V/Speak

A sarcastic and funny perspective on the cycle that is Social Media…(credit: HubSpot)

David Veneski Social Media Blog, Social Media, Twitter

Beyond what you read on V/Speak – there are some other ‘must reads’ out there that are summarized nicely on Freelance Folder’s site.  Ritu lists out the top 25 blogs to help you stay current with Social Media including some of my favorites and daily reads:

Mashable – Founded in July 2005, Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news. With more than 12.5 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web and offering social media resources and guides.

Social Media Today – Social Media Today LLC helps global organizations create purpose-built B2B social communities designed to achieve specific, measurable corporate goals by engaging exactly the customers and prospects you most want to reach.

PR 2.0 – Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. Solis is globally recognized for his views and insights on the convergence of PR, Traditional Media and Social Media. Considered one of the original thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media and PR 2.0, Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club.

There is a larger subset on his site, and many are worth reading.  The above represent my favorite three of the bunch as they are well thought out, informative, and usually a step ahead of the trend…

David Veneski Social Media Blog, Social Media

This is getting a lot of activity on the Social Web this week – an interesting view of the Social Media activities that are happening during the time you are on this site, looking at this post.

David Veneski Social Media Social Media

comScore, in collaboration with GroupM Search, released a study this week that discusses the important connection between Search and Social Media.  Hard to see in the diagram above, the study shows a signficant lift in consumer tendency to search for brand and product related terms when both relevant and influenced Social Media are incorporated in the paid search effort.  In my opinion, the value of the connection to Social Media goes beyond just search however, extending to every paid action a company has on their media plan.  Below are some key soundbites from the report that are spot on in their assessment of the connection. 

“There is a valuable audience for advertisers to focus on who are engaged with brands through social media and search. The study further validates our view that media discovery — specifically a brand’s owned and earned media — is as important to success as the paid media we handle every day. Generating upper-funnel awareness and influencing consideration through social media can produce better down-the-funnel performance with paid media, such as paid search.” (Credit: comScore)

and

“Social media-exposed consumers are far more likely to search for brand and product-related terms, and click on a brand’s paid search ad,” said Graham Mudd, vice president of comScore, Inc. “This finding provides strong evidence that investing in social media marketing can both increase initial brand consideration and drive higher conversion rates once the consumer has decided to purchase.” (Credit: comScore)

David Veneski Search, Social Media Search, Social Media

I’m not sure I could have said this better myself:

“Now, thanks to the blogosphere, Twitter, and other other social media tools you can kvetch all you like for the public at large. But you had better turn all that acidity into something funny or relevant if you want people to listen in.” (credit FastCompany)

David Veneski Social Media FastCompany, Social Media

Recently I had the opportunity to share some thoughts with Jim Hopkinson of the Hopkinson Report about my vision of the future of advertising and the effect of social media on that traditional craft.  I’ve done a fair bit of public speaking, but this is my first podcast and it was great to do – Jim is good at his trade.  I’d like to think that I represented a collective vision for all the smart people at Intel that are doing breakthrough work in the advertising and social media space.  If you have a spare twenty minutes and care to gain some insight on my thoughts, give a listen or download from iTunes for your next commute.  In addition, if you’d like to read the full transcript instead of taking in the audio stream, that’s available on the site as well.

David Veneski Advertising, Social Media, Traditional Media Advertising, Hopkinson Report, Social Media

Quick ode to the Beatles on that title…but it leads me to embed a great video that was forwarded onto me through a friend on Facebook.  Apropos medium for pass along, considering the subject matter of the video.  I recommend watching the entire video (it’s only 4+ minutes) as there are some staggering stats with respect to the meteoric rise and adoption of social media.  Quickly, here are a couple of interesting factoids that you will see peppered throughout the stream.

• In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing email addresses to incoming freshman
• Wikipedia has over 13 million articles, and studies show it’s more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica
• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content (Remember what Barry Judge said?)
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations while only 14% trust advertisements

Here was the key statement in the video for me: “Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate“.  Consider that for a moment, and reflect back on what your life was like before you got got an email address, started using the Internet for the most mundane tasks (shopping, weather, sports scores), and finally – before you engaged in any form of social media.  It was a different world when we relied on the ‘analog’ technology of yesteryear.  I embrace the present and future, with a fond look over the shoulder at the past (getting a good letter in the mail from time to time is very satisfying and I am a big fan of the Sunday morning newspaper). 

Stats credit goes to Socialnomics.

David Veneski Social Media Revolution, Social Media

Wow!  The response to our new Facebook program “Vote for a Cause” has been staggering. You, the community, have really taken to the challenge of nominating and voting for your favorite 501C-3 charitable organization.  We applaud you and encourage you to continue to nominate and vote.  Through the first week more than 10,500 members of the Facebook community have joined this effort and nominated more than 135 causes.  Nominees range from national charitable organizations such as the National Eating Disorders Association to those that are local to individual communities – which is the case for the Big Heart Ranch in Malibu, California.

We are in the first few days of nomination – please continue to do so through the application on Facebook so we can compile a healthy portfolio of deserving causes that will be in the selection set when voting begins on August 28th.  Good luck to those of you that have submitted nominations – I’ll be excited to see how many causes we can pull into the competition for the co-branded advertising winning prize.

David Veneski Social Media Cause Marketing, Social Media, Social Responsibility

I feel great about what my job allows me to do and experience most days.  Today I am especially proud to work at Intel.  Our team launched a program that will really make an impact via social change.  The program is on Facebook and is called ‘Vote for a Cause‘.  Our Fan Page officially launched today and is being promoted throughout Facebook’s media network.

The short description is that we have created an application (launching August 15th) that will allow every member of the Facebook community to nominate and vote for their favorite ’cause’.  The cause with the most votes at the end of September will receive up to $50k (USD) in co-branded (w/Intel) media on Facebook evangelizing and promoting their cause.  How cool is that?

We have very active philanthropic efforts here surrounding Corporate and Social Responsibility, but this effort is quite different than our corporate giving programs.  It’s not Intel choosing the way the advertising money is spent – it’s you, the community on Facebook, that will determine which cause is most deserving of the promotional dollars supporting their efforts.  I’m confident that the community will make a great choice in determining the final winner and the recipient of the co-branded advertising dollars.  In addition, I’m confident that cause will be very grateful for the extended exposure they will be getting as a result of the investment in their effort by Intel.  This will be one to watch – be sure to join our Fan Page and, starting August 15th – nominate and vote for your favorite cause.  The power of social media in affecting social change – made possible by Intel.

David Veneski Social Media Cause Marketing, Social Media, Social Responsibility

According to the latest report from Forrester, Social Media Marketing will hit an annual spend of $3.1 Billion by 2014, making it the fastest growing marketing segment in the mix.  Analyst Shar VanBoskirk makes a great point in the report summary:

“…the most interesting takeaway from the research is that overall advertising budgets will decline.  Yep.  With dollars moving out of traditional media toward less expensive and more efficient interactive tools, marketers will actually need less money to accomplish their current advertising goals.”

There must be some wood behind this social media arrow….I’m just sayin’…

David Veneski Social Media Forrester, Research, Social Media