[The Insider] Freunde des Mauerpark e.V.

The Mauerpark in Berlin (between Pankow and Wedding) isn't a park as all the others. When you look at it during weekdays it looks like an old, dry fallow land you would never call "park". While on weekends it is overcrowded - feeling more overcrowded than alexander platz - and filled with all kinds of artists; there are bands playing, people dancing, there is open air karaoke and a fleemarket every sunday. It is a really special place.

And like every special place the Mauerpark needs people who take care of it. One society of 25 volunteers taking care of the Mauerpark is the "Freunde des Mauerpark e.V." ("Society of friends of the Mauerpark") who are trying to establish the park as a constant in Berlin, its culture scene and tourism. So when they thought about relaunching their webpage last year it was decided to get off the path of a "normal society webpage". The people behind "Freunde des Mauerpark e.V." wanted a website transferring all facets of the Mauerpark - they decided to go "social media". We had the great opportunity to talk to Alexander Puell from dfacts.de, the designer of the concept, the creator of the page (software wise) and the one behind most of the social media involvement of the foundation. And, boy, did we learn a lot!

Remarkable

As you may have noticed we provide you with TED Talks regularly (e.g. here and here). It is not a secret, that we love them, as far as some "Social Media and Company"-Points are in as a topic. So, here you go with another great one.

This talk is held by Seth Godin (Blog), a great marketing mind. He speaks about marketing actions and in some points about product creation. Seth Godin points out that both have to be remarkable and aim for the right target audience. That doesn't sound new to us, n'est pas? But at the same time we see a lot of companies struggling to realize especially when it comes to remarkable product and marketing strategies as well as brand management.

These are also, and as I think especially, main points which you should consider if you are about to start some kind of social media activities. And yes, I am sure that social media is a great opportunity to build your community which will have a big impact on your brand management and product creation.

Social media activities need to be remarkable and aim for the right target audience if you want to be heard in your community and get reaction/respond. Try something risky, invent some new kinds of social media experience. Don't go the old way like this proverb says:

“One who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints.”

Now let Seth Godin do the talking!

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Remember that!

Demand and Supply

One of the big hyped surprises last week was, without a question, Twifficiency. We told you who was behind this viral tool. The whole Twittersphere was busy linking this tool to their Twitter accounts in order to let it calculate their "Twifficiency".

How to not be a Bad Email Marketeer

I am not very fond of email marketing myself. The reason for that is one every one knows: It is often misused for spam. The guys from MailChimp, one of the best email marketing tools out there, know about this, too. But they also know: spam is not always intended. Often it just happens because people just don't know about "the email marketing etiquette". The people from MailChimp have understood that they need to provide more than just a tool if they want their users to be successful in this area. Therefor they created a really creative video campaign, explaining this problem in the style of a 30ties b/w education video.

The End of Top-Down Control

I'll keep it short today, I promise.
I just want to show a really good TED-Talk about how Social Media is changing the way people communicate and participate in things politicians and also companies do. This TED-Talk was held by Clay Shirky in June 2009.