L&S Unscripted

From travel and tourism to higher education, telecommunications to healthcare, 12 different Lawrence  & Schiller clients took home honors Saturday night, at the 44th Annual South Dakota Advertising Federation’s Addy Awards. The diverse collection of winners represent a 25% higher number of clients than any other marketing agency in the awards show.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just the facts – A great post from our often quoted friends at the Center for Media Research, facts you can use during your reports, speeches and water-cooler arguments during 2010.  Ah, we love stats.

Mobile Phones

• U.S. mobile phone users 13+: 223M
• Number of mobile Web users: 60.7M (up 33% from 2008)
• Percentage of mobile devices that are smartphones: 18% (up from 13% in 2008)
• Percentage of mobile device owners that streamed audio: 8%
• Percentage of mobile device owners that viewed video via their mobile phone: 7%
• Percentage of mobile devices sold in Q3 2009 that were smartphones: 25% (estimated 40%-50 in 2010)

Source: The Nielsen Company, November 2009

Looking Ahead To Mid-2011

• Estimated smartphone user base: 150M
• Estimated mobile subscribers: 300M+
• Estimated users of mobile web: 120M
• Estimated users watching mobile video: 90M

Source: The Nielsen Company, November 2009

Growth of cellphone only homes in the U.S.

• 2009… 21%
• 2008… 18%
• 2007… 15%

Top 5 Smartphones (% Ownership)

• Blackberry 8300 Curve: 17%
• Apple iPhone 3G: 15%
• Apple iPhone 3G S: 12%
• Blackberry 9530 Storm: 6%
• Blackberry 8100 Pearl: 5%

Source: The Nielsen Company, November 2009

Top 5 Mobile Web Sites

• Google Search
• Yahoo! Mail
• Gmail
• Weather Channel
• Facebook

Top Social Networks on Mobile Phones

• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter

Top 5 Mobile Video Channels

• YouTube
• Fox Interactive Media
• Weather Channel
• Comedy Central
• CBS

Internet

• 195M Active U.S. Internet users
• 160.3M People who accessed the Internet via a broadband connection: (93.3%… up 16% from 2008)
• 138.4M Unique viewers of video (up 11.4% from 2008)
• 11.2B Total online video streams viewed monthly (up 17% from 2008)
• 200.1 minutes Average time spent viewing online video per viewer monthly (up 12.5% from 2008)

Social Networking

• Facebook reaches 56% of the active U.S. Internet universe with an average usage of 6 hrs a month per user
• Facebook is the #3 site visited by users 65 and older
• Twitter grew 500% year-over-year
• Time spent on social networking sites in the U.S. increased 277%
• The average U.S. worker spends 5 hrs a month visiting social networks at the office
• 32% of all mobile web users visited a social network

More notes from the International Advertising Bureau’s MIXX conference. 

Can you imaging spending 3/4 of your ad budget in ditial marketing?  Adobe can, and they do.  They have created proven campaigns, and alleviated concerns by sharing data and results.  The first speaker of the conference, Anne Lewis, Senior VP of Adobe, set the theme with this statement: It’s ALL Advertising.   When you think about it, it’s true.  Every piece of material we put out there for a brand can either credit or discredit that product or brand.  It’s important to make sure that what you are putting out there is relevant to your target audience. 

In September I had the opportunity to attend the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual MIXX conference.  I had the chance to attend idea-stimulating workshops, listen to speakers from a variety of companies, and learn about new trends in the digital industry.  In the next few weeks, I’ll be posting excerts from my notes.

The Consumer Revolution

Yahoo! did a survey and found that 77% of those surveyed wanted to find an ad again, but they couldn’t find it.  The people surveyed wanted to save it, store it, share it.  There is a large expectation gap of what online provides and what users want it to do.  Stay focused on the consumer.

• The web – massive in scale, but individual areas for all the niches, like interest groups the web brings those communities together.
• The web – not daunting but it needs simplification. 
• It is about LIFE, not online, or offline, all the time. 

It’s a mesh of:

My World               The World            

Friends                  Knowledge

Family                    Information

Values                   News

Interests                 Entertainment

Locale                    Editorial

Combine the two to give more of what they want and less of what they don’t.  Figure out what matters most.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:04 — 2.8MB)

It’s always exciting to win an award, but when it comes from your peers – people with whom you compete for business -  it often means more.  Such is the case for the South Dakota Office of Tourism and its recent winning of the prestigious Mercury Award.

