what our brand makes; it’s about our brand personality and our brand voice. It further tells the story of who we are and what our Kate Spade New York story is. You know, so, it’s not just about what’s happening inside the company, but what inspires what we do at the company and who inspires, and what artists, what books we’re reading. I see that you pointed out that book, and a lot of times we’re inspired by graphic design. We are such a graphic design focused company, and we’re inspired by old book covers, vintage magazines, and movies. We use Tumblr as a way to further communicate that this is how we function as a brand, by drawing on inspiration from all these sources.

Johanna Murphy: I think the thing that’s so great about our marketing team that really owns our social media is they really do understand the medium that they’re participating in. If you look across all of our social channels, that’s true. We don’t use social media just to push product. It’s really an extension of our brand personality. If you look at Facebook, if you look at Pinterest, the inspiration is such a part of our core DNA as a brand. If you walk into our stores, we have some rare art books sitting on the shelves, and if you walk into our 5^th Avenue store right now, we have the The Apartment playing on a reel in our store. It’s just a part of who we are; it’s a part of our brand. And I think a lot of brands still make the mistake of just using social media to push a product and push brand messages. People don’t engage in social media that way.

Marissa: Yeah, I think it’s really important to know the difference between the spaces you’re in. Like, Tumblr, if we were to push product here, I think it would bode poorly for us. It wouldn’t be the kind of conversation people are having via imagery in the Tumblr community.

Do you have any sense of how much of your readership is aspirational, versus how much is either prospective owners of your products or actual owners?

Johanna: Well, it’s kind of hard to track on social media, but we look at it this way: we’re okay with both. We are an aspirational brand, and we kind of look at social media as kind of the tinder, if you will, to start the fire to become a brand enthusiast. We’re okay if you’re not a customer and are engaged with us on social media. We’re hoping that you’ll love the brand, aspire to be part of the brand, and one day hop over to our ecom site or our stores and become a customer.

Marissa: We have weekly log meetings that really cover all of our social media plans and communication. We do know that a good percentage of them shop. We don’t know exactly if it’s “repeat offenders” all the time that are shopping, but we do know where traffic is coming from. When we post things, we especially track it from our blog, and a lot of what we post on our blog ends up on Tumblr and our other channels. They are shopping. We don’t know what the percentage is, but they are shopping.

Johanna: If you look at our Facebook, you’ll see that there’s a really nice blend of brand content. We do use Facebook, for example, to announce our one-day private sales, and we’ll often release that to Facebook for our fans before we open it to the general public. Obviously we can track the results through that, and the amount of sales we get when we open those up early are actually staggering. And that’s actually the most commercial use we have for Facebook right now.

So what kind of people read Behind the Curtain, and how has readership changed over time?

Marissa: Kate Spade enthusiasts are the ones that are most likely reading Behind the Curtain. It’s funny, because we recently did some deep digging on this, because the Behind the Curtain blog is a labor of love for our team. It’s one of those things where we are fortunate to have a lot of compelling content at this company, and it’s not hard to take tidbits of what happens here and expand them into bigger stories. So we get pretty excited about the Behind the Curtain content. Our joke is that no one reads it but us, but that’s not true. A lot of people are reading it, and it has driven a lot of sales and traffic. So that makes me think that it’s a lot of our true and loyal followers.

Johanna: If you look at some of the things, it’s interesting. Some of the most read articles and some of the most commented-on stories are things that happened here in the office. So, you know, we had a Halloween party and everybody dressed up. Tons of feedback and comments on that. We did a hot chocolate crawl with our staff around holiday, and did a three-part series where we went to some of the yummiest hot chocolate places in the city with our staffers and basically gave you the inside scoop on where to go. Tons of feedback from people who aren’t in New York commented on it. So they really do love that Behind the Curtain peek of what it’s like to work at Kate Spade, and an inside look in the fashion industry. We get as many comments on that as we do products.

Marissa: We have such a loyal following of people who just love the brand, and I think those are the people reading the blog. They’re getting a deeper insight into the brand, and it’s also a huge source of inspiration. I mean, it’s not like we’re giving away secrets on there, but we are inspired by a lot of things and sharing that with a lot of people.

