There was an interesting post in the economist blog “Free Exchange” with the title “The end of Haiti?” it was expanding a bit on Tyler Cowen’s post “Geopolitical speculations on Haiti” which suggested that the Haitian government is no more, and that Haiti as we know it is likely gone.

Take a few minutes and read both articles, then come back. They raise a few interesting points that are worth discussing in the wake of the incredible tragedy Haiti experienced last week.

This piece is less about the tragedy, as I couldn’t begin to create words that would do it justice, but more about how Haiti can emerge from this positively. There is no doubt that Haiti needed help before hand, as their country was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and on par with many 4th world countries worldwide before this disaster. Haiti was so poor that famine, disease, and crime were considered everyday normal occurrences, BEFORE the earthquake. So what are Haiti’s options for the future?

Haiti is going to need an immediate overhaul, top to bottom. This is my over simplified list of things they need, and not in any particular order (they need them all).

Government
The government needs to be put back in place ASAP, even if it is put under a UN receivership of sorts with a strict timeframe for return set in place immediately. Say 5 years. The UN will come in and implement the best practices of the world’s democracies it has experience with. The US system is unlikely to be the best solution as there needs to be something based on the existing Haitian system. Returning the semblance of stability will help every other facet to move smoothly. Note, I do not advocate trying to turn Haiti into the next Puerto Rico. I do think the US has a moral and geopolitical responsibility to help them be better than they were before, but not at the expense of their sovereignty.

Infrastructure
After the rubble and damaged buildings are removed, and recycled (maybe used to build the nation’s future highway systems), everything needs to be redone from the ground up. Port-au-prince needs to be the first planned city in the Caribbean. It needs modern roads, modern transportation systems (let’s start with green-buses), modern sewage, modern electricity, modern communications, etc. I could probably write an article entirely on the infrastructure needs of Haiti, but for now we’ll just point out that with enough aid money (I think the US needs to pony up 5-10Billion handed over to the UN conservatorship) Haiti could be the first truly green country in the west. Hydroelectric power (not just damns, but tidal, etc), solar, wind, and other forms of green energy could be spearheaded here.

Education
Haiti has a literacy rate of under 60%. Compare that to CUBA with the world’s highest literacy rate of 99.8% which is less than a hundred miles or so away. The first thing we need to do is start training teachers and building schools. Haiti doesn’t have the manufacturing, agricultural, or any semblance of economic infrastructure it needs for the future. The only way to pave Haiti’s success for the next 10-20-50 years is to educate the masses. Build as many schools as we can afford, from pre-k all the way up to universities and colleges. If we can’t get teachers in there to teach, start massive remote learning/distance learning programs.

Healthcare
300,000 people out of 9.5Million or so people are living with HIV and AIDS in Haiti, the highest rate of infection in the Caribbean. Huge swaths of the population are not vaccinated against common diseases like measles and malaria. We can solve that. Reportedly MSF/Doctors without borders has raised enough through text messaging to keep them operating in Haiti for the next decade. This doesn’t solve the systemic needs for hospitals, nurses, and more that Haiti needs. This is where we are going to need big pharma companies to step up start donating hospital equipment en masse. Once these hospitals are built, they are going to need MRIs, X-Rays, EKGs and more. They are also going to need doctors and nurses, something which Cuba will need to step up and help with, both in the training and the sharing of. Cuba produces more doctors and healthcare professionals per capita than any other country.

Reconstruction
This facet goes without saying, but there will need to be some provisions in place for it. Haiti needs to implement the building codes we have in Florida (hurricanes), as well as those of California (earthquakes) and make a concerted effort to strive for their implementation. Never before has there been an opportunity like this for urban planning and nation building, let’s just hope the world steps up and does whats best for Haiti’s longterm needs.

In the end this is going to need to be a global effort, much like the effects we saw of the tsunami in 2004, but in this case we have the issue of having to rebuild the government in its entirety. So how do would you start the rebuilding process?

So realizing today that you can share publicly voicemails you receive in Google Voice, I decided we should have some fun with this and see how well it turns out. So call my GV # at (305)938-0917 and leave me a voicemail. I’ll post them all here today, and then you can comment on the funniest one. The winner will get a prize, not sure what, maybe a gift card for iTunes or something.

