1. Don’t think social media, think social marketing. – Social marketing is more about empowering, organizing and training select staff members to engage on social platforms—and building a corporate social presence—than it is about paid media placements.
2. Know your objectives first—then develop your social strategy. – Broadly speaking, the most important objectives relate to creating deeper relationships with customers and branding.
3. Recognize the secret ingredient: trust – Clearly, marketers see an opportunity to leverage this peer-to-peer trust factor by participating in and influencing social conversations taking place on the Web. But the way in which they do that is critical. The first step toward earning trust with consumers, as in any relationship, is to listen. [If you haven't read Chris Brogan's Trust Agents yet, do it soon.]
4. Listening comes first. [When @ComcastCares entered the Twitter space, they did so by listening first. It wasn't until they understood the medium and how their customers were using it, that they actually went public. Planning and preparation are key to success in the social space.]
5. Don’t just barge into a conversation: Add value. [In fact, nothing will get you ignored faster.]
6. Be authentic, transparent and humble. [Social media is about conversation. It's not a platform.]
7. Recruit from your core: the brand enthusiasts who already love you. – Digital communities allow marketers to both find these coveted consumers (through listening) and empower them to share a brand story with many others.
8. Target the coveted influentials. – Some consumers have more clout than others. These so-called influentials, representing about 10% of the population, according to Keller Fay Group, have an undue influence on others because of their extensive digital networks and perceived expertise in particular areas. Keller Fay believes that influentials are 130% more likely than others to talk about brands on any given day.
9. Adopt a long-term/real-time approach. As blogger and social media expert Joe Jaffe has frequently said, “[Social media] marketing is not campaign; it’s a commitment.”
10. Integrate social media with other online and offline communications. Social media represents another stream of touchpoints for the marketer, but they are most valuable when integrated with other consumer activities, from search and e-mail to watching videos and reading news online.

Whether you are a brand, or someone trying to figure out how to engage with people inside the social media sphere, this is a great list to go by.

What are your social media best practices?

As you can guess, you can’t please everyone and our content proved to be no exception to the rule. Here are a couple of the memorable quotes from the week:

• Each participant was asked to rate each show on a scale from 1-10. One of the participants wrote down a 1 and the moderator began to ask this person questions. After a minute of bashing the show, the moderator asked, “Why didn’t you rate it a zero?” He quickly replied, “I didn’t know it was an option.” – Ah snap.
• In describing another show, one girl said, “My time is very valuable and I don’t have time to watch shows that are milquetoast.” – Yeah, I had to look that one up.

Overall, it seems that our demographic wants drama and a lot of it. Oh, and sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. I kid you not. I heard that a lot during the four days.

However the biggest takeaway didn’t come from what I heard, but what I realized. My perspective is not the perspective. Sure, I knew that, but these focus groups proved to be a very real reminder that we all see things differently and if we live in a vacuum, life will end up sucking. So how do we avoid this? Good question. Here are three ways to avoid living life in a vacuum:

• Find your Simon Cowell – We all have those friends who will tell you like it is, no matter how painful it is. Hold them closely and rely on them for honest feedback. Most likely, they hold the exact insight you need.
• Ask your “friends” – The beauty of social networking is that we have more friends today that we know what to do with. Ask them to review and respond. Everybody loves to be heard. Give them a chance.
• Create your own focus group – Find people from a diverse age span, gender, ethnicity, location and worldview and invite them to be part of your virtual focus group. Incentivize them with something worth their time and start asking for feedback.

What does that mean anyway? If you’ve wondering the same, you’re not alone.

After sitting with this tag line for the past year or so, I’ve determined that it’s too difficult and confusing. It’s not that people can’t figure it out, they always do, but it doesn’t provide a clear indication as to what you can expect from Halogen.

So, I have a new tag line that I want to throw out to you, for your feedback:

Halogen: TV that makes a difference.

Love it? Hate it? Have your own suggestion? I want to hear from you.

In case you aren’t familiar, here’s a description of the network:

Halogen is a socially conscious television network and website that targets and activates an emerging generation who are willing and ready to give back. Using film, documentary, episodic and other formats, Halogen features a wide variety of lifestyle programming that empowers viewers to leave their mark and make the world a better place to live.

The boss drives group members; the leader coaches them.
The boss depends upon authority; the leader on good will.
The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm.
The boss says ‘I’; the leader says ‘we.’
The boss assigns the task, the leader sets the pace.
The boss says, ‘Get there on time’; the leader gets there ahead of time.
The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown.
The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how.
The boss makes work a drudgery; the leader makes it a game.
The boss says, ‘Go’; the leader says, ‘Let’s go.’
– Author unknown

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

All sad and violent endings to otherwise great beginnings.

Does anybody else wonder why we sing these songs to our kids?

Image Courtesy of Jeremy Cowart, who just got back from Haiti

While hope is on the rise, so is fear. The people in Haiti HATE the rain.

