Hi Gio. When it comes to being a person behind a major brand, how does one integrate themselves into the brand,  and at other times separate themselves from the brand?

I’ve been part of Virgin Active for the past 12 years, so my integration is pretty solid. For those who are starting out, it’s imperative to be soaked up in the brand culture. Always spend a good amount of time watching, listening and learning how things are done and have those frank discussions where you question the processes currently in place. If they’re serving the customer well, then great, but if not, then try change them for the better. At Virgin Active our brand values of fun, value for money, innovation, challenging the norm and great customer service underpin all our efforts and we’ve actually summed them all up into one golden rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated. Your brand’s culture will build your moral compass and give you the instinctual decision making required for the role. In our case, the golden rule. This compass is imperative as you will be the voice of a brand and won’t always have time to pass comments through marketing, PR or customer service teams. You will need to know where to push brand boundaries and when to reign them in.

Separation of person and brand is something that we are still dealing with as I do have a personal life and with that comes it’s own personality. Because of the time spent with the business I’ve managed to align the values and ethos of the business with my own personal ones and thus negates any conflict of interest. If the business does anything that I feel divulges from those values, then we have the discussion internally and debate it thoroughly so that no matter the outcome, we are all on the same page and have a unified front.

Do you think having your name within the company name, such as Giovanni under Virgin Active SA on Twitter, can help or harm? Is it easier for people to feel a connection with a person than a brand? Or are there challenges to having your name attached to such a big brand name?

This decision was taken back when Frank Eliason was still running @ComcastCares and had his name behind the handle. I felt it gave the brand a real name and personality instead of a drone script reader behind the account. This does, of course, have it’s risks as whatever the person does in their personal capacity can be linked to the brand, and perhaps even supersede the brand identity, but the pros far outweigh the cons when it comes to emotional connection with the brand. It does also limit the number of people servicing the twitter handle, but that can be dealt with when the team size increases by either signing off with a distinctive signature or creating specific twitter accounts for the different query types.

I would feel far more comfortable knowing the name of the person I’m dealing with than simply firing emails or tweets off into the great unknown as it creates accountability for the response and always allows customers to find you through other channels.

What do you think is the secret to keeping an online brand alive through social media? What is key to keeping conversations fresh and engaging within the community?

This boils down to knowing what they community is looking for. Whether it’s inclusion, knowledge, a place to vent, a place to meet other community members or simply look for deals. Finding the root attraction and keeping the focus on that is key. For us, we’ve started seeing trends away from the initial complaints to more of an advice seeking platform and so our next focus is providing content that is both proactive and reactive, thereby maintaining the connection, and adding more value to the community. Constant interaction is key. A community can sense neglect very quickly. Posting updates isn’t the only way to interact, so don’t feel pressured to have X number of posts per day, simply ensure that you interact and talk with your community through whichever channels they prefer and always keep it personal. I find that nothing quells anger and frustration like empathy and honesty from a real person.

Thanks Gio, you’ve been great! All the best from us. Heavy Chef readers, if you want to witness what great social media managing looks like, follow Gio on Twitter here.

After relaunching their Chaos website with great success last year, Riaan and the team decided to do something extraordinary to rewards its passionate community of fans.

First, you have to go to www.facebook.com/videocalling to make the new settings available on your chat. Then you have to download a program before being able to video call (I almost called it Skype). Finally the chat world becomes your oyster.

I was a bit confused when I tried calling because there was no ring tone on my end, yet the person who I was calling could hear the ringing. Then we were connected and everything started off smoothly until I realized that we couldn’t hear each other. So the video functionality worked but I had to type everything we were trying to say to each other. This initial problem may have been a bandwidth issue and I hope to try calling from another location. Besides these initial problems, Facebook video is effective and allows you to pool from a wide variety of contacts and easily connection with the people in your life. Based on this, I would give it thumbs up.