Johanna: One of our big brand tag lines is, “live colorfully,” and it’s part of our brand DNA: we’re women who aspire to live interesting lives. And we try to project that on all of our social media—the interesting things that Deborah Lloyd does, the interesting things we do in the office. We just blogged the other day about a visit to the Damien Hirst exhibit. I think there are a lot of women that aspire to live interesting lives, and they can experience that in a very authentic way through our blog.

I think the cool thing about Kate Spade is that we do walk the walk, and we do talk the talk. We live the brand. The women in this company, the men in this company, are pretty interesting people, and I think that shows through all of our customer touch points.

You feature content from Kate Spade fans pretty regularly—like these tweets about the hedgehog coin purse. What value do you see in doing this?

 Marissa: We kind of have recently started doing that. I think that social media is really important to communicate with and have conversations with your fans and followers. I don’t think it’s smart to just pump out content and not engage the consumers with conversation. So we thought, in that case, we’re always talking about things like resolutions. Why don’t we just put that out there to our followers? Like, what do you resolve to do? And highlight the ones that we felt most connected with the brand. It’s just about constantly communicating and engaging versus just putting out content.

Johanna: It used to be that brands could control everything. It was a one-way conversation. It was a print ad in a book, you know, it was a media buy on TV. It was a one-way push. But the advent of social media today is connected, and people talk to each other. If you’re going to participate in that forum, that’s the context. They expect you to talk to them and they expect you to listen them, too. So it’s like brands no longer really control the agenda, customers really do. And you just need to provide the appropriate forum for them to do that.

All of our fans and followers are potential ambassadors for our brand. And I think people like being recognized for having communication with us.

The iPad, displaying the latest recipe creation on the kitchen counter, has replaced the traditional cookbook, provided one can avoid spilling spaghetti sauce or splattering it with oil.  Even just weeks after its release in April 2010, the New York Times saw it “poised to be an indispensable tool” for the kitchen.  And now, augmented reality apps like Blippar allow consumers to create interactive recipe books by scanning products while in the store aisle.  From the first release of Betty Crocker’s Big Red in 1950, and thousands since, recipe-sharing has gone digital and mobile.

Always based on word-of-mouth, recipes on 2×4 index cards that were once traded between neighbors, at PTA meetings and from generation to generation are now shared, researched and reviewed online.  For instance, Google sees over one billion recipe-specific searches per month and both Google and Yahoo have their own recipe search engines.

The popularity of competitive cooking-shows like Top Chef and the Food Network has captivated an audience well beyond the traditional homemaker, targeted for decades by advertisers.  The folks tuning into these programs are the individuals who won’t try the new local restaurant without first checking reviews on Open Table and Yelp and those who tear out recipe ideas from waiting room magazines.

The enthusiast

For food brands, this creates the opportunity to reach and engage a broad segment of enthusiasts, those consumers who are passionate about food and simply love to cook.  Food and cooking, for them, is an experience to be enjoyed.  They list “cooking” under their hobbies & interests on their social profiles and talk about all things culinary with their friends. These customers can be the most valuable, most vocal and, in turn, most influential for brands.  Enthusiasts include moms, young singles and those “cooking for two” or “for picky eaters.”   But their needs and motivations are anything but the same, even within their social networks.  Therefore, tapping into the interest graph of these diverse enthusiasts holds more opportunity for food brands to create a richer, more compelling experience for customers.

Meat brands, for instance, want to engage those who love grilling with a passion, the kind of people  willing to shovel a path through snow just to get to their grill.  To help these grilling enthusiasts connect, persona-based filtering and sorting will go a long way. These grilling gurus should be able to easily find content from people like them, say, by checking “Grill Guru” to display hyper-relevant recipes and reviews. Taking it a step further, geographic information might be used to find people in similar climates, or a “My Fridge” app could be created to display only recipes that can be prepared with ingredients that users have on hand.

Enthusiasts also include those interested in or curious about the benefits of a particular diet, such as only drinking soy-milk or avoiding gluten all together.  While the core consumers for these products are those with health restrictions like lactose intolerance or Celiac Disease, the growing popularity in the lactose or gluten-free diets is attracting much broader swaths of consumers.  Not long ago, “gluten-free” was practically ignored by marketers.  But just last year, the New York Times declared it “the golden age of gluten-free,” highlighting the demographic appeal outside of those with dietary restrictions.  One can now find “gluten-free” labels on everything from cereal boxes to entire aisles in the grocery-store.   

