I am pleased to bring you an interview with Laura Occhipinti, entrepreneur and CEO of New Jersey Young Professionals. With over 800 members and growing, New Jersey Young Professionals takes social networking to a different level, allowing members to meet and connect both on and offline…

AK: So Laura, tell me about New Jersey Young Professionals?

LO: I tell people that NJYP is a social networking group but in real words it is for helping people to make friends.  I basically bring people together, stir them up, and in the end friendships are formed.  It would be impossible to tell you how many friendships were made over the last 5 years but I am sure the number is in the thousands.

AK: How did you get the idea for the business?
LO: I was 27 and living in Bergen County, where I grew up.  Then I got a new job and moved to Somerset County where I knew no one.  I wanted to have friends right there, where I was living so I search online for something to join and nothing came up so I started a group on Yahoo to make friends, and it worked.

AK:  From what I gather, you’re in the social networking sense in the true of the term. Tell a bit about how you build a network like yours.
LO: No one has ever asked me this.  Basically I go to many events and can easily meet 100 people a week.  People then connect to me/and vice versa via email, facebook, twitter, linkedin, and even via the NJYP.org website.  I have a great memory so I bring people together who should know each other.  Being self-employed you also attract others who are self-employed and those who want to “pick your brain.”

AK: Aside from your website, what online properties or websites have your used to grow or promote your business?

LO:  I do not think I’d be where I am today with out craigslist.  It is where I first listed my group and where I continue to post events.  I used Facebook a lot as well as LinkedIn and I just started to use Twitter.  Other than that I post events anywhere I can for free.  It’s easy to get stuff out there for free.

AK: What the main keys to the success and growth of your network?
LO: Word of mouth!  If you provide a good, quality service people will natrually tell others.  Young Professionals hang, almost exclusively, with other young professionals.  They’ll email each other about NJYP, share an event via a link, share via Facebook. It’s great!

AK:  What are the lessons that you have learned about online social media?
LO:  It’s a lot of work to keep up with everything!  The key is to be current and that means daily maintenance, sometimes hourly updating!  One day I’d love to hire a 20 year old intern to take care of all the online social media that drives traffic to NJYP.org.  They’d be so much better than me at it and they’d probably have fun too.

AK: What is your personal definition of social networking?
LO: Groups of strangers coming together at a set time/place for no other reason than to meet “strangers” and in most cases food and alcohol should be present:)

I am not sure how social networking has been relegated, more appropriately, co-opted as a unique function of internet.  Since the operative term is “social,” and at the risk of pointing out the obvious, social networking has been with us since cave men gathered around fires playing flutes made from deer bone.   So what we’re talking about here is the human condition that drives most of us to connect to people, things, places and ideas.  From cavemen gathering around fires, to the spread of religious ideas, to the proliferation of the iPod, social networking has been with us since the beginning of time.  Now let’s fast forward to to the early 80s, to witness how Faberge capitalized on social networking while peddling organic shampoo in the famous “she told 2 friends, and she told 2 friends.” Remember this commercial?

So what now? Well, today, social networking is about letting today’s technologies work for you and your brand.  Still, the operative term is social very human instinct to be social.  Let’s not be so quick to discount the power of offline social networking, ultimately, whether is clothes, music, banking, mutual funds, or live stock, people buy from people…but technology is a fantastic tool allowing mutliplier effects to reach and connect with more people than ever before.

More to come…

The proliferation of social networking sites is advancing at an impossible pace. For businesses, these sites offer the Holy Grail, the opportunity for engagement of their customers. This particular race is reminiscent of the race for eyeballs in the early days of the consumer Internet between Yahoo, Excite, iWon, Alta Vista, DogPile (yeah, remember those guys) and the countless search engines, turned portals.  Then Google appeared and poof, most of those guys are gone or relegated to the Internet’s C-list - in the business sense of course.  Some of them still retain their web presences, others have morphed into something else.

