Kelly Mack's Blog (9)

Co-creation or the offer of a brand to share creating an experience with customers can offer an enticing method of involving people in their brand. It can be exciting when a brand we enjoy asks us for help or to participate in their offerings. But I find that I don’t have the spare time to create videos and enter co-creation contents presented by brands. Give me a simple way to get involved and I’ll more likely be hooked. “Co-Creation Ru… Continue

Sure, an entertaining video or other glitzy web trick can lure people to a website once, but how do you get people to return once the novelty wears off? I think this is one of the greatest challenges websites face in this day of media-blitzed Internet users. Designing for the Social Web argues that organizations need to understand the audience’s motivations for visiting the website and support these motivations wit… Continue

If Obama brings his usage of social media involvement to government, we could see a great improvement in government responsiveness, and ideally government improvement. While the public expects excellent service from the companies in their lives, they don’t always expect the same from government. Very rarely can one go online, log a complaint with a public agency, and expect a response or quick and timely solution to the problem. Government agencies can and sho… Continue

Groundwell’s chapters on energizing and embracing customers through social media touches on the control issues an organization must handle before it attempts such an endeavor. Accepting the Unexpected Part of the greatest challenge for an organization in opening itself to the public through social media is the fear of losing control. This may mean not controlling messages as tightly, receiving criticism, and having others hold the organi… Continue

I work at an association that highly values media clips and measures success by number of the organizational references appearing daily in the media. And I am tasked with tracking clips for my department’s part of the brand despite how little these numbers tell us about the success of our public relations activities. As a one-woman department in charge of communicating on behalf of a $230 billion dollar segment of a larger industry, I can feel overwhelmed at times. My preference for newer commu… Continue

Consumer Buying Behavior from Principles of Marketing at KnowThis.com highlights the importance of considering consumer roles, described thusly: “Roles represent the position we feel we hold or others feel we should hold when dealing in a group environment. These positions carry certain responsibilities yet it is important to understand that some of these responsibilities may, in fact, be percei… Continue

Beyond supporting their members, trade associations are the leading representatives of their industries. An important activity of a trade association is to market their industry to consumers, government, and many other stakeholders. In the book Groundswell, the authors advise that organizations with marketing functions conduct social marketing activities to talk with (meaning, two-way discussions) with their publics. But how effectively do trade associations harness online media to stimul… Continue

Establishing liking over the Internet is harder than in person. Consider Cialdini’s discussion of common reasons people develop liking for others: physical attractiveness, similarity, compliments, contact and cooperation. While a person can sum up a stranger in moments upon meeting, much more effort goes into developing liking online. Physical attractiveness could be considered the visual appeal of a social media website. How does the layout communicate the tone and content of the author? How d… Continue

While reading Groundswell and being introduced to several new technologies through our class, I started wondering if an attention crash is inevitable. How can we possibly manage email, RSS feeds, Facebook, del.icio.us, Twitter, and all the other online tools and distraction that drain our attention span? A post on elearnspace succinctly articulates the problem of attention crash… Continue