Focus on pre-meal planning

Shopper marketers know the growing emphasis on pre-meal planning means consumers want both ideas and inspiration, whether it’s how to get kids to eat more vegetables or a desert that will impress their friends.  According to Google’s Zero Moment of Truth, many of today’s shoppers make their choice of what to cook or bake before they reach the store.   How? A recent Bazaarvoice survey, conducted by Kelton Research, revealed that nearly three out of four consumers say it would be important to read user-generated content before making a decision about purchasing food.  Recipe research, either for a family dinner on a Tuesday night or a special occasion, helps consumers build their basket for the in-store visit.  For brands, this translates to incremental baseline sales.

Consumers are also buying online: 40% of online shoppers have purchased food items within the last six months, according to a 2011 study.

Social cookbooks

A growing number of brands and recipe sites are keeping up by asking their community to share their favorite recipes (and the stories behind them) with online social cookbooks.  Enthusiasts can share new ideas for cooking chicken or using condiments, like ranch dressing or ketchup. Through the creativity of their advocates, brands get to demonstrate the diversity of their products.

Perhaps the iPad as the new cookbook is most apparent with Millennials—consumers in their mid-teens to early 30s who have graduated in the digital age of Facebook and smartphones.  Our research reveals that more than half of this generation values the opinions of strangers on brand websites more than recommendations from family and friends.  What does this mean for one’s favorite recipe passed from generation to generation?  For food brands, it means creating a community where individuals with similar cooking interests and skill-levels can rate, review and share their opinions.  Helpfulness voting, Facebook sharing and community reviews will determine whether or not your creation is, in fact, really a masterpiece.  For the food enthusiast, the kitchen just got a whole lot bigger.

It seems like we’ve been talking about augmented reality for years now. It’s perpetually the next big thing in mobile, and is still at the very beginning of the technology adoption curve. Honestly, I had kind of checked out of the AR conversation—unfairly—after waiting for it to move from flashy demos to actual utility. AR’s utility has only been realized in a few apps, like Yelp’s Monocle, but the wow factor has overshadowed the practical applications of this technology. And then I met the guys from Blippar at CES.

Blippar is an app from the UK that succeeds where most augmented reality fails—utility and ease of use. Blippar lets consumers interact with products, ads and media in really interesting ways. One of the best examples they showed me was their work with Heinz Tomato Ketchup, which overlays an interactive recipe book onto their products, as you can see in the picture above. Ambarish Mitra, their CEO and Founding Director, was kind enough to answer my questions for this blog post (which I’ve left in the original Queen’s English).

In what ways does Blippar deliver where other augmented reality apps do not?

Blippar is not a techie app, it's a new behaviour which will change how we engage with the world around us.  To blipp is to hold your phone up to anything in the real world and enjoy an instantaneous interactive or content-rich experience.  We are the world’s first business model driving this new behaviour specifically out of traditional press, media and outdoor messages – and through a single “lens” on everyone's smart phone.  Not only that, but our technology provides the quickest and most seamless interactive experience found anywhere today.

What adoption numbers can you share for the UK, and how do you plan on entering the US market?

In UK we have over 350,000 users in 5 months and growing every day. Exhibiting at CES was our first initiative of entering the US market where we showcased our platform to numerous leading brands. There is huge demand for blippar in the US market and we are taking all the relevant steps in terms of infrastructure and resource to accelerate fulfillment.

What is the number one suggestion you have for brands looking to explore the potential of augmented reality?

Content, content, content. They key ingredient to a successful campaign is to deliver what's in it for the customer. Meaningful and useful content still holds the highest importance be it augmented reality, social media or any form of above the line marketing.  Secondly –brands reed to educate the consumer that a campaign is interactive and “blippable” by utilising specific and compelling calls-to-actions to create the awareness. We have seen examples where in spite of great content by brands using AR, the campaigns didn't do well because of lack of communication of call to action to drive the user to engage with the chosen medium.

What would you tell a brand that’s skeptical of the value of creating an augmented reality experience? 

Many skeptics undermined check-ins, tweets, social sharing without realising that these behaviour patterns are inherent within us. All of the above have suddenly surrounded our lives in last 3 years because of mobile acting as the key enabler of this behaviour. In simple terms AR is nothing but visual interaction with real world and even this behaviour is innate to us. A large and growing user base is adopting and enjoying this behaviour via their mobiles. It's a great opportunity for brands to deliver great content and allowing users to experience the brand straight from its posters, press ads, kiosks and the product itself.  They can also track how users are engaging with their ads and products by having a wealth of real time data which was never possible till blippar came along.  Finally – it doesn't come with the price tag that brands might expect from such high-tech stuff!

