Socially Adept

What a Week for Social Media!!!

Greg Verdino joins Crayon!!! Jaffe welcomes child number 3...and Twitters about it an hour later!!! Larry Weber's Book Released!!! 

I finally take a needed week long vacation to Hawaii and the Social Media Mavens make all sorts of moves in my absence.  Was it worth it?  Ummm.... YES... but so much has happened in just a weeks time.  The three stories above are just highlights of another active week in the social media world.

Well, I am back now and hope to keep the few readers I have up to date and educated on the things I find in my daily routine. 

First up, Mack Colliers review of the Monster Blog at The Viral Garden.  As a former employee of Monster Worldwide, I've seen a lot of progress in their social media involvement over time.  Unfortunately, the company just continues to struggle with leadership changes and growing competition.  Most of the content they offer is generic stuff you can find on any of their competitors sites and even if they do monitor commments, it doesn't appear to be taking up too much of their time as the blog doesn't seem to have any.

There are so many open possibilities for Monster considering the relationships they have with their huge Fortune 500 customers.  Having been on the inside, I know that the relationship folks have developed solid partnerships that could be tapped for content.  Monster could leverage the blog to generate interest in the million dollar customers and provide insight from those "in the know."  Who would you rather hear about getting a job from... Monster or the company itself?  Maybe I am way off base, but I know there are some customers who have great insight regarding the hiring process at individual companies and I would love to see how they differ. 

Another nice tip might be to have customer recruiters tell some horror stories... I heard some great one's while I was working with some of the Fortune 500 over there and I know they would be entertaining.

I am glad Monster is getting involved, but if they are going to beat HotJobs and Yahoo! they need to up the ante.  Give us a call (you know where we are)... we've got a lot of great ideas for Monster...and none of them are "When I grow Up!" (Best commercial!)

Coke, Crayon and Second Life

I love Coca-Cola (I have to write out Coca Cola because "I love Coke" just sounds bad).  I think I have single handedly put a few of the children of Coke executives through college.  It was great news today to see that they are using their Marketing money for something innovative and Social Media based...

"a competition in Second Life, the name of the project is VirtualThirst and involves the general public and residents of Second Life designing Coke vending machines that deliver “experiences”. (see the entire post from Experience Curve Here."

Coke has been working with Joseph Jaffe's new marketing company, Crayon to execute this project and as anyone who reads JaffeJuice knows, Joseph and the gang at Crayon are huge Second Life advocates.  (note to Second Life: Give Crayon some kickbacks).

All in all - I like this idea and hope that Coke is successful with it.  As I have said before, Coke is a brand that would value from Social Media immensely.  They have become a staple in society and have established a brand that people are passionate about.  (How many Coke drinkers would drink Pepsi?)

This news has encouraged me to jump into Second Life and check out the initiative (Find me in Second Life - Lukas Greene) but I am not sure it will result in the ROI that Coke may be anticipating.  Sure, it's a great way to connect with the existing Second Life crowd, but how far can it go beyond that?  I guess we'll wait and see.  See you in Second Life if you'd like to discuss.