Louis is the Johannesburg manager of web marketing firm World Wide Creative. Louis is also known as the ‘Case Study Guy’ with an encyclopaedic knowledge of research resources to support the strategic initiatives he is involved in. In between organising Heavy Chef Sessions in the Gauteng region, Louis happens to have a mean sidestep on the rugby field. With his silky skills, dashing good looks, Colgate smile and cunning wit, Louis is the high school quarterback of the World Wide Creative marketing team.
visual web
Need to visualize the world wide web? Read Further
A recommended read courtesy of RWW’s recent post on “Community Building 101 for the Bootstrapped Startup“.
RWW follows the stellar growth of Tip’d – a four month old financial news site – and what they’ve done to cultivate their web community. Read Further
Fred & I recently attended 27Dinner at Capello Sandton, where Mr. Mike “The Iron” Stopforth tasked attendees to do a 270 second talk on, well, just about anything really… “a gem of information, a nifty little discovery, some new app you’ve been playing with, a funny story, a piece of advice or even an inspiring speech”.
Without thinking about it, I wanted to give a bit of insight into the relevance of the number: 4.5 million. Read Further
In an interview with The Economist, Ann Moore Chief Executive at Time Inc, gave some insights into the whole “Print is Dying”-debate.
“A self-described “magazine optimist” who thinks that holding a glossy magazine beats looking at a screen”, Ann realizes that technology needs to be the solution, not the problem. Read Further
It is so vital to build momentum through your blog.
So, if you need to up the ante on content for your blog, here are some points to remember:
I was reading a post from a well-known analyst firm, Gartner, and their 7 characteristics of a well defined social application “purpose” (courtesy: Communityserver.com).
In short, these characteristics – which you can view –>HERE – highlights having a solid purpose and focus when launching a social media campaign. Read Further
How awesome is this !?
Now I can help Fox Searchlight pictures to choose the best poster for their latest movie release (500) Days of Summer.
Talk about generating buzz and building a community around a brand; now I’ll definitely make sure to watch this movie and bragging about it with my friends (if my poster gets chosen that is 
) Read Further
Spiderbama
You know you’ve made it when you appear in a Spiderman-comic…
(Courtesy: Breitbart.com)
The story line:
The comic starts with Spider-Man’s alter-ego Peter Parker taking photographs at the inauguration, before spotting two identical Obamas. Parker decides “the future president’s gonna need Spider-Man,” and springs into action, using basketball to determine the real Obama and punching out the impostor. Read Further
I stumbled accross this great piece of insight provided by David Veneski, a marketing manager at Intel, who said that one of the requirements of his marketing efforts was to NOT link to Intel.com.
Wham! Thank you David. Exactly what I was preaching to a client the other day.
Well-known web analyst, Jeremiah Owyang adds that rather than try to join a community then pull them away, the marketing efforts of Intel was focused on to join communities and staying there – likely where the trust is highest. Read Further
Currently, a lot of noise is being made about measuring the ROI of online communities and social media initiatives - something that quite frankly, that we as communication professionals are far from getting to grips with.
Now, all of these question pertaining to measuring ROI are relevant and are worth the time and energy to investigate and improve on further – however, I do want to emphasize that we still need to remind ourselves that the ‘Return’ is 100% dependant on the ‘Investment’… it can’t be the other way around. Read Further
It’s easy. Quickly take this checklist to see if your company website is still relevant… Read Further
Ahhh, I stumbled accross this old strip from branding/comic genius Tom Fishburne and immediately asked myself… where does Fred fit in? Read Further
When I started writing this post, I thought…Ok, let’s Google all the definitions for ‘Online Community’, ask Wikipedia and provide my beloved, loyal and always good-looking readers with a list of definitions of this term and throw in a bit of my own interpretations.
NOW, HOW BORING WOULD THAT’VE BEEN !? Read Further
Here are a couple of pointers on how to hook people to join your community and then how to keep your members active and addicted: Read Further
What a day, what a day… first we were on a super high after President Obama’s inauguration and THEN, World Wide Creative’s fearless leader and web marketing mastermind, Mike Perk, was found!!
After an almost 5 month pledge of silence, Mike shocked the entire WWC team (and apparently Obama himself!) by writing and publishing his first blog post since September 12, 2008 – albeit on our client’s blog www.smallcapital.co.za… check it out… Read Further
Yep, another ‘2009′ post, but this was such a good find I couldn’t resist…
The Top Ten Reasons for Building an Online Community in 2009
(courtesy of Vocici blog) Read Further
Fact is 2009 is going to be a tough year no doubt, with the grim global and local economic outlook taking centre stage.
However, an offset of these circumstances is that 2009 has a couple of things we can look forward to – specifically within the digital environment in South Africa… Read Further
How would Facebook look in real life?
Well, let FaceBloke tell ya… (My laughing muscles were aching after seeing this!) Read Further
Using Youtube as an example, Wikipedia defines the different type of ‘Online Community Participation’ as… Read Further
How have business models changed over the years? How have they adapted to changing consumer patterns and thus changing value propositions?
A very useful little model (see below) by Dave Duarte from Huddlemind.net tries to explain this by highlighting the difference between Industrial Age Value Creation and Attention Age Value Creation. Read Further
In order to create and grow a profitable website hard work, dedication and sincerity needs to be the order of the day.
So, if you have a web presence with a community of visitors, how often do you interact with them? How often do compliment them? If you’re not doing this on a day-to-day basis – you are not doing your job.
Here are a few compliments that Community Strategist, Angela Connor, did just the other day Read Further
bookmark logo
I went to The Bookmarks 2008 Digital Awards Ceremony last night and I’m stoked – what an awesome initiative by the Online Publishers Association (OPA). Read Further
What traits do playing games and online communities have in common?
Well known social media guru, Peter Kim, highlights some of them in his post on Applying Game Mechanics to Social Media.. Read Further
Those of you that know me, know that I’m a passionate follower of Forrester Research‘ social media work – specifically their conceptualization of Groundswell: a term coined by Forrester analysts to highlight a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.
That being said, Forrester Research is also the custodian of the Groundswell Awards. An awards ceremony that celebrates the best-of-the-best work being done in the social media space in the US. Read Further
Thanks to Barry from The World of We for this post on tips to build a better online community: Read Further