I’ve been pigeonholing Blippar as an AR app, but how do you describe the space Blippar inhabits?

Blippar is not just a technology, it’s a brand new consumer behaviour – and a verb… “to blip”. Blippar is well on its way to becoming the eponymous verb for this behaviour.   Newspapers, magazines, products, billboards, shop displays and pictures instantly jump to live with valuable, content – whether a game, recipe, coupon, video or interactive digital experience.  Applications are, in fact, limitless and limited only by our imagination.

It's important to note that AR is just one of the formats in which content can be delivered by a blipp – it's the fundamental image-recognition aspect of what the tech offers which is the key to this as a new channel for content delivery and interaction, not the manner in which the content is delivered.

Of all the projects you’ve worked on with Blippar clients, which did you personally find most interesting and why?

We love all the blipps we have created for brands and each one of them have delivered unique experiences for users driving more brand engagement. Heinz Tomato Ketchup blipp is one of the favourites as it extends the actual ketchup bottle into a recipe book with video content and also opportunities for consumers to win prizes every day. Cadburys blipp is also a classic where users could play a game of smacking ducks straight off a chocolate bar. Users required to buy the chocolates to play the game. Suddenly from a snack, a piece of chocolate bar becomes an entertainment medium where you compete for high scores.  Ask everyone here though, and they'll probably give you a different answer!   Just like our consumers, we're all drawn to different experiences…

What new device capabilities or trends are you most excited about from the perspective of a mobile startup?

Faster processors and better cameras are things we look forward to most as it continuously improves blippar user experience with improved tracking and image recognition.  More phones having HD screens which make the blipps look richer. Improved GPS for more precise location services – and more.  In addition, we're watching the phone become more like an extension of our own human senses – audio recognition, image-recognition—and soon touch, with the integration of NFC into the phone hardware.  All are exciting, complimentary technologies – turning intuitive behaviour into innovative and life-enhancing experiences.

The “kids” who invented Facebook, never call when they can text, and don’t go out without their smartphones – they’re growing up. And soon, your business will depend on them.

It’s true. By 2017, Millennials – those consumers now in their mid-teens to mid-30s – will have more spending power than any other generation. This generation, sometimes called “Generation Y,” shops differently than their predecessors. Millennials are hyper-social, constantly connected to social and endlessly curious about what others are doing, buying, and enjoying – strangers as well as friends. They’re marketing savvy and ad averse, having been marketed to more than any other generation. And at the same time, they’re still interested in engaging with brands – most feel companies should offer more ways for customers to share their opinions online.

The bottom line is, Millennials shop and interact with brands differently. As they start to control spending, their habits will inevitably change the way businesses sell – and with it, the way all consumers buy.

The infographic below shares just a few of the stats Millennials expert Jason Dorsey will cover in our upcoming webinar. Register for the webinar to see how Millennials shop, and how brands can win their loyalties now.

Note: For a high-quality PDF version of this infographic, click here.

Almost everyone has spent time at a hospital. Whether you’re visiting an aging family member, welcoming a new addition into the family, or seeking a routine treatment, the service you receive leaves a lasting impression. No matter the outcome, patient satisfaction along with the quality of treatment has never been more important. We want to feel cared for. We want to be treated as an individual and respected as a patient. And we will share our experience with others.

When selecting a health care provider, we often turn to our friends for recommendations, browse for information from insurance provider websites, and search the Internet for third-party reviews and opinions. In a soon-to-be-released study conducted by Bazaarvoice and Kelton Research, we found that 26% of consumers ages 18-34, and 32% of consumers ages 47-65, would never choose a health care provider without reading at least one piece of user-generated content. So how does a health care provider turn patients into brand advocates?

Hill Country Memorial Hospital, a Bazaarvoice client, began collecting reviews from hospital patients and guests a year ago. They don’t just capture basic service information, rather opinions on their quality of care, their doctors, wellness, outpatient services, and the overall experience. The reviews are posted on their website and circulated throughout each piece of the business so they can stay close to the customers and provide better services.