Micah Aberson, Director of Business Development at Lawrence & Schiller tells the story of the award winning Black Hills Digital Strategy in this edition of The Extra Minute.

I just received this video link via a digital community news feed.  As the video discusses, and as we discussed last week with businesses of all sizes, “Is social media a fad?” and how do we measure its true value?  Its great food for thought as I take a few moments to digest all of the notes and information in my literature bag from last week’s national Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference (#sessj).

Last week, Lawrence and Schiller had the opportunity to share our social media expertise with other professionals from across the country in search engine and digital marketing. Great topics, great conversations and I’m excited to share a quick summary of insights discussed during the event.

Search is about people. Not keywords. Search engine strategies to reach customers are not meant to be separate from your social media relationships.  Today, and even more in the future,  people are expecting results that reflect the most up-to-date and relevant content. User-intent and user-influence are key considerations when understanding and preparing for the way search engines will index sites and the deliver the results we see today and in the future.

SEO adds fire to Public Relations. As quoted in the video, “We no longer search for news, the news finds us.” Using social media tools and best practices for SEO are key to ensuring the right audiences find the relevant news we all want to share.  Researching keyword trends, editorial calendars, writing the way the audiences are searching, keeping headlines short and simple are just a few ways we can ensure “news” continues rank well and has maximum reach with leading search engines and social media platforms.

Social CRM. Its here.  Discussions on ways to integrate existing CRM technologies with social media conversations piqued my interest last week.  We’ve begun the path of integrating the newest CRM 2.0 or social CRM tools within our existing enterprise systems – but the world is always changing and there’s more that we can do to ensure our clients have the tools they need.   Businesses are always looking efficient ways to respond to customers from a variety of communication sources, and that includes the most popular social media platforms. Engaging in customer-driven conversations, and measuring those efforts, is the next stage in building effective relationships. These effective conversations lead to relevant search results, which in turns leads to more people finding you.

In short, no matter what the next stage in search strategies, social media, or any other aspect of marketing that leads today’s conference topics, its clear that the fundamental value of any communication hasn’t changed. The goal of great marketing is now, more than ever, about RELATIONSHIPS. The tools, the strategies and the places in today’s world are dynamic and evolving, but the basics of a good conversation never go away.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB)

Search Engine Strategies – San Jose

What a great day at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose! It’s an honor for L&S to be here as a guest presenter. It was a full day of thought leadership, brainstorming with industry execs and now we’re off to the social events. Among the great sessions today, Clay Shirky opened up SES San Jose with an overview of his book, Here Comes Everybody. My notes from the session:
Clay discusses the major changes in media as a true revolution based on three principles:

1. Community Influence – the Internet is the only medium where groups have many-to-many communications
2. Symmetry among the online landscape
3. As all previous media get digitized, the Internet will be home of ALL, providing feedback loops to media content that was previously one-way messaging

It’s not the shiny new object’s arrival that is revolutionary; it’s when people use it without even thinking about it that results in true social changes and shifts in behavior. Tools only change society when they’re accompanied my motivation. The key to understanding why people participate in social media is to get to the bottom of their motivation? Clay discussed the differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Social media is most successful when it’s lead by people with passion. Often extrinsic motivations, such as monetary compensation, ruin the fire that fuels great long-term engagement online.

Clay provided the 3 primary reasons why people engage:

1. Autonomous – I am my own author
2. Competent – I matter, people care and I want others’ attention, which eventually turns into a competition of sorts
3. Connected – I am a part of something I believe in

Sociology matters more than it ever has in media. Characteristics of user’s motivations are what really matters and what makes tools important. The question to ask is not “why do people take part in a particular social movement” rather it should be “why does this come as a surprise?”

The cost of the media landscape is now so low that the logic of media has changed. Content used to be filtered first and then published, because everything cost money. Now content is published and then filtered. The audience or readership decides whether to filter it or not. Producers of content don’t generally have mass audiences in mind; they are more likely to target their content and conversations to their friends and networks. No professional media network has ever had the power that intrinsic motivations can relay… intrinsic motivations result in fulfillment, which fuels passion.

Key head shift:

• Stop thinking about behavior
• Start thinking about motivation and modes
• It isn’t about old people and new people – motives are the same, the opportunities to share have just changed.