This is also a test to see how accurate the transcriptions are. All the transcripts have been done “automatically” by Google Voice.

The entries so far:
From @orical (Peter Martinez)

Hello, Mister Breslin, This is James from the male Clinic you result of come back and it seems that you tested positive for assist with and crafts. You should really stuff we don’t forget those tanks to hang out with a 3 dollar prostitutes. Anyways, please contact the Partners in, call us back for an appointment to start your treatments ideologies.

From @petebernardo

Hey Brian, It’s, Peter Martinez. Listen I just found out that I thought the office. Supposing crap so I really think you should do it yourself checked out. I’m worried that my dad give it to you that night. Sorry about that but talk to you later. Bye.

From UnknownUlisesOrozco

Hey baby blue, Brad plan. How you doing this is you know Jonathan, so I’ll either way I’m calling because I miss you, then the last night at the car. Love you, so if you were gonna be there but unfortunately i think i guess i guess. I must’ve missed it. Either way, J. J sets say what’s up. He says he’s missing his is 7 or phone at his wrist watch something about losing at somewhere within the cavities of your column in. He that way, so hit me back whenever you’ve got it back in Tempe awesome hear from you know. Missed you last night tile.

Another from UlisesOrozco

Color calling again. Okay. Brosnan, Hey Mister, Brian Breslin, this is Doctor shorts. I believe that James from my clinic the the mail service clinic gave you a call a little bit, Aliah listen. I thought I believe that he left a couple particularly and leakage and some sort of worked. It still yet to be just fine. Bye by any kind of the scientific journal. Either way I I I I need you to come back and because I need to scrape that. Anyway. Regardless, Brian mister Breslin. You’ve you’ve got my phone number please. Please call me, delay, or I may have to get the Center for Disease Control involved and I I I I I I I believe that something that you do not want me to do so. Again. Doctor Schwartz give me a call back. You can always reach. James, I believe James with the phone number. Anyway, James, Just to get it.

And another from same caller as last 3 (who I now know who it is)UlisesOrozco

Hey Brian, This is Jamal from State and yeah you know. Hey listen. Fine ago that I could probably get a phone number for you. I’ve been on the following you for quite a lot now and have a really interested in reaching out to you and with with you. Cute little cheeks and I have a lot. I was a lot to you soon. Do you know that I was not in the nice young wife socal social media management. Anyway, you have a listen. I’m for the be getting on a couple months now and look forward to possibly meeting you weren’t going to do is refresh thing that consulate talking about what in my refresh nothing to talk to you know what I’m going back date listen. Don’t be scared it’s alright. Jamal bring it to you tomorrow. Give it to reboot it and either way. Let me know. Let me know over over over extend myself here in possibly put you off because I’m more than willing to get into a long term relationship, you know tomorrow. Its content tamales care, won’t it. So Brian Breslin from Brian. Breslin dot com. I’m calling to reading the webpage for a strategist and. My name is floored look very much forward to left in a couple of months. Once I get out there to possibly getting together with you, so it didn’t room all don’t mean to make this loan, but I don’t know Nan truly glad to talk to you number man. Look forward to getting contact with you. Took mister. Brian Breslin. Just thought I’d say this but I love you. Brian Breslin goodbye.

From 786-***-0020

Hi Will, tonight and UFO if you look connecting juvenile freaky. Thank you. Bye.

From @bonzoesc

Transcript not available – you’ll understand why there is no transcript after you listen.

From (786)***-7070

Mister Breslin. I want you to know, got your actions are not calling on record. We know who you are, we know what you’ve been doing, and frankly, Pat polls line of summer. We saw that was and he you think you the on your call.

4 from (954)***-7778

What your by you that the your schedule. Ha ha ha. Anyway, Job Title, Hello Hi.

Transcript not available

Serious what I hope you’re having a phone call my friends Climate Action assignment.

The I’ve got a lot more don’t wanna back with you. Bye.

From Aldo Delgado

This is all the little advance trying to when the $10. Bright and I guess is a test message. Not sure exactly what we’re supposed to alright bye take care man.