How many times have you been asked to rate the service of your hospital or care you received? Hill Country Memorial empowers each patient to share their experience after each visit. Whenever a staff member receives a review, a copy of the review is sent to them as well as their director. The team feels rewarded when they see the positive impact their work is having on their patients.

As with any industry, whenever you open yourself to feedback it’s not always positive. Hill Country Memorial sees this as an opportunity to change how they do business. When their online payment service was identified as a problem, from a customer’s review, the Business Office and IT team were notified and the problem was quickly resolved.

Because consumers trust other consumers over traditional marketing, Hill Country Memorial adds customer reviews to their advertising and media placements. And no marketer could ask for better content to use than the authentic reviews they receive like “I couldn’t be any happier if they named a wing of the hospital after me,” or, “I was treated like a king”. Their 4.9-out-of-5-star patient experience is a testament to their customer centric approach.

As time continues, more people will not only expect good service but a great overall experience from their health care providers. Mark Peterson, Director of Customer Experience for Hill Country Memorial Hospital feels that hospitals must put the patient first in order to retain their strength and market share, preserve their brand, attract more business, and maintain a high level of satisfaction and accreditation.

Case study: Charles Schwab boosts acquisition with online Ratings and Reviews

I've been thinking about the best way to answer that one, inevitable CES question: “What’s the big, new thing this year?”

My answer is (and will be): “Nothing. And we should all be very excited about that.” I’m not a trend-basher; I think things like huge, capacitive-touch TVs and washing machines that text us when loads are ready are fascinating developments that deserve our attention, not cynicism. Some of what I saw was incredible, even ground breaking. But nothing this year was bleeding-edge-new and seen everywhere.

If the innovation on display at last year’s CES coalesced into an identifiable theme, it was the connected experience—the destruction of silos between devices, people, brands and content. As my colleague Brandon Willard wrote then:

“The biggest thing this year was actually an idea: that the boundaries that once existed for consumers are evaporating, and as far as consumers are concerned, they can’t crumble quickly enough.”

Companies were exploring the true potential of the internet of things. They were beginning to question the walled garden. They were finally realizing what consumers already knew—brands have no choice but to give consumers more choice. The cloud hit the shelves, and our chosen content was accessible from the myriad devices in our lives. The new smartphones on display promised to make posting a Facebook status as easy as making a call. It felt like the beginning of something that was powerfully customer-centric.

CES 2012 was an extension of this understanding, and companies continued to innovate toward the connected experience. Instead of abandoning what they promised consumers in 2011, companies showed products this year that delivered on this promise. Instead of chasing what they thought would be yet another “next big thing” this year; they focused on delivering better connected experiences. Because a promise of this kind requires an obsessive commitment to the customer, not a line of shiny new products to convince people they want.

Microsoft’s keynote reflected this commitment. It impressed me for what it didn’t contain. Nothing altogether surprising, no new products that represented complete departures or 180’s. Instead, Steve Ballmer and the other presenters emphasized the way Microsoft products are connecting consumers to the things they care about. The Windows Phone was described as “the first phone that put people first,” a phone for “celebrating all the relationships in your life.” Windows 8 was shown to work with touch, as well as mouse and keyboard, across a huge array of devices. It was a nice ending to the 20-year history of Microsoft’s massive presence at CES.

The products on display this year emphasized user experience over pure utility, and intuitiveness is being built-in to more and more consumer electronics. We owe a lot of this to the rise of professional user experience design, and the continued success of Apple, who didn't have an official physical presence at CES, but was nonetheless present on the floor in the hands of thousands of attendees. Given a choice between everything-but-the-kitchen-sink complexity, and simplified, satisfying product experiences, CE companies are starting to choose the latter—because that’s what consumers are demanding. The social integrations that some considered clunky last year were streamlined this year. Things like social television-watching are no longer just cool ideas or hasty product additions; they are now being woven-in to device design in ways that make absolute sense to consumers.

My colleague Shawn Gaide sums up the opportunity brands are now unlocking:

“What I think people forget about is how quickly device integration is happening, and more importantly, how quickly consumers are picking up on that trend in actual practice. If you’re a marketer, you just got at least one (if not two or three) more mediums to reach people with simultaneously. That will drive a new wave of implicit and explicit conversations with potential customers.”

CES 2012 proved that the show can be more than a product launch pad for the next big thing. It can be a showcase for a richer, more mature kind of innovation—the forward momentum that is generated by keeping promises made to customers.

