[The Insider] 6 Wunderkinder

A new star appeared on the startups sky above Berlin. And it came with a bang. 6 Wunderkinder published their first to do list application wunderlist in November 2010 not even two months after they have been founded. It runs straight the top in major tech blogs, magazines and goes wild on Twitter.

Luckily the place we work is literally across the street of their offices. So we poked them on Twitter and arranged a meeting with “the marketing guy” Robert Kock to talk about this boost start and the role social media plays in this company.

Undoing Years of Efforts

Some days ago I read a tweet by Jeremiah Owyang (jowyang) - in my opinion one of the most interesting people to follow on Twitter when it comes to social media. It said:

Oh my gosh, he is so damn right!

[The Insider] 15 Talents

When you want to be the leading market place bringing together talented students with interesting company projects of innovative companies, you need to be where the students are. When the 15 Talents SIBE GmbH was founded in early 2008 it was the leading rule for structuring the company. This simple but powerful rule was the reason why 15 Talents was created with Social Media at its core, making it a true social media company.

Two years later the responsible for Sales and the company site within Xing, Andreas Griesbach, is giving us insights of the company structure and how it works today through an interview.

Flip and think!

Recently I found an interview hosted by Mark Suster (@msuster) with the rapper and entrepreneur Chamillionaire. Firstly I was a little bit cautious about it because I knew Mark Suster from the side of an entrepreneur and active social media user. Chamillionaire was known to me as a musician and tech addicted. I thought it was a strange mixture but this interview really got me thinking about a lot of things regarding business and especially Social Media.

Should Business-to-Business-Companies care about Social Media?

When we talk about successful usage of Social Media one often talks about nice brands targeting end customers. Not only because there are many of good examples but also because they are more visible than others. But being a company doing business to business products or services one wonders what to do with social media. You barely establish your brand with it, only few try to do business to business over the social networks like Twitter and Facebook yet. Asking themselves: Should I care about Social Media?

Becoming Social Network Marketing Manager

When I read this Dilbert a few days ago, I knew I had to share it with you:

It's funny because it's true.

An open letter to Marketing

Dear Marketing,

congratulations you are once again making a fool of yourself! I mean don't get me wrong, eventually you've understood that people care about the way the product gets produced, its quality and the service around it.Good for you! But there is one lesson you never learn: It's not about saying, it is about doing it. And with nowadays technology and world-wide networks and organisations like greenpeace there is no easy hiding anymore. So what is your answer, marketing? You do greenwashing and adverts showing the company friendly, supportive and offering the best and easiest service - while they do not. We normal people call this "lying": you help companies to pretend being better than they actually are.

Of course, you are doing it for the money, so no harm there, eh? But do you guys know the story of the boy who cried wolf? And in the end no one believed him, when there was a wolf? When I was a kid I was told the story every time I was caught lying. And it has point; if you lie people don't believe you, don't trust you any. So if anyone at all is believing the ads you are doing lately, they won't do it much longer. Leaving companies who actually care at a bad place: they can't advertise with these terms and those promises. Those got broken too often for anyone to believe them. So even if those companies grow bigger the only way to make people believe that they care is by actual action, by doing it. Advertising this is pointless, might even does harm as people question it. Got it?

Even when those companies grow there isn't much point in doing classic advertising as no one will believe them! This way of pretending without action you, dear Marketing, are supporting at big companies nowadays isn't only bad for the company it is bad for you! By doing this you are making yourself useless, destroying your own future. You should seriously consider being more picky about your clients: choose those with the good product over the one with the pile of money and ensure that what has been said gets done. But most important: don't Lie! Only if people can trust advertisments, they might consider believing you. And only if people believe and trust you, you stand a chance when the upcoming companies with good service and high quality products grow bigger and re-evaluate their communication strategies. Think about it!

With kind regards,
Benjamin Kampmann

[Should I care about] Fans and Followers?

Social Media is mass media. More than 500 Million users in Facebook, more than 160 Million on Twitter. I am sure you know the numbers. But what about your Fanpage or your Twitter account? Are there are lot of people around? Is it even neccessary to have the ultimate goal to boost those numbers? Really: should I care about my Fans and Followers?

Schuster bleib bei deinen Leisten!?

Ein CEO hat oft genaue Ziele, welche dann so schnell wie möglich mit so wenig Arbeitsaufwand wie nötig erreicht werden sollen. Ich bin mir nicht ganz sicher, ob es überhaupt eine Situation insbesondere in der Welt der Arbeitenden gibt, die diesen Wunsch ermöglicht. Social Media ist wohl auch eher ein Fall für Zeitaufwendigkeiten und deswegen nichts für die Geschäftsführung. Oder sehen wir das falsch?

