iSummit 2012 was a great two day event full of the latest social media ideas, local start ups, and strategies for small and large businesses alike. One of the standout technologies presented was FanWi.se – a social media enabled device that provides real world rewards for virtual actions. Fanwi.se lets companies craft the perfect social marketing message and have it sent to the friends and fans of their real world customers in a consistent measurable method. The business gets its word out and the fan gets physical real world rewards in exchange for their status update.

Here Justice Mitchell walks us through the idea behind the technology and how simple it gives rewards to your customers and fans.

Learn more about FanWi.se or sign up as a beta tester if you have a location where you could use this technology.

One of my favorite speakers at iSummit was Pam Moore (aka @PamMktgNut). I’ve followed her online for years and found her to be a pioneer in online marketing and always good for inspiration for my own efforts. As a major social media influencer herself, it’s appropriate that her first talk at iSummit was on Social Influence.

Moore started off with a warning to those looking to get involved in social media. Get comfortable being uncomfortable is the first thing you need to know about social media. Because the pace of change in social media is frightening.

We started with a definition of influence. Influence is when you are able to cause an action that has a measurable outcome. The measurable part is key. Who cares if you get 1000 actions unless they’re taken by people who matter.

Breaking down influence a bit more. You’ll want to track reach, relevance, and resonance.

Reach is how far your message will go. Moore recommends using whatever analytics package works with the channel you’re using. She’s also found that a little amplification is a big help. Using an amplification like platform Triberr (also presenting at iSummit), you can use your own network and their networks as well to really grow your reach.

Relevance comes from three factors: Authority, Trust, and Affinity. If those sound familiar, it’s because they’re crucial criteria for when you’re creating online content. They’re also used by Google, Facebook, and other social networks in their algorithms that decide which content you’re most likely to find interesting.

The final part of the influence equation is resonance. Resonance equals reach + relevance. It’s also specific to each individual person receiving your message.

So how do you grow your social influence? Moore believes you have to stand on two solid pillars of quality and quantity. You need both. Use the influence equation of reach + relevance to build strong resonance in your audience and grow your social capital.

“Social capital is the key that will help you unlock your social influence and help you find new touch points with your audience,” says Moore. She admits to looking at Kred and Klout, both trackers of social capital, but is happier that her Technorati rank is high for small business blogs. Small business blogs better represents her audience and a higher rank there shows her resonance is good.

Moore ended her talk with a few tips to crack the Social Influence nut:

1. Know where you’re going and why. See Groundswell book and follow the POST strategy with goals and metrics tacked on.
2. Know your audience. People don’t buy things, they join things. You don’t just by an iPhone, you join the community of iPhone owners. Also, remember the conversation is not tied to a single social network. Don’t copy your neighbor, they may not know what they’re doing either.
3. Don’t be a puppet. Think outside the box
4. Balance the art and the science. (Search for Pam’s video on the heartbeat of social). Identify influencers who have won the hearts of their communities. You want to be able to tap into Other Peoples Communities (OPCs).
5. Humanize it. The human algorithm is now. Optimize your social plan for social objects for people. Likes, shares, and comments now drives organic search results. Particularly Google+ and Facebook.

What are you doing to track and increase social influence for yourself and your clients?

Here are a few tweets from the audience of her talk:

Listening to @pammktgnut give a talk on Social Influence. Love her energy!! twitter.com/RaginaSmith/st… #iSummit

— Ragina Smith (@RaginaSmith) September 17, 2012

Social media- get comfortable being uncomfortable because everything you know can change tomorrow! @pammktgnut #isummit

— Dani Caird (@DaniCaird) September 17, 2012

@pammktgnut Excellent presentation on Social Influence! Definitely going to add Saturday AM posts for our clients! @pyxismediagroup #iSummit

— Valerie Reed (@ValerieFReed) September 17, 2012

First a few myths: You don’t have to build a game, it’s not just about ‘points,’ and not all badges matter. When you spam someone with badges and notifications you quickly risk blindness from the consumer. Additionally, you don’t want to hit the consumer over the head with your goal, instead set up goals they want to achieve and work your goals in on the side.

Instead there are three guidelines for gamification: 1) understanding your player (behavioral psychology helps here), 2) What’s the goal? And, 3) How do you keep them engaged?

Tryzbiak takes us back to Richard Bartle’s Player types (based on his experience developing muds (aside: I was a big Mudder in college… Let’s just say they’re addictive)). Killers, Achievers, Socializers, Explorers and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Knowing where they come from and what motivates them helps understand how your game should be designed. It gets even more psychological based as you learn more.

When building your point rewards system, you give fewer points for lower actions (like the page) more points for your goals (learn about the product). Also, you can use your learning points as tools to drive actions customers want to take.