The similarities between the portal races and social networking race are many, let’s look at some of them:

• Market share competition - This is done by creating useful tools that are meaningful to users.  More relevant tools, more people join, use, stay, and proselytize…at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
• Viral growth - portals and social networking sites relied heavily on their users for growth, although Yahoo delved into traditional advertising to drive growth. Interestingly, advertisers are creating their own space on Facebook, and bypassing their own corporate sites by driving consumers directly to their Facebook page through traditional advertising.
• Relevancy rules the day - the survivors of the portal wars won on their space’s relevancy to the user. Yahoo finance was created making it robust and useful, Yahoo mail kicked it up a notch after Hotmail was bought by Microsoft. And as much money iWon vowed to give away, users rejected  its business model because users care about the things important to them: 1. relevancy, 2. usefulness…iWon delivered neither.

Based on these lessons, let’s look into the crystal ball and see what shakes out for the social networking world:

Like the portal proliferation of the mid to late 90s, Facebook, Linkedin, Plaxo, MySpace, Youtube, Twitter, Friendster, et. al. are in an arms race to create useful tools in order to attract and keep market share.  One thing that must be considered here, and only one…who will be left standing when the user bandwidth becomes depleted.  In other words, why would I have a Plaxo and Linkedin accounts? Or Facebook and Twitter accounts?  Who has time for all this stuff?

Still, let’s assume businesses have the resources to sign up for these sites. Your business at Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, is only as important as your network on those sites.  Imagine managing several networks, building your client database, and then working the networking by pushing out content.  This would involve high level strategy, definition of marketing tactics, PR strategies, and a solid implementation plan…I’m getting winded just thinking typing out these words.

Now on to Twitter…

Twitter’s growth, largely organic, press and celebrity driven, is understandable. I can understand how people would want to know what Brittany Spears is thinking about while on the checkout line at Walmart - well not really.  But why would I migrate my network from Facebook to Twitter. Ok, I can update my Facebook status via Twitter, but I can do so much more with Facebook and Linkedin. I can create groups, post videos, create events, and deliver status updates, so why would I recreate or duplicate my online world on a largely one dimensional site?  What is the relevance of Twitter to my business is the question we all must answer.  And so, if  we’re tweeting to no one or an irrelevant bunch of followers, than who cares.  But if we’re serious about tweeting as a social networking medium that can help advance business objectives, then we have to take time to create a relevant pool of people that either needs or wants to hear from us on  a consistent basis.  And if I’m on Facebook or Linkedin doing this very same thing, I am not inclined to dilute or distract my network by sending them somewhere else for a singular function, like a status update.

According to a recent article in Slate, citing a study by a Harvard Business School professor, showed that 10% of Twitter users were responsible for 90% of tweets. The article also referenced a study by Nielsen, the media research firm, which asserted “that 60 percent of Twitter users do not return from one month to the next.”

So what’s Twitter to do?  Simple.  Provide more useful functionality to continue to survive. Attracting visitors is one thing, keeping them engaged on a long term basis is another.

More to come…

A couple of weeks ago, I read an article about social networking in a leading New Jersey business magazine. The story quoted several New Jersey based marketing firm execs who weighed in on social networking. The article found a consensus among these folks who opined correctly that social networking is still in its infancy, but wondered about the direct relationship between social networking and the bottom line. The article went on to say the following [editor's note - I have removed the names to protect the innocent]:

• “I think most people are probably savvy enough to know you can’t draw a line directly from a Facebook page to the impact on the bottom line,” but     building relationships with constituents through social sites will ultimately contribute to a company’s success, he said, in ways that may not be quantifiable.

• [Name Removed] compares the push to participate in social media to the early days of companies seeking higher ranking on Web search engines. With social media still in its early stages, [Name Removed] said there are no proven methods of how best to reach customers.  [Name Removed] said while many companies want to engage in social media-based marketing, she warns that few know what to expect. Taking time to understand how the new playground functions can save businesses from a few headaches. “Corporate America isn’t quite ready for this interactive marketing highway that we are going on,” she said. “With this two-way street, they can’t control [the interaction] anymore.”