Below are some quotes from a few people who have tried to use video calling:

“Facebook’s new video chat powered by Skype requires an app download. Apart from that, it’s fun.” ~Arné Dunckers @Arne86

“It’s reinventing the wheel and merging all these different social networks. Skype is reserved primarily for my closest family and friends, now random people I added in 2007 that I forgot to delete can video call me. I like the different networks separated, as Rich Mulholland said that the networks are all different islands and I can choose which island I go to, now the segregation’s are as lax as border control in Mexico.” ~ Neerali Gajjar, World Wide Creative

“Well I don’t chat on fb so why would I video chat? If they are not on my Skype then am not really speaking to them am i? Circles of trust!” ~ Nyasha Mutsekwa @einyasha The dude – EngineeringIdeas

Bell writes about the fact that social media is a given in changing the way in which brands are marketing themselves but also addresses the debate which is currently taking place around the world about how much of social media is effective and how best to apply it to the business practices.

He then goes on to address the role of social media in the South African marketplace and culture. Although South Africa may be viewed as a little bit behind in certain technologies, we can also see that new technologies are growing faster in SA than in many markets around the world.

Among favorable conditions for social media innovation and implementation in South Africa are the variety of social media spaces found here: MXit , Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin, Blogger, Wordpress, Posterous and Tumblr, the 6 million unique internet users in South Africa, the fact that there are more mobile phones in SA than Taxis+TV’s+Radios combined and more active sim cards than citizen and Facebook and Twitter statistics including: 3,861,240 million South Africans on Facebook  and Twitter has approx 1 million local users (up from 90,000 in Jan 2010) - Information of favorable conditions provided by Ogilvy’s Chris Rawlinson.

Bell mentions some limiting factors in the South African context, many of which are not found in the social media spaces of the UK/US:

• Limited Broadband access and rate structure force internet users to pay high fees putting a ceiling on video usage as well as on media production.
• A stage scenery approach to social media where brands seem to be using social media channels but not necessarily in the most effective manner.
• A limited blogging community.  Unlike the US, the blogger community is relatively small in South Africa with approximately 5,000 active bloggers writing frequently.

Bell concludes with a prediction that this will be big year for social media marketing in South Africa.  He says that the conditions are right. “Can they leapfrog forward learning from other global lessons rather than slog through a few years of ineffective use?  I think so.”

I full-heartedly agree. The blogging community in South Africa may be rather small, but it is one filled with talent and vibrant writers filling our news feeds with relevant and interesting information. Not all brands know how to properly engage via social media yet, but I am seeing more and more of them getting online and trying creative and innovative ways of engaging their audience.

Obvious limiting factors aside, I see South African social media efforts not lagging behind the UK/US but finding different ways to make social resonate in the local context.

Bell also says that social media can be just as effective and useful in an emerging economy. He writes that you do not have to be the UK, Spain, China or even the US to be really effective at using social media in the South African context. And who says that different is bad? South African social media marketing efforts should not attempt to copy those of China or the US but rather shine in their own unique ways.

With more than 400 million subscribers, the mobile phone market is currently larger in Africa than in North America. Once never considered as a target market, international companies are now flocking to the continent knowing that mobile use is incredibly high in comparison to other technologies here. According to statistics provided by Vincent Maher on Bizcommunity, co-founder of Motribe, 10-11 million people in South Africa are using the Internet via mobile devices. This figure is almost double that of desktop Internet users in the country and figures are even more exaggerated outside South Africa. Mobile Internet usage is allowing for wider Internet access in an African context where Internet penetration has not yet reached a high percentage of the population.

From a marketing perspective, mobile campaigns have the potential to include a much larger pool of users here providing a larger audience which provides the opportunity to have a bigger and broader impact to those brands are trying to reach. South African companies used this to their advantage when many firms started sending statements via MMS letting go of paper copies. Companies are also increasingly showing their faith in mobile by building mobile sites to go along with their traditional website. As e commerce heats up on the continent, this will become increasingly important.

Perhaps the most effective way of using mobile technologies is when combining mobile media with other mediums in getting out the overall message. For example, a mobile campaign can be integrated with the web for a multi-channel impact. We can pair the use of cell phones with the emerging interest in social media on the continent, allowing for global conversations and connections. In this pairing of mobile and social, we can create a shift to mobile Internet use, using mobile to integrate with the web and using mobile to promote it.

African Social Media blogger and entrepreneur, Erik Hersman, notes “with mobile phone penetration already high across the continent, and as we get to critical mass with Internet usage in some of Africa’s leading countries (Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt) … a seismic shift will happen with services, products and information.”