Mechanic Rundown
- Use Collections that have meaning
- Feedback (give them feedback that they’re on the right path)
- Set up Challenges (leader boards, scavenger hunt, trivia, promotions) that lets users use them for rewards
- Exchanges (gifting, ecards, trading, social notifications)
- Customizations (Avatars, Profiles, UI Changes), let someone customize and share something, there is a sense of ownership.

Final thoughts. Understand the player, have clear goals create mechanics that reinforce the goals, ensure mechanics are meaningful and in context, measure everything.

There’s obviously a lot more to gamification than the above. But I felt this was a great orientation to the subject.

Why is storytelling important today

There are 7 billion people, 5.1 billion own a cell phone (more than own a toothbrush 4.2 billion). This is producing a content explosion. To get heard, you have to build a relationship. Storytelling is important to building those relationships.

Brands are becoming anthropomorphized, meaning their story is making them more human. This helps with telling your story, but you have to be quick, no one has the time to go through a 3-part trilogy. Barrett believes you have to breakthrough the ‘streaming economy.’ The key to that is to have a great story.

Creating your brand story

What creates a great brand story? Personality, authenticity and transparency, and a unique point of view are the start. Barrett recommends the book “Start with Why.” People don’t by what you do, they buy why you do it . Make sure you’re telling your brand story in the right order.

Part of telling the brand story is building trust. Barrett says you build trust with four levels. It, aka your brand building block, has to be:
1) findable
2) usable
3) clear
4) compelling

Using these together builds trust, when the pieces don’t fit well, trust diminishes.

Telling your brand story

Know your audience. Your audience is no longer a stat. It’s people, multidimensional and diverse. Barrett suggests building audience personas to help clarify who you are speaking to. Your content comes organically from that and lets you test it and measure it.

I like the focus on storytelling because it’s a framework you can speak to other business people with, especially those involved in marketing. Barrett presented some great tools to use in your business to find those metrics to test against. And I believe that having a multi-talented team makes your storytelling stronger, even the best novelist doesn’t exist without an editor, fact checker, and favorite readers.

What is your story?

Which brings me to iSummit.

I’m looking forward to two days of talks, parties, networking, and meetups featuring technology leaders from across Florida. Monday is a half-day of half-hour sessions split into three tracks: Internet Business, Content Strategies, and Marketing & Development. If there’s time I plan to jump back and forth between them. Sunday is all one session with panels and keynotes. There will also be some pitches from Florida startups, that should be exciting.

My current theme is focused on social business and the consumer driven business. The two are growing closer and closer together, to the point where their Venn diagram will be almost all overlapping soon. iSummit promises plenty of food for thought when it comes to these areas.

After everything on Sunday, Social Media Club Orlando is getting together for some drinks at the new Cask & Larder in Winter Park starting at 6:30pm. Details on our Facebook group. Hope to see you there.

(photo flickr cc-license)

It’s no secret that Social Media alone isn’t enough to provide success for publishing. In fact, as Steve Rubel points out in today’s Advertising Age, a new style of ‘hybrid’ publishing is really driving many of the conversations across the internet.

What many fail to see is that the dirty little secret of social media, according to a study by researchers at HP, is that most conversations are driven by media outlets, not individuals. However, not all media are created equal.

There’s an emerging class of media brands that are smart, scrappy and unmatched in their digital DNA. Call them hybrids. They’re digitally native and entrepreneurial.

It’s an interesting future where personality driven, subject matter experts, will become free agents of the online word. These hybrid stars will bring their audiences to which ever outlet is willing to pay more for their talents. Do you see more and more mainstream outlets moving in this direction?

Photo credit: Oleg1975 – CC-by-2.0 on Flickr.

See all the speakers and find out where to buy your $10 ticket on the event’s facebook page. ( http://on.fb.me/ijALGx )

Hope to see you there.

In the meantime, we’re hoping to announce details of the December meeting next week. Plus we’re always looking for speakers or topics for future events. So let us know if you have any ideas.

Additionally, think about what sort of events you’d like to attend in 2011, including names of potential speakers you can reach.

Tuesday November 9th
from 7PM until 11PM at
The Monkey Bar on
Wall Street in Downtown Orlando.

Parking is available across from the library or on nearby streets.

Please RSVP over on the SMC Orlando Facebook Event page. Hope to see you there.

…media observers give women who blog short shrift, but clearly advertisers don’t. “These sponsorships power these conversations,” Stone says. “They completely support and validate women as writers.” That’s why concern about what the F.T.C. might do still draws keen interest from women who blog for money. For some, online empowerment means sharing — but it means getting your share too.”

There is also a look at how Blogher handles FTC disclosure rules while trying to secure some sponsorship money for its 2500 members.