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Tomorrow I leave for the States on a journey to be inspired, receive an award for my work and charge positive energy. To all of you out there who supports and beliefs in Awoque, our values and share our High5:s, the Gutenberg Award is for you.

“The Gutenberg Award recognizes individuals for distinguished professional achievement. We are so pleased to honor Victoria Ahlen for her excellent work as a leader in the use of social media for not only effective dissemination of news and marketing information, but also for her commitment to its use for the greater good. She emulates what we want our students to accomplish as professionals in mass media”, says Dr Cheryl Bacon at Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at ACU.

Awoque socialized the World Transplant Games in Göteborg in the summer of 2011 and increased awareness for organ donation. Our team at the time – Maria Gustafsson, Björn Kåberger, Paul Williams, Martin Lindeskog, Kristina Svensson and other fantastic co-workers. I will blog more about you in the days to come.

Follow my journey in a videoblog. High5 to you.

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We get inspired my tough questions about a field we are passionate about – Digital Trends and Communication. Yesterday, we gathered fans and great people for an evening of dialogue and soup together with our friends at DTRT. Thank you to all for your questions and a great conversation both IRL and in various social media channels (#thaisoppa on Twitter). We got inspired. High5!

Thomas Ivarsson, CEO at Tivalux won a prize for the best question

PS – If you want to get your hands on the Faktum-calender, get in touch!

How can a group of a few hundred, a few thousand or over a million share their opinion, experiences and stories?

By using a Twitter # hashtag.

A hash tag is a simple way to group thousands of tweets, making it easier for people to follow and participate in specific events or topics of common interest. Hashtags are extremely useful at events such as conferences where people agree on a specific hashtag; so that all tweets for that conference can be easily aggregated.

Another plus, is if a hashtag is actively used for a period of time it can start to trend on Twitter, thereby exposing an event or topic of discussion to many more people. For example, an event we socialized a couple of weeks ago for Handelskammardagarna, contained the hashtag #VHK2011.  So when using Twitter search the participants could find all the tweets using this hashtag. This allowed the audience and participants to see all the different points of view as the seminars and days events unfolded. The result was 1400 tweets over two days, trending on Twitter in Sweden in 5th position the 1st day and 3rd on the second day. A great achievement for Handelskammaren.

Finally, creating a hashtag is an easy way to establish a permanent, searchable record, available for the future.

If you want to more about socializing your next event, give us a call.

It is with great pleasure that we present Awoque’s new social site.

In the spirit of being social, we have discussed, posted and engaged with peers, partners and clients to get their valuable input into developing our new online presence. Today, we are extremely proud to present our new social site.  A space that accurately reflects our mission, personality and passion for working with social networking/media.

Awoque’s three strategic objectives: to enlighten, develop and transform business through social media have also been essential in the new strategy for our web and digital channels. In parallel with the web process, we have developed a richer graphical profile. One that consists of key graphic elements that communicate our visual identity.

Finally, our special thanks goes to the Raket Reklambyrå team for designing and developing the social site.

Our best,
The Awoque Team

Awoque’s client references provide genuine opinions on our company’s character, work habits, abilities, communication skills, commitment and that we have delivered a great result.

This information is often difficult to garnish from a company’s website or blog, but is just as important to get across. When a prospective client is considering your business, they often seek out and refer to your present client list. Some companies go as far as contacting your clients, but for most it is enough to see other endorsements.

In truth, your best customers are often the best spokespeople, and the best salespeople a company can have. Meet a few of our fans:

• Olivier Coustere, president of World Transplant Games Federation says:
  “We were extremely impressed with the social media communication initiatives introduced at the games-the web/online communication was imaginative, exciting and effective…The best ever for our Games.”
• Claes-Åke Gimmersta, CEO Auto 7H“The nature of our industry is social, we interact with customers every day. Through Awoque, we now have the experience and capabilities to harness the power of social media. We can use it to connect and engage with future customers through-out the sales cycle.”

What is more powerful eyeballs or engagement? At a coffee store last week in Göteborg’s Central Station I pondered this, as people were tapping away on their tablets or smart phones. While, just across from the cafe was a large, rotating, advertising display, competing for audience attention.

Traditional marketing such as television and print relies on “eyeballs” to get the message across with no emphasis on the consumer. This makes traditional marketing one-sided and flat to younger generations. Unlike, social media which is about “engaging” with your potential customer. Social Media gives your company it’s voice or personality enabling new and existing customers to interact with your organisation on a more personal level. Social channels such as Facebook and Twitter allow people the opportunity to voice their opinions about your services or products in a casual manner.