From @sorcadesign

Hi. This is Sarah, which is at the Sunset sign. I got your phone number on the that you left me long way you get off but one of the bills. Libreg I can’t get you the and I look like they’re gonna kill us. Anyway pick me up tomorrow at 7. My next 5 minutes of the villages, Sonia Daisy all night and remind the dogs. I got out of shocks. See you later. Thanks Ben, The.

I tend to observe lots of companies and more specifically how they are making their forays into the social sphere (social media + social networks + open conversation), and one industry that fascinates me is the travel industry. Travel is an inherently social activity, you rarely go by yourself (recreational travel), and if you do, you are going to see someone (business travel), so it’s social. So we have this entire industry built around something social, but not really leveraging it at all. How can we remedy this?

Ok, so there are a few players out there trying to make forays into social media, those that come to mind are jetblue and southwest airlines, but beyond that, nada, zilch, zip. These companies are getting into one part of the mix, the open conversation aspect, but they aren’t really dipping their toes into the rest of the mix. Yeah its great Jetblue has 830k followers on twitter and dedicates a team to managing that account, or Southwest has 240k, and answers support questions, but this is the tip of the iceberg. Why aren’t these companies enabling their customers to engage with each other, to connect to one another?

Think about your last flying experience, you were trapped in a metal can sitting next to someone for an extended period of time. You did one of two things: you either engaged your neighbor in a lively conversation, or you put your headphones on and kept to yourself. I’ll admit, I often go with the headphones (mostly because I like to fall asleep on planes). So assume you did talk to them, built a bond, unless you exchange business cards, you are never going to see them again. The airlines need to foster post flight communication, this could be as easy to accomplish as encouraging use of a hashtag, or much more complex (but easier for consumers to digest) methods (facebook connect, custom apps, etc.).

So why do airlines need to encourage the C2C communication in addition to their existing B2C communication channels? Well quite simply it would make their product a social object. Something that their customers can form bonds around, discuss, and share. Furthermore once their customers have formed these bonds and associations, they would be more inclined to return to their preferred airline. Frankly with the ever diminishing value of frequent flyer miles it makes sense to try something new to bond your customers to you, maybe its as simple and cheap as leveraging your other customers.

Building a positive, comforting, and engaging community whereby you make it easy for customers to connect and share (maybe even share airfares + deals) seems like an easy move for any airline. Especially those who realize that customer service IS the new marketing.

So your boss just walked over to your cubicle and told you that because of “setbacks” you are going to have to do Marcy’s and Joe’s work, in addition to your own from now on. Three letters pop into your head W T F.  You realize right then and there, that there has to be a better job out there. [Note: I am writing this because this is what I would want a prospective employee to do if I were hiring them]

So you’ve been toiling away at your job as a marketing analyst in some ginormous (real word btw, I was as surprised as you) ad agency.  You’ve been working on some boring ass reports that will never get read, when you really wish you were doing something creative. So you decide you want a new job, but have no idea where to start. Here is where.

Step 1 – Control your message
First step, secure your reputation online. WHAT? Yes, because the first thing I am going to do is google you. You think I’m joking? But I bet that 90% of employers do this, and maybe 5% of employees realize it. So start by registering your domain (your fullname.com, and avoid .info or .biz), and setup some cheap hosting for it.   Once you’ve finished this, you aren’t done with step one, but you need to setup a personal page (godaddy or whomever gives you simple site builder tools, or you can download a template for a website from here).  Why am I giving you these tips for free? Well I really don’t like doing basic sites (not exciting), and hope you’ll appreciate learning this stuff.  Plus, once you learn it, you can buy me a beer, and we’ll have something to talk about over said beer.

Make sure your domain has your bio (the way you want to have it read), and ideally a photograph of you somewhere.

Step 2 – It pays to be informed
Do some homework on your chosen career. What do I mean by this? Google the keywords you think relate closest to your intended profession, and see who the most popular people are that do what you would like to do.  If its industrial design, research Jonathan Ive from Apple; if it’s playing the cello, research Yo Yo Ma, you get the drift.  The worst thing you can do is show up to an interview and not know shit about the industry, the job, etc. (this also applies to customer meetings and sales pitches to clients).

