Mom Central Consulting

Stacy SMT

Stacy traveled to New York City this past Tuesday to participate in a SMT for Martha Stewart Create, preparing after-school snacks together like mini hot dogs from Oscar Mayer and even give parents advice on how they can manage the tug of war between work and home and make better use of their time on the go by using Windows Mobile Smartphone.

Pepsi Plunges into Social Media with One Heck of a Splash & a Brand New Look

Box 1. Hand-delivered at 10 am: white, oblong, no return address. As a guy hand-delivering it made his way back towards my office, the buzz began. A dozen long-stem roses? A major new technological breakthrough for moms? Inside the box stood five pristine Pepsi-Cola cans, each with a different evolution of the Pepsi-Cola logo, starting in 1898 and ending in 1950.

Box 2: 10:30 am. This box, with the delivery guy now looking like the Pied Piper as curious staffers trailed along, brought us cans with Pepsi’s brand evolution from 1962 to 1998. The logo became more clear, crisp and highly recognizable.

Last box. 30 minutes later. At this point the entire office had gathered to find out what was up with these mystery deliveries. And there stood the new face of Pepsi. A can flushed blue with a stylized logo and a whole new outlook. We love the visual about face: from white to blue, from red print to silver and with a whole new logo:

The enclosed letter read:

You’re a part of a handful of digital and social influencers we’re reaching out to regarding a multi-year, companywide transformation…Pepsi is looking to change the game. We hope you’ll partner with us in defining how digital and social media is shaping the world today and beyond.

And of course, by then I knew - Bonin is behind this!

My very favorite part of living and breathing social media has been the opportunity to work with exceptionally smart, forward-thinking people. I first ran into with Bonin Bough at a Las Vegas conference, when he was heading up the social media team for Weber Shandwick NY. Bonin, simply put, embodies cool. Brilliant, a thought-leader and activist steeped in emerging new media, adjunct professor at New York University, and super-connected, it came as no surprise to me when Pepsi chose Bonin to head their new global social media initiative over 300 other candidates.

Again, not surprisingly given his engaging personality, Bonin has nearly instantly put the new media world on alert as Pepsi makes a strong entrance into this space. He introduced me to his new social media colleagues, Bart Casabona, who he calls the “special czar of Pepsi,” and Josh Karpf, “social genius,” charged with the challenge of evolving how Pepsi speaks with their consumers. As PepsiCo repositions itself to reach the 21st century online world.

In a flurry of exciting rebranding, Bonin has announced Pepsi’s news with old-fashioned flair. Reminding us of how the old reach mode has morphed. Here the snail-mail outreach sparked online debate, just as online social media sparks real-world conversations and influences consumer purchasing decisions.

With a day of travel in between, I am doing what any impassioned social media recipient would do, only late! Up comes my post – out go the Tweets! Hello to my Ning Communities, Mom blogger community, Moms at www.MomCentral.com, Facebook, and Plurk, just to name a few!

Here a few of the other 25 selected social media influencers as compiled by Daryl Parker of http://www.parkerweb.com/blog/

Chris Brogan - Pepsi Reaches Out to Digital People in Analog http://www.chrisbrogan.com/pepsi-reaches-out-to-digital-people-in-analog/

CC Chapman - The New Pepsi - http://www.cc-chapman.com/2008/10/28/the-new-pepsi/

Tara Settembre - Pepsi Mailman Rings Thrice http://www.parkerweb.com/blog/

Peter Shankman - New Pepsi… Heard it Here First http://shankman.com/new-pepsi-heard-it-here-first/

Mack Collier - I Have Three Packages to Give You http://moblogsmoproblems.blogspot.com/2008/10/i-have-three-packages-to-give-you-over.html

Steve Hall - Pepsi Unveils Packaging to “Digital and Social Media Influencers” - http://www.adrants.com/2008/10/pepsi-unveils-packaging-to-digital-and.php