Thanks for the thought-provoking session, Clay!  Great stuff. Read more at http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/.  More to come!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB)

Going to the hospital can be scary business if you’re a kid. Ok… let’s be honest… it can be unnerving for parents too.

Often the fear is based on the unknown. What is it like in the hospital? What will the room look like? What can I bring and what has to stay home?

Providing answers in a kid-friendly way is the goal of the Kid Zone. The Kid Zone is a colorful, animated and interactive micro-site developed by Sanford Health. It includes a guided tour of the Sanford Children’s Hospital, links to health information and now, an online coloring book.

In this episode of The Extra Minute, Natalie Eisenberg, account executive at Lawrence & Schiler, explains why the Kid Zone has been created and why Sanford believes it’s an important service to provide.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:10 — 3.9MB)

Webinars are easy to come by. If you’ve shared your email address with any kind of marketing or advertising website you probably have an invitation to one sitting in your inbox right now.

Presenting a webinar on the other hand… that’s a different story.  Preparing, practice and producing a 60 minute “show” can be hard. But in the words of Coach Jimmy Dugan from A League of Their Own,  “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.”

Take a listen as The Extra Minute sits down with John Pohlman, VP of Creative Services at Lawrence & Schiller, to discuss the challenges and rewards of hosting a webinar.

For the Social Media Boot Camp season finale, we brought in the ratings boosters –a.k.a. VP Dan Edmonds (@monkeyboy5280) and VP John Pohlman (@johnpohlman) to discuss the impact of social media on our design world.

For those not familiar with the history of social media design, let me give you a brief overview.  In the mid-1990’s we entered the era of Early Static Websites. These websites allowed users to view the website’s message but only accounted for one-way communication, similar to traditional advertising. The era of Early Web Applications was soon created and those applications allowed online users to interact solely with the propriety content on the website, but two way communications started to take hold; Oh No! What’s an advertiser to do! (j/k J)

Today, we have entered into the golden era of Social Web Applications, which allows for multiple-way communication, promotes interactions and connects people together. This is why design is so important, people are using these websites to interact with other users and the brand, and users don’t need a poorly designed website getting in their way.

To succeed in the current era of Social Web Applications there are two important rules to follow:

1. Don’t Do Anything without a Plan

2. No Need to Invent the Wheel Twice.

These may seem like very basic rules to follow, but it’s good to remember that though the medium of interacting is new and different, the design concept behind the interaction is at the core, the same.

The Best Practices of Social Media Design (summed up in webinar 10): Make Interacting Easy. When a user comes to a website they need to be able to engage quickly and without a long search for the content they want, or thought they would find. Think of how many times you have gone to a website and quickly wanted to make a purchase, upload a file, or find a link, but the icon seems to have disappeared from the site!  I know I get irritated when I spend too long on the website; for some reason my frustration “rope” is much shorter when working with technology than in the off-line world. Technology is here to make life easier, not more complicated; a website should be designed with the users’ intentions in mind.

In the era of Social Web Applications, users want to become a part of the website, so it is important to design and support the development of online communities. Everyone always wants to feel connected and a part of something, so design your website as a place for members to share interests, join groups or post blogs. As we have entered the web applications era, we want users to become part of the site and have it be a place to communicate and connect with others of similar interests.

At the end of the webinar, @johnpohlman and @monkeyboy5280 didn’t leave any cliff hangers but they did leave some words of wisdom: Make sure the experience belongs to the user!

Thank you for participating in our webinars, and see you next season!

South Dakota’s Small Business Administration and the Small Business Development Center Network provides programs and services to help businesses start, grow and succeed. This month, the small business education series will venture into marketing and how, in today’s changing business environment, it can help your small business survive and thrive.

“Marketing Matters,” a four-week educational web series, kicks off July 9 to educate business owners on the value of marketing plans, social media and other ways to better position themselves in today’s economy.

As a leading regional advertising and marketing firm, Lawrence & Schiller is proud to support the: South Dakota’s Small Business Administration and the Small Business Development Center Network to help lend insight and experience to the conversation.

Thursday, July 9: Roadmap to Marketing Success: Simple Steps to Writing a Successful Marketing Plan

• Courtney Davidson and Micah Aberson, Lawrence & Schiller
• Wayne Wagner, CFGear

Thursday, July 16: Google Matters: How Does Your Website Measure Up?