[The Insider] Schwarze Dose 28

Since the start in 2008 Schwarze Dose 28 (also called "28black" in the US) has been more than just an energy drink based on the açai berry. Right from the beginning the brand stood for quality, natural ingredients and aesthetics. Resulting in a huge success; offline and online. When they hopped on the Facebook-Hype going through Germany last year, they took over a community Fan Page with about a thousand fans. By now they crossed the 20 thousand marker and head for even larger numbers.

Julia Akra, Head of PR at Calidris 28 Germany, met with us and gave some insights about the beginning, the current state and the future of the Social Media involvement of Schwarze Dose 28.

Outsourcing Social Media? Bad idea!

With all buzz around Social Media you've properly discussed it in your company or with your media agency now or then. And they offered you to create a Social Media strategy and execute it for you. While it is a great idea to let them develop a plan for you - as you have bigger problems to worry about - you should not let them execute it for you:  it won't work! No matter what you agency is promising you, it won't work. They can support you, come up with ideas and train your writing skill and how to behave in certain areas of Social Media, but they should never be in charge of execution.

Who's afraid of Social Media?

Recently we gave a presentation discussing the potential marketing of an upcoming product. Alex and me suggested using Social Media to make the step from the phase of early adopters to the mass market. Thought the listeners were quite young people and were aware of social media and its immense power they were quite sceptical, to not say scared. That got me thinking: are people scared of Social Media? And if so: Why? How can we prevent that? What can and should we do about it?

[The Insider] Hotel Berlin, Berlin

With its 52 years "Hotel Berlin, Berlin" clearly is not a new comer in hotel business. But when the hotel was bought out of a big chain in 2006 the heads decided to reinvent the hotel and its meaning once more. Beside a new facade for the building this included a new brand and new ways of marketing; taking the hotel into Social Media.

And once again Berlins third greatest hotel is leading hotel business to new innovative ways. Last week we got the great opportunity to talk to Anne Bubner, Brand and Media Manager and her Assistant Maria Langhammer both managing the Social Media appearance for the hotel. Like no one before they showed us how Social Media is more than just another communication channel and deeply effects the hotel and its processes.

[Should I care about] Location-based Services (LBS)

Even before the latest peak in downloads of scvngr  Location-based Services had a huge buzz in the internet community; Foursquare's and Gowalla's (both launched last year) growing user base put Facebook under heavy pressure. So heavy that about a month ago they launched their competitive service called Facebook Places.

Location-based services promise to "socially engage" users for your local business like cafés, bars, museums and similar public places. But how do these systems work? Why is there a hype about them? How do they try to keep this promise and what would I - as a business owner - have to do to participate? All boiling down to one major question: Should I care about Location-based Services?

Marketing by Sharing

Oh no, thats not just another TED Talk. It is not, really! If you want to see some interesting TED Talks about marketing and social media I would suggest you to have a look right here and here. They won't dissappoint you. I promise!

But lets get back to the main topic. I guess a lot of you know 37signals. They are the creators of "Basecamp" (and more) and writers of "ReWork" and "Getting Real", some awesome books on building web based services.

Jason Fried (Co-Founder and President of 37Signals, the guy in the video) talks about a possible way to promote and marketing your products and services: marketing by sharing.

Good Night my Blog, Good Morning Twitter!?

Das Wachstum rund um die Nutzung von Microblogging in Unternehmen erinnert mich in vielen Facetten an die Veränderung der Firmenkommunikation mit dem "Einbruch" der Blogs. Das Gefühl man müsste den alten Zug verlassen und mit einem anderen weiterfahren um ans Ziel zu kommen ist nun wieder erkennbar.

Vor kurzem bekam ich einen Artikel zu lesen, in dem die Meinung vertreten worden ist, Microblogging würde den Blog in Kürze ablösen, denn die Tendenz zu kurzen Mitteilungen sei nicht zu übersehen.

Dabei bin ich der Meinung, dass sowohl Blogs im ursprünglichen Sinne als Microblogging für eine gelungene Social Media Kommunikation unabdingbar sind. In einigen Gesprächen mit Unternehmen kam immer wieder die Frage auf, ob es sich denn tatsächlich lohnen würde, einen Unternehmensblog weiter zu führen, wenn doch Twitter und ähnliche Dienste vorhanden seien.

Ich sage ja!, es ist sinnvoll, aus den folgenden Gründen.

[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!

"

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.