PSFK.com - Evolution of the Pepsi Logo - http://www.psfk.com/2008/10/pic-evolution-of-the-pepsi-logo.html

Charlene Li (author of Groundswell) - Flickr post of Cans -http://www.flickr.com/photos/18757213@N00/

Shannon Paul - Nice Cans - http://veryofficialblog.com/2008/10/29/nice-cans/

Greg Verdino - Pepsi Gets A 2.0 Makeover - http://gregverdino.typepad.com/greg_verdinos_blog/2008/10/pepsi-gets-a-20-makeover.html

Valeria Maltoni - Your Logo is a Symbol, Your Product Can Be a Social Object http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/10/your-logo-is-a-symbol-your-product-can-be-a-social-object.html

David Armano - Care Package from Pepsi -http://twitpic.com/ix1l

Of course, social media can’t launch without an ability for everyone to join in the fray: Check out Pepsi’s room on FriendFeed and join the conversation: http://friendfeed.com/rooms/pepsicooler

No doubt more will be coming soon. Bonin has invited us along for the ride. We can’t wait.

Meanwhile, we will have to expect the unexpected

Stacy at the New Marketing Summit

Stacy appeared on a panel Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at the New Marketing Summit. The panel was hosted by Chris Brogan and included Bobbie Carlton from Beacon Street Girls, Adam Broitman from Crayon, and Stacy. Each panelist discussed Brands and Reputation and how it plays into how corporations utilize new social media platforms to build their reputations.

Here are some clips from the panel:

Stacy DeBroff speaking on Brands and Reputation from Kara Hoisington on Vimeo.

"Gated" Information between Companies and Consumers

Peter Kim presented at the Social Media Breakfast in Boston about companies and their consumer communities. My favorite analogy to describe the company/consumer relationship related to the one-way glass, found most often in prisons. The guards can always observe the prisoners, but the prisoners can never see when they are watched. Similarly companies can often observe their consumer's behavior, but they are rarely directly asked about their experience. Social media has opened the avenues of communication, but it companies must take the initiative to listen.

Great presentation. He walks around a lot, which he explains in his introduction...

Peter Kim at Social Media Breakfast from Kara Hoisington on Vimeo.

Do You Know...The Twitter Effect?

In his latest post 97 Remarkable Ways to Diversify Your Network in a Down Economy , Mark Hayward expands on his idea of using your indirect network to add value.

Most notably, he references "The Twitter Effect". Twitter creates organic links and relationships based on a collection of snippets of conversation, each under 140 characters. For example, I follow 173 people, reading each of their tweets (well, at least I try to read most of them). I may read something interesting between someone I follow and another tweeter, prompting me to then follow that tweeter. Each of those people follow hundreds more, so the opportunity to expand my circle of connection grows. Mark's post links the intrinsic value of those connections with the network created. Thus, the Twitter Effect.

But the Twitter Effect is not limited to just Twitter. A number of applications enhance the Twitter Effect experience:

Twitterlicious is a mashup of Twitter, Delicious, and Ma.gnolia.com. Much like Twhirl, Twitterlicious is a mobile interface, allowing one to see friends' timelines and have the option to clip the tweet. Clipping saves that tweet URL in your delicious.com or ma.gnolia.com account.

TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application currently in public beta. It breaks down huge amounts of twitter feeds into bite-sized pieces, allowing users to split their feeds into topic or group specific columns.

Tweet Beep Basically, Google Alerts for Twitter. One can receive Twitter Alerts via email every time someone tweets about specified keywords or websites.

Twitterholic Provides a list of the 100 best twitterers based on their followers, the people they follow and the number of their updates.  As of right now, @BarackObama is #1 with 99,673 followers.

For more Twitter terms visit here and here.   
 

Technorati Profile

The BBQ Talk

Attended the Social Media Breakfast this morning and lucky enough to hear the VP of Marketing and Community from Radian6, David Alston, talk about building social media communities for reluctant CEOs. He mentioned later on during the q&a his theory on "The BBQ Talk," which relates to the conversation we have about products and services when we talk to each other in casual settings. Love the idea and hence the title of this post.