Next, see where the trends are in your industry, if its an industry larger than for example professional cello musicians, then you are almost certainly going to find someone writing about what you want to do. (Hint: Google “industrial design trends” or the equivalent for your job).  If by some odd chance, no one is talking about your chosen field, maybe you should use your research and compile it into a blog about the topic.

Step 3 – Its really about who you know more than what you know.
Start making friends in your industry of choice. Read their blogs, comment on them, send them an email. Now more so than ever the power of the network is becoming more and more apparent. Why? Well its becoming easier and more efficient for everyone to USE their networks now, and to sift through them.  Back in the day, if you knew a ton of people, chances were you couldn’t instantly see what they do for a living (LinkedIn), or where they went to school (Facebook).

If you’ve got a blog, link to these people. Semi-famous people love links, it makes them feel semi-famous and appreciated.  The more people you befriend, the more likely you are to be included in their conversations about business, life, and more. These conversations are what will lead you to new offers, leads, etc. People like referring their friends to things 100x more than strangers.

Step 4 – Create your mission statement
I get this question a LOT “So what exactly do you do?” and a lot of times I have a hard time explaining it. But that’s because I don’t always practice what I preach.  Having your personal mission statement goes a long way, for multiple reasons: 1. it gives you a guideline to help you define and reach your goals, and 2. it makes it easier for your friends to know if you’re a fit for any opportunity they may see.

What does a personal mission statement look like? Well, really it can be anything. Try starting with “I’d like to create stunning accessible kitchen utensils” (if you were an aspiring industrial designer for example).  This is really more up to you. My personal mission statement is “I create easy to use web applications that help people with their daily lives.”

Step 5 – Be awesome
Let the world know you are awesome. So if you want to be recognized, you have to make your accomplishments public.  If you are an amazing chef, post pictures of your creations with the recipes on your blog. Make food for your friends, and ask them to tell their friends about it (be cool about it though).  A few weeks ago I asked on twitter, “If you are awesome, and no one knows it, are you still awesome?”  Some people responded that it shouldn’t matter what others think, only what you think. Those responses ignore the definition of awesome “to inspire awe in others,” others being the key word.  I’m not saying go out there and be some annoyingly boastful shmuck, but rather to make sure you toot your own horn occasionally (no one else is going to do it for you).

This also goes hand in hand with the previous posts where you are trying to help distinguish yourself from the crowd. An average monster.com job listing gets like 5000 responses. 99% of them are just a resume + generic cover letter. If I post a job, and you send me just your resume attached, I am instantly assuming you are lazy, and not qualified to work for me. So I will probably just ignore your application, and won’t care if you really were some kick ass person, cuz you didn’t bother letting me know.

Step 6 – Be persistent and be proactive
A lot of times you might really really want a job you saw on indeed, simplyhired, monster, hotjobs, wherever, but you’re afraid that you aren’t qualified for it.  Here is how you find out, call the company, ask to speak to the person responsible for hiring. Once you’ve got that person on the line, ask them about the job, tell them a bit about yourself, and explain how you are trying to find out as much as possible about said job before you send in your resume. I guarantee they will remember your name when they see your well articulated cover letter and resume.  Not to mention you really just scored yourself a preliminary phone interview and all it took was 15 minutes of your time.

The other thing to keep in mind, unlike dating, where persistence can come off as desperation, in job hunting, it looks like you REALLY want the job. So if it comes down to the guy who called to confirm we’d received his resume and sent a thank you card after an interview, or the guy who couldn’t be bothered to reply to his emails in a timely (<12 hrs) manner, I’m going with the one showing genuine interest.

Step 7 – Don’t be afraid to apply
Lots of people I know complain about their current jobs, wish they had better ones, and then do nothing about it. Many are afraid of going for something uncertain, when they are in a secure position already (understandably we are having tough times, but tough times don’t apply to the awesome). But really you have nothing to lose but a few minutes or hours of your time.  The days of pining away at one company for 30 years are over, the new way to the top is by jumping up and across in new companies.

So hopefully you can use this stuff to get some solid leads on career advancement. If you are looking for a job, I’d be happy to help (I’m not a recruiter or head hunter, just like to help). Make sure you send me your info (and if you didn’t read above and follow my instructions, then you are outta luck).  If you manage to get a job thanks to my advice, just pay it forward and help the next person get a job, or a better one.