• Krista Gussiaas and Eric Ellefson, Lawrence & Schiller
• Greg Jasmer, DAKOTACARE

Thursday, July 23: The First Impression: Building a Positive Customer Experience

• Natalie Eisenberg and Courtney Lotzer, Lawrence & Schiller
• Michele Slott, Prairie Berry Winery

Thursday, July 30: Social Media Marketing: How to Start Your Online Conversation

• Robin Temple, Lawrence & Schiller
• Paul Ten Haken, Click Rain

Sessions are free and begin at 10:00 am (CST) via webcast. Learn more and sign up by calling the SBA at 605-330-4243 and press 0.

I am not sure about anyone else, but when I heard the words ‘gaming’ and ‘online’ used together I automatically thought of World of Warcraft and Second Life type sites that consume the user’s lives. So I was very interested to attend our ninth webinar, “The Games We Play” led by Julie (@flanneryallen) and Micah (@micahaberson) to see past the stereotype and to the future of gaming, social media and marketing.

The big question that everyone wants answered is why should I invest time, money and resources into gaming and how do I measure its effectiveness?

These statics from Omma help prove that gaming is a fast growing segment:

• 57% of AT&T wireless customers play mobile games on their wireless devices
• 50% play games during work
• 15% of all mobile users have purchased games

Most importantly though, is that more time is spent on gaming than any other form of social networking. Think of how much time is spent on Facebook and Twitter- now increase that and it becomes a large period of time that a consumer is having direct interaction with your brand-what more could be worth the investment?

Julie and Micah simplified the gaming concept into three categories: Branded Applications, Game Games, and Social Networking Games.

Branded Applications occur when companies start in the digital world and from that create a new product. Nike did this with Nikeid, which allows consumers to customize their own Nike shoe online, have it manufactured with their exact specifications and then shipped to their home. A few years ago I purchased a pair of Nike tennis shoes this way- it was actually one of Oprah’s Favorite Things that Christmas season. The point is I never thought of myself as a gamer, when it turns out I was participating in the gaming world without evening realizing it! Dominos also incorporated its brand into an online game. The concept is very easy: create ‘your’ pizza, register it online, and if the pizza is ordered more than any other registered pizza, you win! This becomes a fun competition between friends when they register pizzas against each other, and turns into a great incentive to order Domino’s pizza and to spread positive word of mouth so others order ‘your’ pizza.

Game Games, simply put, takes the old favorites and reinvents them in a social media way to bring together a company’s brand and the consumer. Brick Break and Mortal Combat (or in Mento’s version Kiss Fight) can be re-used so the game will connect back to the brand. A really innovative way movie theatres used this idea was creating an interactive group brick break game while movie goers were waiting for the movie to start. That sounds much more entertaining than watching the same commercial every few minutes or the movie reals which give the same uninteresting Hollywood facts.

Social Networking Games are most common. Think of all the ‘which character are you’ quizzes that have been taken on various social networking sites- or anywhere online for that matter. When brands create a game or quiz they are essentially bringing consumers to them and creating a fun way to interact together. Volkswagen used the social networking concept in creating a ‘What Volkswagen are You’ quiz to inform users of the Volkswagen family in a fun non-traditional marketing way. A great example given of gaming during the webinar was the ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ which made Facebook users ‘sacrifice’ or de-friend 10 of their friends in order to receive a free whopper. Burger King wanted to emphasize how much America loves the whopper and what we would sacrifice to have one. Eventually Facebook kicked the whopper game offline, but not before the whopper made a lasting impact on the gaming community.

Twitter has even entered into the gaming world with celebrities like Eminem and Shaq creating games their fans and followers can play to win free tickets to their events. This could be a good place for smaller business to test out gaming by creating scavenger hunts or other fun games for customers to play.

So what are the values of gaming?

Consumers are actively engaged in making a connection to your brand, you’re able to build databases for future marketing, and it drives repeat visits to the brands website. Gaming effectiveness is fairly easy to measure by looking at how many sales can be connected back to the game and by how many consumers routinely visit the site.

So who now isn’t a gamer?