While the article suggested, correctly, that social marketing efforts ought to be tied into integrated marketing efforts, it completely ignored certain business driven realities of the medium and went on to substantiate the experience of those quoted in the article.  I called the reporter to let him know that, indeed, you can quantify the contributions of social networking to the bottom line. I provided the reporter with several cases from our firm showing him the direct correlation between successful social networking efforts and the bottom line. Other firms who work within, and understand the nature of the medium have done the same for their clients.  The reporter rationalized that the purpose of the column was simply to point out that social networking is no panacea, that there are still miles to go before we perfect the medium for business.  Agreed and if you read my previous posts on this blog, you’ll see how much I agree. But as much as I agree, I cannot accept the fact that the other side was not told.

The truth is that social networking takes work. It takes time, it takes strategy, and moves in real time.  This is not easy, and not easily explainable. And yet, we have the other extreme where the corporate business media make it sound like you can sign up for Twitter and make a million dollars.  The blinding speed in which people adopt, and are attracted to social networking, certainly does not help.  Which means, that as marketing/advertising/PR/communications professionals, we have to stay not only on top of what is happening, but provide meaningful interpretation for our clients in order to best leverage the medium to advance their business goals.

But there are certain realities that marketing and PR folks will not speak about in public. Frankly many traditional marketing firms are very, very afraid of social networking, because social networking, if done right, is a game changer, an eminent threat to their bottom line.  Much like the Internet decimated newspapers because of their their head in the sand rigidity about protecting their revenue stream, newspapers were like the proverbial frog who hangs out in a slowly boiling pot until it’s too late. Traditional marketing and PR firms will soon suffer the same fate, unless they begin to change their business model, and delve deeper into social networking to uncover real value and meaning for their clients.

Take a look at the last quote above from the article. With all due respect to the depth and breadth of the experience of the marketing executives who were quoted, but, have these people been on the Internet? Have they looked around to see how “corporate America” is utilizing social networking and the web? Have they seen major international / national brands direct people from TV commercials straight to their Facebook, rather than their own websites?  Do they realize that “marketing and advertising” or a very good portion of it, is so 20th century, and engagement is about today and tomorrow. Have they heard of the iPhone and it’s billion dollar earning apps?  I am sure that these folks have heard the calls of major brands like Procter and Gamble, American Express, Verizon, who understand that their businesses indeed do not have control of their brands, but they’ve adapted by developing strategies to engage their customers to proselytize for them and advance their business.  Have they attended the many leading conferences, where the Global marketers have called on Madison Avenue to stop wasting their money and their time?

Head in the sand strategy seemed to have worked fine for our banking system, right? I make the same analogy here, marketing and advertising firms have a responsibility to their clients rethink and reshape the way they do business. Because like newspapers, if they keep the old model close to their vest because they don’t understand the realities of the day…well, need I say more…

I’ll post about the imperfection of social networking in my next blog…more to come.

It’s an understatement to say Google has taken over the Internet, it may be even more parochial to speak about how Google has taken over our lives. From search, maps, video (Youtube), email, cell phones, and publishing, Google has built a vast business empire faster, and perhaps far more reaching, than any business in history. Heck, GE is now partnering with Google on environmental initiatives. This is GE, the king of all things industrial, partnering with a search engine on environmental initiatives?  Who’s zooming who?  But it’s true, Google is not only a resource for all things personal relative to the Internet, but the good folks at Google are smart enough to take leadership positions in non-core business opportunities.