My completely speculative theory on the social operating system.

There is a battle for control of the next generation of the internet, and this revolves around my thesis that the current phase in the evolution of the web involves the connecting of people.  The battle is being waged by google, facebook, myspace, and a littany of others all vying for this control.

How we got to this point.
The first phase of this battle was about amassing as many users as possible as fast as possible. These users are your asset, they make your network exponentially more valuable. Facebook’s 70 million users are creating billions of unique connections, these connections each hold an intrinsic value in the grand scheme.   So they gave us developers a platform, a platform which is mutually beneficial.  This platform enabled them to double their user base, and at the same time offered the developers a simple way to tap that large and growing user base. 

So while facebook was giving us apps on their own, google was getting all the networks together to build their graph for them.  Google has seen this change coming for years. YEARS. They saw the evolution in social behaviors affecting the internet long before us common folk saw it. They just didn’t have the accounts to leverage it all (orkut has yet to take off here, and gmail isn’t massive enough in reach yet either), so they went to the 3-10th place networks and proposed a deal, that deal was OpenSocial.

There is an important thing to remember when it comes to these companies, they may give you something for free, but they are really making something from your data, so don’t feel bad for them.

What the next phase is:
Controlling the relationships and blowing them out to the entire web. Thats the central thesis behind the google friend connect, and the enabling of ajax api functionalities on facebook (that and the facebook friend connect thing too).  Once you amass enough users, and then tell the thousands of individual sites out there they can plugin your tool and become part of your network, you will have a massive amount of control over managing that network.

For those of you that have been following the teasers of Facebook’s redesign, the one coming july 15th, you might have noticed the shift to make it more like a desktop operating system interface (menu bar, footer/dock).  This is analagous to the concept they are working on to spread throughout the web. Why wouldn’t you install the facebook toolbar on your website if you could quickly and easily enable social relationships on a massive scale?  The quality of these relationships is important too, and that is where facebook has been trying to leverage its position as the social operating system. The Windows or OS X of your relationships.

So what can we expect?
Smart sites will foster this and try and grow with the two platforms, it won’t be easy, but they will be spectacularly worthwhile. Sites that don’t embrace it out of either fear or lack of technical knowledge will miss out while the smaller sites quickly grow past them. The sites that embrace these social levers will see the types of growth we saw on the initial facebook platform applications, but with the flexibility to grow their own loyal bases.

We will also start to see more emergence of open social graph standards spreading around like DiSO and others. Assuming developers can make these things idiot-proof, you’ll be able to move to any site and tap into your relationships wherever possible. The key there will be making them seamless to the user.

Ultimately this represents a major shift in how we design sites and develop their underlying concepts. The social “network” has become a feature or a commodity.

I get this feeling that there are a lot of industries that don’t truly understand the sheer magnitude of social media. There are tons of industries where we rely on social connections in real life to either facilitate or enhance the business transactions, it seems only logical to extend this to the web. Granted this is a purely superficial look at these industries, and a much deeper technographic and demographic study could help build a more refined social strategy for each one.

Travel
Aside from business travel, this is usually an activity done in groups. So leveraging the power of your existing connections and social graph to find more information on potential destinations or deals would be an ideal solution. Whose opinion would you trust more, your cousin Bob, or some anonymous web troll when you’re planning that trip to cancun?

Trip planning. Nothing is as much of a pain as trying to plan a trip with a group of people. So why not figure out a way to simplify things. Look at how dopplr and tripit are starting, and take it from there.  These are areas where the airlines and travel sites should be dominating.

Another key area where travel is failing on social media is in the post-trip/re-engagement phase. Why aren’t travel companies leveraging all the content these travelers just created (EVERYONE has a digital camera of some sort)?

Real Estate
Part of what you buy when you buy a home or condo is the community, a large part of it to be exact. So developers, realtors, and real estate information sites need to build the tools for connecting the property owners/renters to the community/web.  The stronger bonds that can be built through these networks, the stronger the physical community becomes.  This also plays well into the buying/selling of a home through the web, as it gives potential buyers access to the value-add that is the future neighbors and their wealth of knowledge.  Also correlate the value of where my friends might be living now, as that would definitely play a role in my house hunting.