Your brand’s message matters but more importantly, what is the message the consumers are sending? Word of Mouth conversations, and advertising, are becoming one of the most influential and credible forms of publicity for a brand, in part to the growth of social media. Session 8 of our L&S Social Media Boot Camp kicked off with a discussion led by Jeff Hanson and Molly Schenkel.

Long before blogging was available, consumers relied purely on the message the company was delivering to make informed purchase decisions. Gradually, consumers started talking amongst themselves about what they liked and disliked about brands, but there wasn’t a way to spread the information very quickly and consumers still turned to the brand for the main message. In today’s world, consumers and brands have the ability to talk together and create a message that matters.

Think of the last time you purchased a new brand or product, most likely it was because you heard from someone that it was worth a try. Companies have quickly realized that consumers are turning more towards digital influencers and bloggers than “ads” for product information. For these influential bloggers, some companies have begun to send thank- you’s and sometimes have even tried to provide incentives for promoting the product. But do so carefully . . .even with a relationship or incentive, the messenger doesn’t work for your brand – they will act on behalf of the consumer, not you.

Digital communities are another great way of getting the message out there. By creating a community in the digital world it allows an infinite amount of users to discuss how they use the product, new ideas for the product, or to simply connect together with a common interest.  These forums or chat areas are a great avenue to gain feedback from consumers, which can lead to new product developments or a more user friendly version of existing products.

An example given in the webinar was on Barilla Pasta. As an incentive for consumers to try the new line of pasta’s, Barilla gave consumers a sample of the product to host their very own ‘Pasta Party’. The party thrower was then asked to simply blog about the party, the pasta and the fun. This was a perfect way to connect the brand and consumer together to create a positive message.

For your message to be heard however you also need to make sure you are using the right channel so your audience will be able to find you. Do your homework and start with a keyword search on your company or brand to see how relevant you are, where you rank, and review what others are saying about you – is it how you want your company to be portrayed?

You want people talking about you, and hopefully, its in a positive light. Make sure the message you are sending matters to your audience but don’t forget to listen to the messages your consumers are sending you!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:19 — 1.6MB)

As the number of cell phones capable of surfing the Internet grows, so does the need to deliver content that is optimized for mobile devices.

What does it take to develop a site that plays nice with mobile web? What should it include and what are some of the obstacles you make encounter along the way?

The Extra Minute has the story of Sanford Health and its move into mobile web.

Today’s webinar was led by Miles and April, who did a great job of showing the uses of social media tools for both advanced and neophyte social media users. The ‘tools’ they spoke of were different software applications that make it possible to connect your different social networking sites all into one convenient browser.

If someone has multiple Twitter accounts (for personal and business uses) it would be helpful for them to use Twhirl, Ping.fm, Tweetie, Twitterific, Splitweet or Nambu -just to name a few! All of these tools are programmed a little differently so it is important to try a few and see what will work best for your particular needs. Personally, I only have one Facebook and Twitter account – which I’m still getting used to- so I would use Tweetdeck or FriendFeed, and for my phone, TwitterBerry or TinyTwitter since they all only accommodate one twitter account.

To get specific on some of the mentioned connectors, Twhirl displays your Twitter stream as a single column, the replies are color coded, the Twhirl screen dims when you are switching between applications, you can use multiple twitter accounts on it and it integrates with ping.fm. What is ping.fm? It is a tool that allows you to connect up to 40 different social networking sites together to be able to send out one status reply, instead of writing separate ones for all of the different sites you are on.  TweetDeck connects Facebook and Twitter together and can help you categorize and organize your followers into columns to give a dashboard display of the news feeds from both. Twitterific is a great application that works on the iphone and can support multiple twitter accounts. FriendFeed pulls from multiple social networks and creates a custom live stream of your daily updates, tweets, videos and social bookmarking. Even if one of your friends does not accept to be on FriendFeed you can make them an ‘imaginary friend’ and still see all of their updates.

Using these connecting tools is the most time saving way to stay connected with as many friends or followers as you want. There is software for any type of social networking user, whether it is someone who would like to have phone updates, computer updates, or even updates on others updates, there is a tool for you to make your social networking easier. And with all the free time you will gain with adopting one of these tools, is time you can use trying out a new connector or new social networking site!

To view our schedule of upcoming webinars visit www.l-s.com/bootcamp

@robintemple and @ericellefson lead our sixth webinar about the marriage between SEO and SMM – both strategies are equally important to making sure your website, and ultimately your brand, is visible and relevant to your core customers as they search online. As a site owner, you need to understand how the search engines of tomorrow will rank site content and give engaged sites/consumers the upper hand.