According to Sachin, “the reality is that these social networks aren’t particularly popular in developed countries yet and they are pretty much unknown in developing countries (we’re looking at 3 million users which is still a very low number). Unfortunately, it still feels that we haven’t managed to effortlessly integrate locations into the way we use the internet.”

I asked my Twitter friends to see what they have to say about Foursquare:

Blogger Tayla Goldberg wrote a post on how she experiences Foursquare. For Tayla “it is one big tourism map really”.

“Could really see this taking off with tourists in a big way, why buy a huge out-of-date map, when you have it all at the click of a button?”

Okay, so it benefits tourists… What about the marketers?

“From a marketing perspective I think this is an amazing tool, you can monitor who is ‘Mayor’ of your establishment, and reward them for using your services the most, because really its all free promotion for your brand.”

Digital diva, Robyn Silverstone also wrote a post on the Foursquare special offers saying its “creating incentives to drive customers to your business”.

Foursquare users are keen and optimistic. Now, what about the other side of the coin? What are the brands saying about Foursquare?

I asked Williams Hunt General Motors dealer what they think about using Foursquare as a brand and this is what they had to say:

“Foursquare is a pretty cool way to create awareness of our company, location and important contacts. Great to promote loyalty & it’s mobile”

So, Yes or No?

I would have to agree with Sachin and say that there is potential for something big to happen with location-based marketing but we simply aren’t there yet. However, there’s nothing wrong with being the early bird and catching that worm!

Check out these interesting links on Foursquare:

• So we grew 3400% last year… | blog.foursquare.com
• Foursquare Is Growing Quickly — But Still Not Mainstream

Existing heavyweights are looking to augment their offerings by tagging on geo-location features – Google did it with Latitude, Twitter introduced location based tweets and Facebook launched Places.  But the craze was largely driven by startups FourSquare and Gowalla who built entire networks around the idea of users sharing their location and receiving relevant information from their community in return.

The introduction of location-based services has been facilitated by increased smartphone use and the proliferation of the mobile internet.  Smartphones, and more recently other devices such as digital cameras, have been equipped with GPS to allow people to quickly and easily share their location whilst on the move.  This is great news for marketers because knowing your customers’ locations means that you can start to offer them the Holy Grail – the right product at the right place and time.  For example, when a user checks-in to an area close to their favourite coffee store, they can get notifications of the latest specials or earn loyalty points.

So should you, as a digital marketer, jump into creating campaigns for location-based social networks?  Not so fast – the reality is that these social networks aren’t particularly popular in developed countries yet and they are pretty much unknown in developing countries (we’re looking at 3 million users which is still a very low number).  Unfortunately, it still feels that we haven’t managed to effortlessly integrate locations into the way we use the internet.

What do you think?  Will location-based social networks go mainstream?  I’m certain that if they do, advertisers will stand to benefit the most if they use a user’s location to provide real and relevant benefits.

Clients have realized that building a community is critical to their marketing campaigns. Brands like Red Bull and Ray Bans are hitting the social channel hard. Gucci are moving millions from their traditional budgets to engagement via social media.  As social networking becomes increasingly more important in community building strategies, we need to be cognisant of some seismic changes in the mobile environment – the key one being that audiences are looking at Facebook and Twitter more via their mobile phones than on their desktop devices.

There is no escaping that Social = Mobile. However, there are VAST differences in the browsing behaviours of people on mobile as to those on desktop. At World Wide Creative we’re busy with several mobile developments, and here are some quick do’s and don’ts we employ.

Don’t:

• Replicate your website layout in your mobile site
• Think that people will behave the same on a mobile site
• Use the same layout and design for your mobile site as your website
• Use images links for navigation

Do:

• Simplify your mobile site to the MOST important action points
• Figure out what the motivation for a customer to visit your mobile site
• Use a minimal amount of graphic elements, and where necessary, keep them simple and clean
• Use crisp, clear fonts
• Use text-based links

Some good examples of easy-to-use mobile sites:

• http://www.computicket.mobi
• http://mobi.da.org.za
• http://mobi.supersport.co.za