However much Google has become a part of our lives, it’s important to know that business on the net is much more about the Internet than Google.  And it is much more local than anyone, including the mainstream media, will lead-on.  Once we recognize that the Internet is still an infant that can be shaped in ways that can be meaningful to our lives and businesses, then and only then can we recognize the wonderful opportunities that lay ahead, locally.  Locally? Locally, like right down the street locally.  Locally like within your city, county or state locally.  But we’re talking about the vast Internet, a world controlled by the Googles, MSNs, and powerful media moguls who we see on TV.  Folks, the Internet is local and Google can’t do anything about it, unless it start opening up stores in your area - note to the people at Google, the Google store thing is my idea.

Let’s get to heart of the matter. The local market? You’re probably saying, who cares. More importantly, you’re probably thinking you can’t monetize the local market in a way that generates real cash flow, and that’s why Google is staying away. Well, there are many very successful local sites that have built themselves a terrific niche in the local market.  These hyper-local, meaning everything is local, may cover issues relevant to one town, one business vertical tied to a particular geography, or neighborhood sites have proven that they can not only generate cash, but become real brands.

I would argue that hyper-local sites are real competition for becoming online gateways to local communities. And while the publishing industry’s troubles are directly related to the rise of the Internet and media fragmentation, there is a strong case to made for looking closer at the publishing model as the Internet continues to evolve.  Think of Google as Time Magazine, and think of hyper-local sites as your local or regional magazine that focuses on your community.  Both provide information that you deem relevant, just different information.  Unlike Time or Newsweek, your regional publications are your connection to what is happening locally.  So no matter, how relevant the national magazines are, the local ones are just relevant or useful.

Why is hyper-local so relevant? And why is it a coveted market? Let’s take a closer look at social networking sites and their success. What is it about Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or Youtube that makes them so popular? The easy answer is you and me. Yes, that’s right, those properties are about you and me, they are ubber hyper-local relevant to me. I can create my own reality, with my friends, my interests, and my world within a given social networking site…It’s all things relevant to me. My personal reality show if you will.  And so within the vast confines of facebook, I can create my own little world where I can connect with friends I haven’t seen since college, and go out to dinner (local), I can discuss a movie (seen locally), review a spa (which I go to locally), and share good news about the birth of a new child with my cousins in Argentina who will send me flowers using a local flower shop over the net. You see, the Internet is relevant, locally.  So the rise of hyper-local sites, though not orderly, is a business model that deserves attention.

In Montclair, New Jersey there’s Baristanet everything local to Montclair. Founded in 2004, the site “soon after emerged as a leader in both hyper-local blogging and the online citizen journalism movement. Baristanet receives more than 5,000 visits a day and has inspired local news sites in Pittsburgh, Brooklyn, New Haven, Watertown, MA and Red Bank, NJ.”  Baristanet effectively competes for audiences with traditional local media such The Montclair Times, the venerable weekly newspaper, to CNN.com.

Staying in New Jersey, we find a business vertical, there is NJWedding.com a website that ties all things weddings to a geographic region. Founded by Erik and Beth Kent on February 14, 1997 to help wedding professionals promote their services and directly connect with future brides and grooms. According to the site, it currently “receives over 500,000 hits per month and features over 500 wedding businesses serving New Jersey and parts of New York and Pennsylvania that future brides and grooms can choose from, including helpful articles and tips about wedding planning, expert relationship and marriage advice and much, much more.” NJweddings.com competes not only with Google but with the 800 lb. gorilla of wedding sites, theknot.com.

In Maplewood, New Jersey, the well-healed turn to Maplewood Online for neighborhood gossip, news…it’s the equivalent of an online piazza. The site is jam-packed with classified, a community calendar, and every else imaginable. It even serves as a portal to news sites such as The New York Times, professional sports teams, cross word puzzles, all within one, local, place.

So as the Internet continues to grow, the threat to places like Google loom larger because people will continue to find ways to make the Internet resources relevant to them.  And with the continued rise of mobile, let’s see if these successful hyper-local sites adapt or go the way of newspapers. There are already sites popping up offering hyper-local mobile coupons delivered right to your phone.