Here’s a brief overview of how build a great foundation to support your digital search strategy:

Make Your Website Relevant: Content is King

On-page Elements (Techie-details)

SEO – Understand that your title tags, headers, image title, bold text and use of keywords are all influential on search engine rankings.
SMO – Coding and tags are not so important, while visual attention grabbers make a bigger impact.

The Meat of Your Page: Rich Content

SEO – Quality content is important in order to rank well.
SMO – Quality content is important in order to hold the readers’ attention and win their approval.

Socialize Your Website: External Content

SEO – Trusted domains will have a positive effect on all pages, including new pages.
SMO – Power profiles on sites like Digg can keep traffic flowing with new submissions.

Relationships with the Right People: Targeting

Know Your Audience

SEO – Provide keyword-rich informational content
SMO – Starting/joining conversations that lead to building relationships.

Research

SEO – Research and Analyze to apply changes that will impact (positive or negative) site rankings.
SMO – Research and Analyze to know what types of content draws interest.

Defining Success:

SEO – Success can be achieved by applying the same practices every time.
SMO – Success lies in knowing the social media audience and engaging in a unique strategy every time.

Measuring Goals

SEO -  In-house URL tracking.
SMO – External content engagement tracking.

Plan Your Attack: Engagement

SEO – Success can be achieved by applying the same practices every time.
SMO – Success lies in knowing the social media audience and engaging in a unique strategy every time.

Integrate and Improve Your Content: Link Building

Be Linkable:

SEO – Inbound links lead to success.
SMO – Links are a result of success.

Capitalize on titles and descriptions by making sure they relate to the content. Doing so increases relevance and increased relevance = your message will spread.

Accept Failure and Try Again

The truth is, even after you’ve followed the rules faithfully, your first dozen (or two) attempts probably won’t work. It takes time to create the momentum you need to establish yourself in the various communities. However, once one of your message does resonate, you’ll understand what all the fuss was about and why social media optimization is worth all the hard work.

You also can’t let up once you get that first taste of success. If you want to maintain the traffic you are receiving, you have to continue to participate. Your success in search engine rankings will wholeheartedly depend on user engagement within social media spaces.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:07 — 2.0MB)

There’s nothing funny about drunk driving. But who says campaigns to curb the dangerous behavior have to play it straight?

Lawrence & Schiller recently launched the Act Civilized campaign for the South Dakota Department of Public Safety. Writer Kristy Andersen joins The Extra Minute to discuss the story behind the campaign.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:37 — 1.8MB)

Talk about mobile marketing and most people will picture text messaging or web browsers on smart phones. But for the South Dakota Office of Tourism it has another, very literal meaning.

Full-size, semi-tractor trailers have been wrapped with South Dakota images. Now the rolling billboards are traveling from coast-to-coast raising awareness of the Mount Rushmore State.

Here is the story behind this unique form of outdoor advertising.

Social media expert, Jeremiah Owyang, provides a glimpse into his Forrester Research study on the Future of the Social Web. He interviewed 24 of the top social media application experts across the nation - leaders from Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Looking at the next 4 years, Jeremiah presents five eras of the social web:

Social Relationships (fairly mature) – connect with others online and share information – MySpace, Facebook, Twitter

Social Functionality (current) - social networks become like operating systems allowing you to add applications to social networks and perform activities beyond sharing static information. Multimedia / Multi-platform collaboration. Example: Facebook and LinkedIn. This era is not at all mature, much growth ahead.

Social Colonization – wherever you go online or with your mobile device, your friends can go with you. You can make decisions based on this peer review wherever you go. Also, you’re constantly connected to people.

Social Context – now that we have portable identities in our devices or online, you can exchange parts of your identity for more relevant content. Personalized content, even to the extent of personalized television and multimedia content. Demographic, psychographic, preferences, previous buying behavior and social context (people you know) will affect the kind of content you will have access to. Because you control your identity, registration pages will go away. Lead tracking will be reinvented.

Social Commerce – Communities will work together to define the products/services that they will buy. Product feedback will become part of the product development process. Again, a new level of customization. Brands will bid for their information. Community buying. 

Great perspective – watch the video to hear Jeremiah firsthand.