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I got inspired yesterday. Jonas Bauer, CEO at Vasaloppet, visited the popular breakfast club in Kungsbacka yesterday to tell us the story on why/how a ski race got to be so much for than just a single event. The event inspires thousands of volunteers to get involved, more than 7 000 fans on the Facebook, and a leader who talks strategically and passionately about all events, actions and communication plans. A big High5 from my heart. Go Go!!

Proliv exists to support men and their families who have received the diagnosis prostate cancer. As may organizations, they struggle to communicate with their members, to increase general awareness and to keep a positive outlook on the volunteer-based work load. Utilizing social media can be a way to increase positive attitudes and using each volunteer hour more effectively, if the necessary time is spent on setting a social strategy.

I firmly believe that it is the “media” within social media that stops many to explore the possibilities with online tools and channels. I always start my inspirational workshops by moving the “media” out of focus and concentrating on the “Why”, the basics of a great dialogue and sales strategy. My three basic tips:

1. Stay true to you passion for the cause
2. Tell stories to strengthen to show good examples
3. Focus on the dialogue and asking questions

If you would like to know more. Get in touch getsocial@awoque.com!

A few days ago, we had a round table soup evening to follow up the seminar Digital Kommunikation och Trender from Handelskammardagarna. We talked about it on Twitter and encouraged people to ask questions. Joel Börjesson sent us the following tweet:

We had a short tweet exchange about the matter, which continued in a chat discussion in the evening. To summarize the whole discussion including Twitter, it went something like this:

Joel: Just for fun, since I couldn’t be there: What are your favorite methods of analyzing ROI and metrics on your Social Media platforms?

Björn: Social Media is so much more personal that it is hard to measure Return On Investment. While I’m sure you somehow measure ROI in personal relationships, do you really do it with figures and graphs?

Joel: All social media is measurable. Look at it this way. Social media is really much like any lunch you might have with a client. Say you buy that client or partner lunch, that costs you $20, but what you might get from that lunch, might be much more valuable than the lunch you just bought your client. Say for example that the conversation during the lunch between you and client result in a new possibility of doing business or a prolonged contract. Now there suddenly you have a new business plan or a prolonged contract, paying back that investment of $20 ten thousand fold.

Björn: But what if you don’t get that contract? It’s still worth something, right? How can you measure that?

Joel: Lunch just like Social media is not about the investment you do in the actual lunch or the social media implementation but what you do with the conversation or the platform that you invest in. The more conversations you have and the more time you invest into social media, the more return you will see. Social media and lunches are not about instantly crunching numbers, but more about creating long term dialogues, discussions and collaborations. By just a small investment such as a lunch or a social media tool (which you often can get for free), you can start building long term dialogues resulting in return of investments in a not too far away future. With better understanding between companies as well as consumers through dialogue, greater business decision and greater return on investments will be made.

Björn: Great points, but the question still stands: Can you really put that into numbers? Obviously, a Facebook page filled with positive comments is a great thing, but how do you decide how much a comment, blog post or tweet is worth?

Joel: While there is value to simply measuring the amount of tweets and comments you get, the real value lies in what KIND of input you receive. To turn it around, you can think about how much you would have lost if you did not receive certain messages. If you start distributing a faulty product, some people will notice it, and the first place to complain today is in social media. Had you not been listening to what is being said online, the damage, both economically and reputation wise would have been much more severe. An example of this is the Kryptonite story, where someone realized that you could pick a bike lock in less than ten seconds with a pen, recorded it and put it on YouTube.

Björn: Super! So a way to measure the value of a good dialogue online could actually be to imagine the economic loss of missing out on key information to be found there. Awesome! Thank you Joel for a great discussion and input on this matter! High5!

A short note on the quote: although Albert Einstein is usually credited as the author, he is not, according to the blog Quote Investigator.

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

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.

Facebook is a social media channel, a giant window to communication with your friends, peers, customers and the unknown. This service is open 24 hrs. The majority of Awoque’s clients contact us to get help primarily with their current Facebook-page or to establish their own presence there. And could the page be ready tomorrow? (A quick fix.)

How often does that work? I had a great quote from a network collegue today in Göteborg. “My mom asks me how working with Facebook can be a job?” From the day I started my professional carrier working with online media in 1998, I have had to answer the same question. I have had to motivate my skills and the reasons any new invention is a paid service since there are ways to get it free by doing yourself or getting the help of family member. I wonder how many other business professionals in other fields feels the same way?

My answer to all is of course:
- It takes talent, skillful strategy and a little bit of luck to get it done professionally, to really stand the best of chances or at least increase the chances that the campaign, launch of service etc reaches the set business goals. On Facebook, you need to establish relationships and really listen before you act and start selling.

On Tuesday the Swedish newspaper Computer Sweden published an article on the subject with the name – build relationships on Facebook, stop direct sales on this topic.

What do you think?

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.

As we are coming off the vacation period (here in Europe anyway), I thought it would be fun to catch up with some social media statistics. So take a look at “The World of Social Media in 2011 – All The Statistics, Facts and Figures” with social media stats updated for 2011, a fun video put together by the folks at Omobono.

There is now 152 million blogs and 77% of UK consumers would use information from blogs to influence their purchasing decision.

Time to re-think your stance on social media? Give us a call.

Earlier this year Stall Rustorp a company that sells horse riding products online, contacted Awoque to help market their web and e-commerce site through social media.

Stall Rustorp, is located in the beautiful Swedish countryside approx. six kilometers from Trollhättan and they are passionate about horses and their well-being. The first challenge we had to address was that their website and online store did not communicate this at all. Stall Rustorp, desperately needed a new image and a more user-friendly online strategy to get their message across.

In order to deliver against the brief, Awoque undertook a comprehensive analysis of Stall Rustorp’s business and we reached out to the online horse riding community, valuable key influencers and fans. The result was concrete ideas (and input) on how to get key messages across, a better understanding of the community and their social media channels of choice.

This valuable information was used in the redesign of Stall Rustorp’s entire web and e-commerce site. The new design not only gives Stall Rustorp a modern and fresh look but it also reflects the values of the horse riding community. Another key item was to move Stall Rustorp to a blog friendly platform to promote much more engagement with customers and fans.

“The goal for Stall Rustorp was to create a modern, user-friendly website, whilst making ourselves more available through social media. Awoque has not only helped us create these conditions but pinpointed what needed to be done and made it happen. We now have a very beautiful web site that appeals to our customers and a social media strategy to engage with our fans. We are extremely happy and believe that we have a bright social future.” says Johan Söderlund, CEO. Stall Rustorp.

We too believe that Stall Rustorps has a very bright social future, they have the tools, a new web/e-commerce site that gets across a simple but powerful key message – their love of horses; and a community of passionate fans to engage with.

#High5