“Investing in girls is the right thing to do. It is the smart thing to do”

- Ngozi Okonjo-Iwwala, Managing Director of the World Bank

Because I am a Girl

We have been working with Plan International (Australia) for the last few months working on their digital & social media strategy, signing up coalition ambassadors, of which I am also one to share our stories.

Who invested in us to make us the women we are today.

Investing in girls in developing countries, empowering them and assisting them is proven to help end generational poverty. A healthy, educated empowered girl will pull herself out of poverty and bring their children, communities and nations along with them.

At the media launch of the campaign this week, we met one such girl; Plan had flown over from Ghana. Gifty, a young girl, who found herself abused and in a really bad poverty stricken situation, with the investment from Plan, she reversed her fortunes. Importantly, she went out in her community and reversed the fortunes of others, helping over 30 of her peers to be able to return to school to gain an education.

For the second time this week, I have found myself humbled and emotional. I feel extremely privileged to have worked on this campaign.

Because I am a girl drew a strong response with both male and female twitters and blogs coming out in force to support this amazing initiative.

So get behind our girls and sign the petition, follow the campaign on Twitter, join them on Facebook, take action at the website, add your own story. We will be making a book of the stories later this year.

What to Measure?

I have found creating a Top 40 over 40 list very difficult to do!

I ploughed through Twittergrader, Twittercounter, Klout and Alexa, I can’t see how a “Top Anyone” list can be created in terms of roles and influence in social media. Using Klout it is easy to see sub-sets of social eco-systems emerging. Taking that into account and taking into account Dunbars 150 rule, also taking into account industry specialisms and interests of people, whether it is technology, food, lifestyle, parenting and so on these “Top anyone in social media lists” are pretty mis-leading.

In addition to all of this I do not want to offend anyone, by adding a few years to their age! I don’t want to miss anyone who I thought was younger either!

So what I did was take all the suggestions posted on the blog piece call out , using Twittergrader and Klout, I made a summary of some of the interesting people noted in the call out and their connections. I made sure I looked at different categories, for example; food, technology, fun, mum’s to mix it up a bit. This is not in order of number 1 being top and number 40 last, but I hope it provides some interesting people to go and connect with.

@iconic88 is a strong personal brand name in Australia. He has been featured in the Huffington Post and does a great job promoting good will and also @bridget_cooks, with her cooking events. Interestingly he has a strong influence over @jaysingh according to Klout. As I know Jay I went off to investigate his influence list and up popped @rossdawson another well known on the social nets in Australia. Ross was suggested by @servantofchaos in the call out, so I went to see how that relationship may pop up in terms of their influence path – Ross wasn’t featured on Gavin’s Klout and this shows how hard it is to really follow influence paths and what they really mean in terms of creating an action.

Anyway, Gavin is influenced by @markpollard and influences @katiechatfield, go through to Katie and she is influencing @timlonghurst.

This is where I decided to change course as I am not sure Katie over 40!

One name mentioned a couple of times in the call out was @iggypintado – so off I went on that route and I am back to @iconic88 who influences @iggypintado.

OK so back to food and I went to find out more about our top food blogger @frombecca now we get a little interesting as @aussie, the homeloans company pops up on the radar and they are influenced by @problogger, our second on Twittergrader’s top 100 in Australia.

At this point I went back to the call out suggestions and saw @katecarruthers mentioned a few times – now on Twittergrader Kate is in the top 50 Twitterati in Sydney, but she doesn’t feature highly on Klout. I know Kate to be a great person to have on side if you want to get word out or campaign. I noted that Deborah Robinson from Australian Women Online wasn’t on Twittergrader and yet I know Deborah to be one of the most powerful WOM and traffic drivers in the women’s segment’s online. S

So I started to get really frustrated with the technology judging who’s who and decided to stop!

My conclusion is that you don’t have to have massive twitter followers or be all over social media to be influential or influence. Our Captains of Industry are hugely influential and many are not on social networks. My husband is hugely influential over me, so is my business colleague, who we purposely don’t share information publicly on twitter, to play down our connection and certainly our business activities!

Social media is a fantastic way to find interesting people, who have specialisms, that may influence your business and your customers. It’s a great way to broadcast to many and kick start word of mouth. It has changed our society and how we communicate forever. It is certainly the biggest impact on industry, since the industrial revolution, it has shaken up whole industries and the way we live in our everyday lives.

However I don’t believe there is a top list that can be created. It is actually about granular social eco-systems that connect and influence. When it comes to influence – DON’T BE FOOLED by volume of twitter followers or lists of top social media influencers, it is finding your way into those eco-systems, connecting with people that mean most to you, that can deliver great  personal and professional benefits.

Friday 3rd September – REGISTER HERE & SPEAK TO ME & OTHER SMARTS

“Future of Social Networking” webcast …

Panelists @NickHAC @MatthewGain @Wittering @FiBendall @JarodGreen

The Future of Social Networking

The Future of Social Networking forum will explore the broad territory of social media and online social networking. From the context of ‘what is happening today’ to panel discussion on what the future may hold and where trends are taking us
- How are you using/seeing social networking? What does the future hold?
- What does the future hold?
- What are the impacts good/bad of social networking on business?
- Are individuals active within social networks leaders or outliers?

