Q&A with Alex Blum – NYConvergence.com

NYConvergence.com published a Q&A with Alex this week. Check it out here.

Your Customers Want You To Be Social

“93 percent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 percent believe a company should not only be present, but also interact with its consumers via social media.”

That’s what the Boston Globe reported in an article yesterday about findings by communications agency Cone in their 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study. The social web has changed the way we conduct relationships with friends, family, customers and business associates. This in turn has changed the way we relate to brands, products and services. The result is that traditional marketing methods of communicating in a ‘monologue’ is not only a thing of the past but is doomed to failure in a ‘multilogue’ world.

The worst thing for a brand is not that conversations about you are happening somewhere else, it’s that they’re happening and you’re not a part of it. That’s not to say that just because you create an online community with all the bells & whistles, or are part of one, you’re safe. You need to think about your role and voice in the social web. How are you engaging with your customers? What’s your relationship like? How are you nurturing that relationship?

As a consumer, I love what the social web has done for us. It’s put us in a place where we should always have been. #1.

As a brand, you used to be able to control things–the way your customers received and shared information and in effect the choices they were aware of. This is no longer the case. Like any relationship that is treated poorly, it ends. How will you adapt?

UPDATE: Read Write Web’s story on this study.

EVENT: Web 2.0 Expo 2008

September 16-19 Web 2.0 Expo took over the Javitz Center in New York City.  KickApps had a large booth in the exhibitor hall where we served up plenty of widgets in our widget studio.

Oh and did we mention the keg?  From 4-6 pm on Sept 17 Web 2.0 Expo had a Booth Crawl that we participated in.  We served up ice cold beers to our techie friends while showing them how to use KickApps.  And although we don’t condone drinking and widgetizing, no apps were injuring during the expo.

Check out the impressive list of some of the keynote speakers that spoke at Web 2.0 Expo.

• Gary Vaynerchuk -Wine Library TV
• Arianna Huffington – The Huffington Post
• Jay Adelson – DIGG
• Cal Henderson – Flickr
• Maria Thomas – Etsy
• Tim O’Reilly – O’Reilly Media

Ashley Glennon wrote a fantastic guest post on Communityguy.com recapping Web 2.0 Expo while at the same time giving 10 great guidelines for starting a new community.  One of the most important of his guidelines in my opinion is #6 which talks about the importance of setting clear community guidelines and #7 where he talks about the importance of the language you use in engaging your community.   Check them out here.

Also read CenterNetworks recap of Web 2.0 Expo where he asks why Google, Yahoo and other big online players did not have booths this year.  Maybe they were just afraid that the KickApps booth would make them look too shabby!

EVENT: OMMA ‘08

OMMA East 2008 was held at New York’s Marriott Marquis on September 18-19. On top of an exciting lineup of speakers, the expo portion of the conference housed yours truly, KickApps.

KickApps had a booth at the exhibition that was heavily trafficked by publishers, advertisers and others all excited to learn more about KickApps.

The conference brought together a pretty impressive list of speakers including Chris Anderson Editor-in-Chief Wired Magazine, Jason Kilar CEO Hulu, Pam Kaufman Chief Marketing Officer Nickelodeon and much more. Check out the full list here.

Here is an overview of what one might expect from OMMA:

* Hear top names in the industry share the secrets of connecting with consumers and clients in today’s fragmented online media world
* Raise your skills and awareness through our highly-specialized sessions on search, e-mail, behavioral targeting, content creation and management, social media, blogging, gaming, mobile marketing and so much more
* Gain valuable knowledge and insights into emerging markets and trends
* Discover today’s best practices for online marketing and advertising
* Network with VIPs, brand marketers and agency executives

Did you attend OMMA? If you did, drop us a line in the comments and tell us how you thought the conference went.

Now enjoy this video with clips from the expo:

KickApps Conversations: Mahogany Butterfly

I spoke with Nicole Brown of Mahogany Butterfly, a KickApps Community for women of color last week.  We chatted about the design, community building, her demographics, widget building and so much more.

Mahogany Butterfly is  a large, vibrant community with several thousand members that Nicole grew organically. A good portion of her traffic stems from visiting other communities and message boards and contributing while at the same time linking people back to her site. This type of outreach is extremely effective when trying to seek out potential users.

As a self proclaimed big fan of KickApps, Nicole was eager to share her love of the platform with others. When asked what her favorite aspect of KickApps was Nicole said: “The widget studio is fantastic.  There are so many ways you can integrate it into your core site…I’m a big fan if you can tell.”

Listen to the interview below and check out Mahogany Butterfly today.