There is a wealth of information out there today that is just waiting to be mashed up: photos (geocoded to boot), maps, zoning info, crime info, transportation, shopping, etc. This is definitely an example where the sum is more valuable than all the parts individually.

Apparel Shopping
Women’s fashion is built on one thing: what other women will think about each others outfits. Women don’t buy clothes to impress men, its to impress other women.  Women also tend to shop as a social activity, so why isn’t anyone translating this to the web?  Where are the sites that let people share fashion ideas, fashion tips, or deals? There are tons of visual tools out there that are just waiting to be pieced together.  I think a key component to this is for the fashion industry to understand what is driving web use, then see how these things can be leveraged by social utilities.

The branding potential in social networks for these brands to leverage is amazing. Its the ultimate use for social ads and leveraging personal recommendations. (Think, what do my friends think about this shirt, etc.) Imagine seeing on a shopping site “Your friend Jane bought this in red, you might also like the black.”

Entertainment
Last but certainly not least is the entertainment industry (movies, music, tv, games, etc.). The entertainment industry could stand to gain the most of all from leveraging social graphs and social media in a way that benefits both them and the consumers. Instead of running away scared of the beast that is the consumer and user generated content, they should take a page from Chamillionaire’s book and go to where the fans are.  Help them find/discover (like ilike or last.fm), help them create (video, audio, whatever), and help them make it dead simple to evangelize your product.

Realistically entertainment is one of the most powerful industries for leveraging social. Most of the activities we do in relation to this industry is social in nature (going to the movies, playing games, watching tv, and listening to music. They are all things we can do as individuals, but for the most part are improved when we add friends. They all also tend to be things that people use to identify themselves with (rocker, hip hop fan, jazz fan, anime fan, etc.).

Now this all may seem very superficial, and it is, but this post was really intended to spark the discussion within your organizations, not give you all a clear cut roadmap (that would make it too easy).

Let me preface this post by saying I dislike the versioning of the web, especially the “Web2.0” term, however I do feel the web has gone through evolutionary stages. Also for all intents and purposes, this historical analysis starts in 1995.  This post is inspired by a chat that Alex and I had last fall, and which was brought back up a few days ago

So where did it all start?
The first iteration of the web was all about the connecting of documents to each other. This was the basis of the hyperlink. Hyperlinks were designed to interlink files and documents by specifying their locations.  Think Yahoo directories, and Netscape 1.0.

So now we’re building things
The second iteration or evolution of the web was all about building tools for people to create these documents. One could argue that started with geocities, tripod, angelfire, and all the other personal homepage tools of the mid nineties.  This is the user generated phase of the web. This is what I think of when I think of “Web2.0.”

But how do we socialize?
The third generation/iteration/evolution was less about creating content, but more about linking the content creators together (previous generations tools were by now commoditized to the point they were functions, not the focus). So this was the social network phase if you like.  Users were now being connected directly to each other, and the finding/discovery of new content was shifted from a machine controlled aspect to a social function.

They’re my friends, not yours
The fourth stage is where we see the tools to let us create our own links between people and take these links wherever we choose.  This is the advent of portable social networks and personal social networks.  Of all the “graphs” we have interconnecting us today, email is quite possibly the easiest system of connections we have to port.  This is a big huge play on the parts of Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo, the three kings of email.

So what does this all mean?
Well in a nutshell, it means that we’ll be seeing a number of players adopt or propose their own standards for data portability. Either true data portability, email portability, ID portability, or something else will get a likely boost in the near future.  The prize it seems is in controlling the creation of these networks and tracking them all (think observing how swarms of insects or schools of fish behave).

After being struck with a bit of insomnia, I noticed Pownce was finally out of private beta mode. Aside from finally opening up, something they should have done 3+ months ago, they’ve also thrown in a bunch of viral features that make them a viable tool.

The only new feature I found interesting was that they were now letting you import your friends from other networks (facebook, twitter, digg, flickr, etc.).  Not exactly sure how their facebook importer works, but I’ll definitely be investigating.  Ironically they are using Twitter‘s API to pull the social graph from twitter.com over to pownce.
Now the only step left is for them to give you an APML or xml file for your pownce relationships.