Date: Friday, 3rd September 2010
Time: 12pm AEST
Panelists:
Fiona Bendall – Bendalls Group
Nick Holmes a Court – BuzzNumbers
Jarod Green – Radical Love (Beached Az Series)
Simon Townsend – Deloitte
Moderated by David Warwick, Viocorp

Courtesy of Flickr

“Come gather round people wherever you roam, for the times they are a changing” Bob Dylan

The times are “a changing”, and people are gathering on social networks and sites on digital channels roaming – making sure their voice is heard and change takes place. Like it or not!

Business today is still about good old-fashioned networking and relationships, not redundant marketing techniques. But how businesses can, or will, network with the common public and their consumers, has undoubtedly changed.

This is my thought point, as I often struggle to find refreshing things to write about digital media. When directed by journalists who approach me, my passion rating goes up and I fire off answers to their questions, usually to good affect.

Sitting on your own, without the questioner, seeking your expertise, whether a journalist or a client or my industry peers, it is sometimes hard to work out the value you can offer through a blog post that hasn’t been said before, especially about digital media.

I analysed myself in this scenario recently. Kristen approached me from Telstra to do an email round of interview questions with her for Telstra Exchange (it goes up next Monday). Australia Post Priority Magazine got in touch, on a different topic. Then Dorothy Perkins Research Company in the UK about the Aussie Online market, followed by Power Retail in just the last couple of weeks. I find I can quick fire back some pretty valuable insights that are in my head due to experience.

But sitting alone with a blank blog page. I struggle to get what’s out of my head and also making sure I don’t share any confidentialities or advice I have passed to our clients. I realised it was because everyone is writing about “Social Media” – the digital channel and its ever growing effect on the marketing industry. If I am overwhelmed with the number of articles, what value or insight can I add? I decided this was my writers / bloggers block!

So I did a quick Google & Slide Share search under the generic term “Social Media”
It threw up:
• 41,300,000 generic results
• 17,300,000 results for blogs
• 885,000 results for books
• 22,800 results for video
• 11,900 results for news
• 18,900 presentations on slide share
These figures are without the comments and interactions and pass on rates / RT’s of the content.

No wonder, I wonder, (excuse the pun!) how to add to this medley of content and advice! When I dug around, I realised there was plenty of “how to guides”, “flashy presentations”, EVEN “a how to guide to find the elusive big red button – press and it will send you viral” (NO!), lots on “social media advertising”, and plenty of people playing the amateur psychologist. There wasn’t much on some old fashioned values which I think, regardless of technology are more important now, than they have ever been before, for business as a whole, not just your marketing department.

Networking and relationship building with customers is so important for businesses today. Opening your doors to the energy and input of your customers and their mindset is now essential and many companies feel totally uncomfortable with it. BUT that doesn’t mean if you are Telstra (for example), you have open your doors to all of the 70% of the Australian public who are your customers. BUT you need to open your doors to a percentage of your lovers and haters and engage with them in an old fashioned way. These are not necessarily the Twitterati or bloggers, these are just normal people and normal people these days are all over social networks, online forums and blogging.

Have a chat, invite these customers in, listen, learn, and ACT with intent on the information, instead of ignoring it. You are able to network with them because of the digital channel. It is all Ok monitoring and pumping out fancy reports with graphs that please the board. But what about monitoring and listening with intent to ACTION? Yep, guys that’s the next stage – an intention to action on what you learn. It is harder than you think, which is why many companies are not doing it, just pleasing an internal board with “we have it covered”.

My whole career has been built on networking. Many times a week, I put people together, or share my knowledge, NOT for financial gain, but because that’s what you do in business, in my humble opinion, you network and connect. This is not an online thing, or a technology thing, this is basic communication and business skills, the transaction is not to my mind, the transaction comes later, if it does. It could be 2 years later when someone recalls you & recommends you. That’s fine, as the recommendation is worth more, than the shouting about yourself or your business. That’s what I did tonight when I spoke to the research agency for Dorothy Perkins in the UK (our equal in Australia is Supre) for ¾ of an hour during my evening, that’s what I do when one of my peers calls me and asks for advice. It is reciprocated and can lead to better business than yelling how great you are! My own businesses are built on this principle and all our business comes from referral.

In 1992, I presented a marketing paper about Dialogue NOT Monologue – it was met with complete suspicion. You can’t ignore this any longer. Marketing has changed as much as doing business has changed. BUT important to note; what has changed is that social networking is a fundamental part of doing business, even if you don’t see the rewards straight away. These days business at the highest executive level needs to understand how to network with their staff and customers across a greater reach, than just networking with your executive peers at the club on a Friday night.

By doing so you will deliver leadership, revenue and respect in this new economy & talking of respect – it is your biggest asset – your reputation.

Up for the Challenge?

As Bob Dylan said “The times they are a changing”