Today’s entry is brought to us by our guest blogger, AV Flox, editor of the hugely popular social media blog OMGOMGOMFG.com.

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Once upon a time, a woman complained about a job offer on her Twitter account and earned the scorn and ridicule of the world when an employee of the company in question cornered her with a series of tweets.

For those of you who missed the fall of Cisco Fatty, here’s the run down: a woman by the Twitter username @theconnor, tweeted: “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”

Not long after, a long-time Cisco employee, @timmylevad, replied: “Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.” He went further with more tweets about the applicant’s naivete, contacted bloggers to write about the incident and asked followers to retweet his comments. Read the rest of this entry »

You’re a company, or a brand, an artist, or a marketer who wants to promote your cause and you want a presence on Facebook.  You’ve seen it done before, but you just don’t know what your options are.

Should you create a Facebook Group?

Or is a Fan Page your best bet?

In the past, Fan Pages and Groups both had a similar problem: they tended to get initial fan interest, but couldn’t keep fans coming back for more.  There was a lack of social functionality and value for both the fan and the cause.  In essence, the Fan Page and Group used to act like the Facebook version of the brochureware web site back in the day. That now seems to have changed.

While the new redesign of Facebook has infuriated many of its users, it has also created more benefits for marketers and those who want to engage with their audiences and fans.

Facebook has thoroughly revamped Fan Pages in the past few weeks to offer much more viral potential with their built-in news stream integration and dissemination features: any action is seen by each users’ friends and actions are more easily shared.

While the Facebook Groups page still looks and feels the same, the Fan pages have been improved to look and feel more like user profiles.  These new features have driven a lot of users to them while making Facebook Groups a much less influential and used communication tool than before.

Some things to keep in mind if you’re considering a Fan Page:

• When updating your wall, your updates will be included in all your fans news streams
• Fan page editors can update their fans about new content, promotions, upcoming events, and more.
• Fan page editors can send messages to either their entire fan list or segment their update to targeted fans
• Messages from fan page editors appear in their inbox “Updates” tab
• Fan page editors can click on a tab called “insights” which gives information on fan page views

We suggest before starting a Group or Fan Page, you should thoroughly read through Facebook’s FAQs:

Facebook Pages: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=175

Facebook Groups: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=414

With Facebook’s recent redesign of user home pages and updates to the Fan Page template (and very few updates to Groups), we at KML couldn’t help but wonder if the Fan Page is future home for any and all who want a Facebook presence to interact with their fans and audience.

And if so… how long will we enjoy that feature for free?

It doesn’t get much more fun for a designer than to get a chance to create a logo for a new company or redesign one for an existing brand like Pepsi or Sci Fi Channel.

With the recent launch of KARMA Media Labs we explored many identity concepts– ranging from speech bubbles to science-y lab iconography– for our new logo.

However, the idea for the logo came rather quickly: By focusing on the tagline What Goes Around Comes Around, layering a series of rotating transparent squares created a blooming shape, symbolizing movement and growth and gives KARMA Media Labs visibility and recognition.

For the logotype and identity system typography we chose the Gloriola font because its wide range of weights/cuts lend itself to endless creative possibilities. Additionally, Gloriola has a wonderful balance of warmth/friendliness and reserved coolness. The color green because it symbolizes success and growth.

The process for creating our KARMA Media Labs and BROADB®AND identities was very streamlined. Here are a few tips that helped make the process a smooth one:

• Start the process with a branding workshop session where you go through a series of briefing questions with the client/stakeholders to address the company’s values, attitudes, goals, audience, etc. The logo should grow organically from the answers to these questions.
• If you’re designing a new logo concept for a company like KARMA Media Labs, be prepared to BYOWB (bring your own white board). During the work session, documenting the answers together with stakeholders on the whiteboard (or any visual way) is important. It will ensure that by the end of the meeting both the designer and client leave with a clear agreement on the company’s core business and communication goals.
• Follow up with meeting notes including decisions that were made.
• Lastly, inviting the stakeholders to collaborate through the creative process worked well for us because it kept stakeholders and designers in sync, and cut down on the number of review cycles.

To see our finished logo, please visit our web site at www.karmamedialabs.com.

Addicted to old school marketing thinking? Afraid to break that addiction and dip your toes into the social media marketing pool? 12-step programs give us a lot of guidance on how to do just that.

Take for example the 7^th step prayer (our updated, short version at least):

Grant me the serenity to accept the social media conversations I cannot change, the courage to change the conversations I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The 12 steps themselves are just as wisdom-filled:

1. We admit we are powerless over old school marketing think—that our professional lives and marketing campaigns have become unmanageable.
2. We have come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves, the Wisdom of Crowds, could restore us to sanity.
3. We have made a decision to turn our marketing campaigns’ will and our marketing professional lives over to the care of The Crowds as we understand Them.
4. We have made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves and our marketing campaigns.
5. We have admitted to The Crowds, to ourselves, and to another marketer the exact nature of our marketing wrongs.
6. We are entirely ready to have The Crowds remove all these defects of our marketing character.
7. We have humbly asked Them to remove our old think campaign shortcomings.
8. We have made a list of all the brands and products we have harmed, and have become willing to make amends to them all.
9. We have made direct amends to such brands and products wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We have continued to take professional inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it.
11. We have sought through research, analysis and meditation to improve our conscious contact with The Crowds as we understand Them, searching only for knowledge of Their Social Media Marketing Rules for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a marketing awakening as the result of these steps, we have tried to carry this message to other marketers addicted to old think, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Social Media Marketing = Word of Mouth = Awareness

Social media is as simple as its component parts – social interaction meets media — the sites, events, communities and resources that enable people to share with each other, collaborate, communicate and reinvent.

Social media marketing is harnessing that media to drive conversation, build awareness and spark word of mouth around a brand, individual or particular subject matter.

Your audience is living in the new media space – on Social Networks (Myspace, Facebook, LastFM), Sharing and Bookmarking sites (Digg, Stumbleupon), opinion and voting sites, UGC and video sites (YouTube, DailyMotion), and a variety of communities and blogs targeting niche interests. For successful social media marketing, it is important to:

1. Find those consumers;
2. Listen to them;
3. Amplify their voice; and
4. Engage them with the information and content they’re asking for.

Why Social Marketing is More Effective.

Traditional Media = Monologue
Social Media = Dialogue

Now, more than ever, consumers have the opportunity to involve themselves in the marketing mix, and they will. As new, digital media became the preferred media of the Millennial Generation, information and content became easier to create, share and manipulate. This democratization has led to an unprecedented interconnectedness both to the world and one another. This real-time, interconnectivity creates a two-way communication channel for everything, always, which is one of its primary advantages over traditional media.

Traditional media is characterized as monologue, slow if ever to adapt and respond. Social media is defined by dialogue, evolving constantly and responding instantly. Consumers have gravitated to and adopted social media because it allows them the opportunity to interact with and engage the people, brands and ideas that matter most to them. And this two-way communication channel requires that brands interact and engage in return. After they are done speaking, they are now required to listen and respond. Those that don’t will be left behind.

Once people are engaged it becomes increasingly likely that they will share and this sharing is the ultimate value for brands practicing effective social media marketing. All of the actions we take online are now shared with our friends – we are clicks away from sharing the links we like, from seeing the clothes and music our friends just purchased, from reading the restaurant reviews posted by our neighbors. And we know this sharing is the most important factor when influencing consumers to adopt a specific brand identity or purchase a certain product.