We are constantly facing the questions of ROI and the advantages of engaging in social media with corporate brands. We try to stress the importance that people go where their customers are having conversations about their brand, which is increasingly online. David referred to "Carpet Bombing" as a large corporation tactic, which means to "bomb" a community with a message until they get it. Instead, he suggests just taking as little as 10% of a budget to hire people to listen to what a brand's customers say about their products or services. Great presentation, thanks!

PS. Sorry that David sometimes looks as though he is experiencing an earthquake, FlipVideo was on an uneasy table.

Mom Bloggers Emerge as Critical to Brand's Success

Every day, we work with hundreds of Mom Bloggers, both in terms of research as well as running extensive blog tours for corporations. For many brands, tapping the social media power of Mom bloggers remains untested waters. This powerful and yet maverick group proves extremely persuasive when enthusiastic about products and companies, and equally prickly when approached the wrong way.

We wanted to share an elusive insider’s perspective into these Mom bloggers—who exactly they are and how they build powerful brand awareness and influence consumer behavior. The study, which was just completed, includes in-depth interviews with nearly 300 of the most influential and popular Mom Bloggers along with surveys of 495 Moms nationwide.  We asked these women to describe why they blog, their financial motivations, how much time they devote to blogging, their personal and professional backgrounds, and their interactions with brands.

Some powerful findings emerged:
•    96% of Moms value recommendations they find on Mom Blogs
•    Over 78% of Mom Bloggers now review products and services
•    94% of Moms rely on other Moms to make purchasing decisions
•    More than 60% of Mom Bloggers consider making money important and want more connectivity with companies
•    37% of Mom Bloggers have been contacted as resources for the press

The complete research package includes a four page Executive Summary, 56 page Research Paper and 57 page data set. For more information, or to purchase a copy of the research study, please visit here or contact Tracey Hope-Ross at tracey@momcentral.com.

Do You Know...?

Every day for the next few weeks, we'll use this space to share interesting social media applications and tools.

Twhirl Allows twitter to sit on your desktop, rather than open in a browser. Updates Tweets in real time.

Tweetburner Really handy application. Tweetburner lets you track what happens with the links you share on Twitter.  Will track how many times other twitterers click the link posted. 

Twitterfeed Autoposts your blog entries to twitter, so users don’t have to worry about updating both. Twitterfeed does it automatically.

Tweet 3D Tweet 3D is a site from the people at Twitter that allows for browsers to search member’s Twitter topics in a 3D twitter tag cloud.

Tag Cloud is a visual representation of content or words.Tag Crowd is just one example of an application that creates tag clouds. Below is a tag cloud based on our site www.momcentral.com.

 

apples articles beth blogger bros central children code coupon enter experts fall family galore green grow halloween home house kids link liquid login lohan marketing mom national palin panel password picasso products read results reviews ringling rituals samples save school sitemap spirit surprising survey sweater target testing ticket traditions welcome

created at TagCrowd.com

Do You Know...?

Every day for the next few weeks, we'll use this space to share interesting social media applications and tools we've stumbled upon. Perhaps you already use some of them.  Perhaps you've never heard of any of these. Or maybe you created interesting ways of describing them. Either way, let us know. We'd love to hear your feedback and opinions.

Do You Know Twitter?
A micro-blogging service allows users to send updates/posts (known as tweets) up to 140 characters in length. To those who use it continuously, it evolves into much more.

Summize: Twitter search tool.  Can search by name, tweet content, location or company name.  Useful if you want to know who tweets about you and how often.

Twubble: Helps you find more Twitter friends. Twubble searches through your "bubble" of friends and makes recommendations of other "tweeters" you might like to follow. For example, "If you like Tracey Hope-Ross, be sure to follow Meg McManaman."

Slandr.net: Allows for mobile tweets. "Twitter on the go."

Mom Central Word Cloud