Rainy season starts on March 1, 2010.

Sticks and sheets.

Here’s how you can help.

Yesterday, Shaun King launched a website called A Home in Haiti. It’s a rallying place for people to buy tents and give money. Go there!

Also yesterday, Coleman tents heard what was happening and offered to sell this waterproof, eight person tent…

…for $83 each; approximately 60% off of retail.

Ready to help?

We need to raise $33,000 to buy all of these tents. To-date, they’ve raised $4000.

The homeless in Haiti need us and we have the power to help. It doesn’t matter if it’s $10 or $33,000. Please consider doing something today!

Today, I am launching a new series called Entrepreneur Spotlight. It’s where I will highlight a brand, company or idea that I’ve stumbled upon along the way that I want you, my readers, to know about. Having been an entrepreneur for over 10 years, so I know how much it has meant to me to get a push or a mention here and there from a friend or colleague. With that being said, I introduce…

Tweet Toffee

Six months ago, Ben & Sarah Tweet found themselves in between jobs and needed a way to make ends meet. After writing down dozens of different ideas, they landed on what they thought would be a sweet idea…toffee. Fast forward to today, they’ve built a thriving small business and now offer eight different types of toffee: (if you’re looking for the giveaway, jump to the bottom.)

• Mocha Bianca – White chocolate covered Tweet Toffee and topped with chopped dark roasted coffee beans which are expertly matched with chocolate
• Toffeopia with Almonds – Dark chocolate covered Tweet Toffee drizzled with white chocolate and caramel, then set off with a smattering of crushed malted milk balls and chopped almonds
• Toffeopia with Coffee – Dark chocolate covered Tweet Toffee drizzled with white chocolate and caramel, then set off with a smattering of crushed malted milk balls and perfectly matched coffee beans
• Peanut Butter Toffee – Peanut butter swirled in milk chocolate with a smattering of chopped peanut butter cups atop our famous toffee
• Coffee Toffee – Dark chocolate mixed with perfectly paired coffee beans
• Classic Milk – Our Classic Milk Chocolate Toffee features delicious sliced dry toasted almonds atop wonderful Milk Chocolate
• Classic Dark – Our Classic Dark Chocolate Toffee features delicious diced and toasted pecans on top of decadent Dark Chocolate and is one of our fan favorites!
• Notta Nut - Classic Milk Chocolate Toffee features delicious dry toasted almonds and is one of our favorites!

What I love about this story is that they took something that they were were passionate about, gave it a name and started marketing it.

Want to try some yourself? I know there are a lot of options so if you need a place to start, do yourself a favor and order Toffeopia with Coffee right now. If you can’t choose just one, then take advantage of their Sweet Sampler. Seriously, you’ll thank me.

The best part is that my friends at Tweet Toffee have extended a 10% discount to my readers. To take advantage of this discount, use the promotional code “kylechowning” when checking out. Don’t wait too long. the offer expires in 60 days.

To get the party started, I’m giving away five (5), 1/2lb packages of toffee to the first five  people who place an order. To enter, leave a comment on this post with your name, email address, what kind(s) you ordered what date & time you placed your order. All orders will be verified.

And there you have Tweet Toffee. A sweet story, from some sweet friends to please your sweet tooth.

After making the change, I got a few questions asking me how I did it and if there were any negative ramifications from doing so. The short answer is, it was easy and there weren’t any problems. However, the challenge that I encountered was that I had already registered the “kylechowning” username a year or so ago and there were pre-existing friends on that account. Because I didn’t want to start from scratch on either accounts, I had to get creative on making the swap.

By the way, if your new username of choice is not already taken, here are simple instructions on how to change your username. These instructions focus on swapping usernames of two currently existing accounts.

The following steps use the example of changing my main account chownage to kylechowning.

1. Log in to Twitter
2. In the upper right hand navigation bar, click Settings
3. Change Username from chownage to chownage2 – This will temporarily free up your current username
4. Log out of Twitter
5. Log in to your other Twitter account; in this case, kylechowning
6. Click Settings
7. Change Username from kylechowning to chownage – Now the username kylechowning is available
8. Log out of Twitter
9. Log in to Twitter using your chownage2 settings
10. Click Settings
11. Change Username from chownage2 to kylechowning

And your done! Due to the way that Twitter has setup the usernames, you don’t have to change anything within Twitter. All references to your name will change in non-cached Twitter feeds.

If you’ve integrated your Twitter account with any social networks or blogs, you’ll need to change your username so your updates are posted. Finally, don’t forget to change your settings on your favorite Twitter app(s).

In the end, they will go back in time, blow up the shaft again, and the show will end with Jack and the crew landing in LAX. As to the reason why Jack had vague recognition to the other passengers has to do something with him being the hero. At some point, he will have to lead the way and separate himself from the rest resulting in them living a normal life and Jack having recollection.

There. It may be right. It may be wrong. What do you think? (comment below)