Note: This a guest post by Kathy Mandelstein, Director Of WW Marketing, Social Business at IBM. IBM is a Bazaarvoice client. 

As one of the leading voices in the marketplace on Social Business, our team at IBM believes in practicing what we preach. This week in Orlando, Florida, we are running our annual flagship conference, IBM Lotusphere along with a new two day event for Business Leaders, IBM Connect. Of all the events that IBM runs, since these two events are focused on Social Business, it is critical that all aspects of the conference are truly social, transcending from online to the physical conference itself with a tight integration between the two.

We have taken our three tenets of a Social Business to heart as we built out the social plans for the week.

Transparent

The voices you will see in the social media efforts for IBM Social Business are not just those of IBMers. Our customers, business partners and many industry experts are helping us define and share the IBM Social Business point of view. Some good examples of that include:

• Social Stories Every company has a unique journey on how they are transforming into a Social Business. We have invited our customers and IBM Business Partners to share theirs in their own words and literally make it shareable to the major social networks as well. This goes above and beyond the traditional IBM case study and reference to socialize and learn from each other what has worked for them, what tools they are using and the cultural shift within their own company. We developed this capability in partnership with Bazaarvoice.

Screenshot of IBM Social Business Stories. Click image to visit site.

• The voice you will hear in our conference social media is not just from IBMers. We have the IBM Champions, actively helping us with our social media efforts at the conference. They have named themselves “Team Social.” An IBM Champion is an IT professional, business leader, developer, or educator who influences and mentors others to help them make best use of IBM software, solutions, and services. This volunteer army has been blogging both on their own blogs as well as contributing to our Social Business Insights Blog. They will also be helping us throughout the week with our onsite social outreach and activities.

Engaged

We wanted to make sure that our social efforts helped bring the community together in person at the event and then carried on long after the conference online. Here are a few examples of how we are engaging the community:

• We have set up Social Cafes throughout the event which serve a number of purposes and will be staffed by Social Hosts, both the IBMers and the Champions that are part of Team Social. They will be a gathering place to interact and learn more about a social topic of interest, or a place to get help. We will also be offering social topics throughout the day that an attendee can come by and get a quick start or refresher on in a very informal, collaborative way. One of the central elements of these spaces are large interactive touch screens that allow the attendee to physically interact with conference tweets, blogs, video, photos, daily polls and the Social Business stories that I mentioned and literally take items with them right from the screen by sending it to their mobile device or email address. They can even tweet from these screens, too.

Inside the IBM Social Cafe

• We will be running tweetups throughout the week to give attendees the chance to meet many of the people they interact with, often for the first time. We will also have social scavenger hunts to physically engage attendees in exploring all the different elements of the conference. For examplem taking a picture with a certain key person they have to track down–and yes they can use our foursquare location lists to find them–and then posting that photo to the conference Flickr stream. If they are the first to successfully complete the scavenger hunt they can come by a Social Cafe to pick up Social Business prizes.
• We have established IBM Connections communities for both Lotusphere and IBM Connect so that the attendees can interact before, during and long after the conference. To participate in the communities, they sign up for our solution showcase of the latest social technologies, IBM  Greenhouse and then they join the event community.

Nimble

Throughout the conference, we want both the attendees who are physically at the conference as well as those who could not be there in person to have access to what is happening real time at the conference. They can do this in several ways including:

• The Conference Social Media Aggregator, which brings the social media feeds for tweets, blogs, videos, photos, tag clouds all in one place. This gives a true sense of what is going on at the conference at any given time and on the back end helps us capture our social analytics for volume, interaction and sentiment.
• Also available from the aggregator and on the IBM Software Group Livestream Channel, we will be broadcasting the general sessions live Monday through Wednesday from both Lotusphere and IBM Connect. We will also be streaming key strategy and overview sessions, as well as interviews and discussions led by Information Week Editor, Lenny Leibowitz. All of this great content will also be available for replay, too.

These are just a few examples of how we are focused on leading by example by really integrating Social Business into everything we are doing at the conference. To share them all would require more than one blog post. If you didn't know about Lotusphere and were not able to join us this year, I would like to encourage you to still check it out at participate from wherever you may be. Be sure to check out the Social Media Aggregator to see what is going on and you can follow our hashtags on Twitter for updates: #ls12 and #IBMConnect. And if you have a Social Business story of your own, be sure to share it with us.