The problem is, Google doesn’t have the foot-soldiers to compete at a hyper-local level. What it can do is to start buying hyper-local sites, but then again, why not simply buy community newspapers and turn them into mega-hyper-local sites (ok, enough jargon).  One final thought, I’m not sure if I would count Google out. They understand relevancy and adaptability, arguably the two most important strategies for success online.  More to come..

The Walt Disney Company is perhaps the world’s most creative company. From movies, theme parks, stores, TV networks,websites, licensing, the mega entertainment company has had people swooning over its brand for about 70 years.  Mickey Mouse and Hannah Montana, the usual set of popular charcters, along with Disney’s noted suite of writers, producers, directors, performers, show biz executives, ensure its creative rivers will never run dry. With all this creativity, Disney’s latest choice for television commercial theme is puzzling and somewhat troubling.

The 30-second spot is set in a class-room where a child is transformed from his seemingly mundane and miserable duties  as a student to a better moment, a Disney moment, where the child and his parents leave school behind for a once in a lifetime Disney fantasy vacation. Calling all day dreamers, calling all daydreamers. Who hasn’t day-dreamed in school, work, on the bus, whatever? Of course, that’s the message and the target of the TV spot.

Now come on Disney, we’re all for good fun, but look around. It appears that you either haven’t you noticed the world around you or are willfully ignoring it? Perhaps not, perhaps there is no recession in Disney World. In this latest television campaign, I detect a continuing desire to promote mediocrity by encouraging our kids to diss school for the Disney option.  Maybe not all kids, you know, just the ones who daydream.  Perhaps Disney hasn’t seen or been affected by the kind of regress-to-the-mean, Wall Street work-ethic that drove our economy into a nose faster than Jack Welsh can say six-sigma. The point is, that while Disney has a responsibility to promote its business and generate profits, it does possess the creative means and resources to promote its business responsibly, and this commercial, in this or any environment is irresponsible. Disney should be promoting scholarship not derailing it.

As I’ve mentioned before, the era of managing quarter to quarter is over, and should have never started. It is time that we invest in rational business behavior, and respect both the market and our customers, and in my line of work, we started with responsible promotion, as agressive as you’d like.   The time is now to put business in a leadership position to promote our common values, the time is now for business to lead the way.  Come on Disney, you can do better.

The rush to social networking is an interesting phenomenon. We watch with amazement as people flock to facebook, twitter et. al. and the offline social pressure that ensues to get on these sites. The business implications are plenty, from the demise of newspapers, to the rise of social networking, how does capitalize on these sizemic shift in the tectonic plates of media?  Here are some ideas to ponder:

1. Social networking online is like social networking offline. I can’t tell you how many people I know attend trade shows, networking events and come back with a stack of business card that just there. The key to any networking, on or offline is the “next.”  What do you with that valuable information? How do you use it? When? For what?  So online social networking is more about your behavior than the technology. If you’re a natural networker offline, you’ll probably know just what to do online.

2. “Own” a social networking site - like a good media planner, aggregate your efforts on where your market is and focus on learning the social networking environment and make it work for you. Own the medium.  For example, if the majority of your target market is on Linkedin, get on that site and work that site. Do not dilute your efforts by attempting to do the same on facebook, myspace…your market simply isn’t there.

3. Social networking sites have become destinations with emotional attachments. People will have a hard time leaving, unless something drastic happens like a serious breach of privacy or the sites become fee driven. Even if that happens, I believe that these properties will prosper (perhaps not financially, but will be around in one form or another as utilities).

4. Your network is key - building your online network on social networking properties is the foundation for everything you will do.  If you have relevant contacts whom you can engage, then you have a distinct advantage.

5. Do not abuse your network - remember you do not have a right to your clients, so bombarding them with emails, and offers may turn them away from your online network. Respect that this is their space too.

6. Integrate social networking sites where possible to get the biggest bang for the buck - for example, facebook has a twitter app that allows twitter to be updated whenever you update facebook, saving you time and extending your reach.