If you’re looking at the landscape for social networks, social media, and are feeling a bit overwhelmed, don’t be worried, its easy to get lost in the mess.

First thing first, decide what countries/regions you want to grow in. You might be thinking, but Brian, why would I care to look anywhere other than english speaking regions? Well first off, you’d be missing out on billions of potential users, and you’d be missing an opportunity to beat out your competitors to these regions.

So here are my targets for each market worldwide:

• North America
  • MySpace (200 Million users, 65Million+ in US – supposedly)
  • Facebook (55Mil, 30Mil in the US)
  • LinkedIn
  • Bebo
• South America/Latin America
  • Facebook
  • Hi5
  • Orkut
  • Myspace
• Europe
  • Bebo
  • Myspace
  • Facebook
  • Netlog
  • Hi5
• Asia
  • Orkut (India – wow)
  • Facebook
  • Myspace
  • Hi5
  • Friendster (whaaat?)
  • Netlog (Middle east, turkey, that region)
• Africa
  • Honestly don’t know. South Africa and Egypt are the only two viable markets to target, so I’d bet on Facebook.

You might be thinking, but Brian, where do you get this data? Well most of it is from trends I observe, and from my vast network of connections around the globe. I follow where these people are socializing. I know a lot of people in South America, and I hear them talking about Facebook alot now, so thats why I give FB a big 2008 in Latin America. Over a million users are on FB in Latin America right now according to Facebook’s Social Ads.

In a later post I’ll outline how to approach each of these markets, as each is as different culturally online as they are offline.

So you’ve decided that your company needs a social media strategy, and you’re missing out on what’s next now. Now the question is where do I start? Well before we get into the nitty gritty, we need to cover the basics of social media, the proper way to craft your message, the proper way to target your message, and after all that we can then cover how to get started.

I recently gave a brief bit on social graph marketing, but for all intents and purposes, i’ts basically the same as social media marketing. Social media according to Wikipedia is “the online technologies and practices that people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives, and media themselves.” At its core SMM is about creating and positioning your content (be it your message, picture, video, sound bite, whatever) in a medium where it can propagate itself as much as possible virally. These mediums can be anywhere on the web where people share with each other. If you pay close attention to the web, you’ll notice one thing: people love to share (even if they don’t have the rights to the content – oops!). Some of these places are social news sites like Digg, social networks like myspace or facebook, or social video sites like Youtube.

Social media is not about being the coolest kid on the block everyone knows; it’s about being the one interesting enough to make people want to talk about him. That my friends, is the value proposition of social media, becoming so interesting that people LIKE to share the idea of YOU.

So weak metaphors aside, the first step is to figure out your message, and how you want to craft it. Your message can be anything, but the smart way is to make it inherently viral. Make your message something that people will like to share. Just like a successful facebook application should make your users want to engage each other, a successful social media campaign will shoot for that as well. If you look at a lot of the examples of successful campaigns out there, they tend to ask the user to participate in either the product or the brand, and then share that creation with their friends.

So you’ve created this über cool message which you are sure its going to be seen by billions of people worldwide. What do you do next? Well there are two schools of thought on this, one where you carpet bomb everyone with the same message regardless of whether or not the recipient is interested in it (aka old school media) OR you can figure out where your users congregate and start there (aka smart media). The smart SM marketer will understand his or her targets, and engage them in those places. You wouldn’t go to linkedIn trying to get teens to buy your CD, just as you wouldn’t try to get Facebook users to buy diapers (well maybe soon, but not yet). So at this point in the quest, you need to create a list of sites where your potential customers and marketers (the best customers tell people about their experiences, remember that) are spending time.

You’ve got your message, and you’ve got your list of sites where its likely to be well received, now what? Well your next step should be to start using the communities and sites you’ve chosen. Not use them to promote, but use them as your customers do, and experience them first hand. If you don’t have time for that, find someone who has that experience to hold your hands through this process. One of the biggest pitfalls of social media marketing could be not understanding the mediums, and misusing them. If you fall into that trap, your whole campaign could be dead before it even gets going.

So remember to craft your message in a way that your customer would like to share it, find out where they are hanging out, and finally become part of their community.