With the percentage upon which people act on traditional or forced marketing estimated to be in the 1-2% range. It is easy to see why more and more companies are becoming interested in social media. Especially, when you factor in the rapid take-up of tablets and smart-phones.

We often find that companies focus on the big four channels: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn – Social Media, right?  Social media is a powerful medium for two-way communication.  But when companies take a different perspective and focus on the “Social” side, it allows their organization to think outside the box.

Focus on the social side

My issue with the term “social media”is that for the uninitiated it is biased toward digital marketing. This is why I often refrain from using the term when meeting clients. I want to avoid any perceived borders or limitations when looking at ways being social can positively impact an organization’s business, process, sales, development, inspiration, etc.

Companies need to stop trying to shoe horn social media into their business and instead start looking at the bigger picture of  becoming a social organization.

Göteborg´s greatest network for business relations and taking the lead in planning our future society, Västsvenska Industri- och Handelskammarenis putting on a spectacular event in a few weeks. All year they have been seen in internet forums and in town asking questions of their members and citiziens in Sweden where we want to go. The result will be a great party in October.

Join us on stage on October 14 during 350 year celebrations at Västsvenska Industri- och Handelskammaren. Your input matters to us. What would you like to know about digital communications and trends? What question would you like answered? Please send us your thoughts and also join the conversation on Twitter at #vhk2011.

The past few years Facebook (and other channels) for businesses, have more or less been the domain of marketing departments. However, customer support managers and their teams are also getting involved.

For companies looking to harness social media, channels such as Facebook and Twitter can serve as an alternate customer support channel, providing customers with access to customer cervices (Live Chat, Click to Call, etc), frequently asked questions,product reviews, customer groups, store locations, etc.

Today a number of companies around the world are using, or switching to social channels to provide better customer and after sales support/experiences. As we are based in Sweden, we’d like to acknowledge a few companies we think are doing a good job.

SEB
SEB is a Swedish based bank that uses Facebook to extend their customer support and they do it very well. They have a team of dedicated staff monitoring and answering customer queries. It is fast becoming the support channel of choice for their socially savvy customers.

SEB Facebook Support

Binero

Binero, is a web hotel company based in Kista that has extended their customer support to Twitter. Binero answer any question, no matter what it is. They are quick at responding, will call you back if you leave your number and the service is available 7 days week (open times are posted on their Twitter account). You can also see the people who answer your questions in the Tweetologer.

Binero Twitter Support

SJ
SJ is Sweden’s state run train company, which is using Facebook to imprrove their customer service.

O.k, if you live in Sweden you are probably shocked to see SJ in this list. True the company has had serious issues. However, I have placed them in the list as an example of a company facing their issues head on. Most companies are afraid of negative comments but SJ are using social media to answer customer complaints. Hopefully, SJ not only respond to complaints but act on them too.

SJ Facebook Support

On another note, it is also very important for companies to consider how social media support services integrates into their existing customer support processes, in order to avoid inefficiencies and increased costs.

If you want to understand how social media can be used to enhance your customer support services give us a call.

I was one of fifty bloggers invited to Lane Bryant Bloggers conference during Full Figured Fashion week in New York. It is no understatement to say that I was very excited to meet all my fellow bloggers/friends from other countries and they all looked fabulous of course!

At the fashion conference, I was eager to find out more about Lane Bryant’s and their collection for fall 2011. However, I was also very interested to see how Lane Bryant would communicate with their key influencer’s because a) it’s part of my job at Awoque and b) I like to think that my fashion blog(BeyondSizes) for plus size girls is somewhat influential.

Lane Bryant began in the early 1900′s and have been making clothes for a long time, so it’s true that they know what they are doing. As a brand they are constantly trying to improve their clothing lines for the plus sized girls. I like that and High 5 to them.

First up was Robert Rutkauskas, Director Trend and Color, followed by David Albow, Senior Design Director of Sportswear. They presented the up coming collection for the fall season and all got a good lesson in clothes fitting. We then had the pleasure of listening to Gill Heer, the Senior Designer and Director for Intimate Apparel. Gill, introduced the upcoming fall Cacique collection inspired by pin up style.

During the day Lane Bryant revealed some interesting information. The best news for me personally was that Lane Bryant will begin to ship their clothes internationally in September 2011. The event finished with a nice lunch, which also gave us a chance to mingled with the presenters and my fellow bloggers.

It was a good, professional event but Lane Bryant could have gotten so much more out of it. As a company Lane Bryant could have gotten information from their audience of key influencers that could be useful in social media, in future designs, marketing and importantly get insight into how to connect and engage with the plus size community.

So, if you have an upcoming event think about how you can use it to obtain valuable information for your brand, product and services through your fans?

If you want to more on how to use social media at your next event, give us a call.