There is so much more to share, I am thinking of launching a social networking advisory for our firm. I’ll keep you posted.

The internet as a medium is old news. Yes, it’s the most revolutionary medium in the history of man, but it’s old news. The good news is that we continue to discover how to use the internet to connect with consumers, build businesses, expand brands, and engage markets.  The 800 lb gorilla is content distribution strategy, which is how business get as much relevant exposure as possible across markets and demographics on the net. And why is that important? Well, think of your website as space sitting on your URL. And while you’re promoting the site in various way on and offline, there are ways to repackage your existing content and position it across the web.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say your site has video and 15 pages of static content. Think about the high value of relevant link-backs and create a channel on Youtube and upload your videos there, create a blog on blogger and recreate your content there…and use that blog as a platform going forward to update your customers on your products, business etc. Now, with a little effort, your site’s exposure just got exponentially more powerful.

Most importantly, continue to look for new ways to get your content out there where your customers aggregate and where you can get those valuable linkbacks…it’ll keep you one step ahead of your comeptition.

Madison, New Jersey - Abe Kasbo, CEO of Verasoni Worldwide will be a panelist on small business marketing practices, sponsored by The Rothman Institute For Entreprenurial Studies at Fairleigh Dickenson University. The webinar will take place on Wednesday April 15, at 12 PM.   A podcast of the program will be available here soon.

I had an opportunity to speak about marketing practices in front 50 or so dentists and in the course of discussion we began talking about incentivizing the market place to generate interest in their services.  “But wait a minute, why if I put out an offer, my existing clients will use it and it’ll cost me,” one of them said.  That echoed, verbatim, another client’s sentiment’s - this who’s in the hospitality space, said to me as we discussed his marketing plan about a month ago.

What makes a customer “your customer”?  What you think that you are entitled to your clients?

Let me share a very recent experience I had with Verizon. I’ve been a loyal Verizon Wireless customer for over 10 years. In that time, between my wife and I, we’ve spent about $2,400 per year with Verizon Wireless, so that makes about $24,000 over the past 10 years.  Two weeks ago, I lost my air card ($60 monthly service), so I went on Verizon’s site and saw the same exact card for $29.99.  A couple of days ago, I was driving by one of their stores so I decided to get my replacement card. The gentleman who was helping said that because I lost the card, I had to pay $155 for a replacement with some kind of rebate that brings the cost down to $100. And the reason they have this policy, they said, is to prevent people who want to upgrade sooner from taking advantage of the system…Let me get this straight, I bought the card…I paid for it. I lost it and want to purchase the same exact card that it being advertised for $29.99, but because I lost the card, I have to pay ungodly sum?  So I asked him how much it was going to cost to break my contract for the service…he said $155…I gladly paid to break the contract and the next day, I went to At&T and picked up a new air card and a new 2-year contract. Let me do the math for Verizon.  I’ve their air card and service for 2 years at $60 / month…$2,400…puff, gone, see ya…and by the way, Verizon will loose my phone service once my contracts on those are up on 7/19/2010. And for $29?  In a market with over 90% saturation, Verizon Wireless chose to loose a loyal customer.

In a tough economic environment, we advise our clients not to take their clients for granted. We believe that good marketing is keeping your existing clients excited about doing business with you. This is a great time to advance your brand with the folks with whome you already do business. It’s certainly much more expensive to acquire a new client, than keeping the ones you have happy and close to you.  The fact is, no business is entitled to their clients, and in times like these, businesses must incentivize clients, new or existing.

Think of it this way, let’s say you’re a restaurant with a loyal client base, but in these times, business is slowing and you are not seeing these clients as often as you would normally.  If your competition is incentivizing the market and your clients are in the same catchment area, chances are your clients may be going, or considering going to the competition. If you are not doing the same, your clients may be wondering why you are not reaching out to them, and that can errode your business and brand.

They may be customers whom you serve, but they are not your customers…more to come…