Meshstro: Coming to an Inbox Near You!

For the past month or so, I've been part of the Beta testing program for a very exciting new tool called Meshstro. Created by the forward-looking scientists at Xerox PARC, Meshstro has the potential to revolutionize how we use the rich mother lode of emails and associated information that constantly flows through everyone's inbox.

Residing as an Outlook sidebar, Meshstro creates context-driven relationships between emails, conversations, participants, attachments, etc. - - allowing you to quickly slice-and-dice all of the information in virtually any manner that suits your immediate needs. You can even activate links to your social media accounts and Meshstro will automatically take you to LinkedIn or Facebook profiles for the participants in any email conversation.

Using Meshstro, I've discovered that my Inbox doesn't have to be a hodge-podge of chaos to be grappled with and periodically cleared out. Instead it can be a wealth of useful information at my fingertips - whenever and however I need it.

And since Meshstro comes from the the folks at Xerox PARC, with their unmatched history of pioneering user-interface innovations, you can bet that this Beta product is only the beginning...

For more info check out http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103452729982&s=0&e=001hfGcPNPXb5vwjJMnhGp8SWjHzGuWyfJfHeXDJPfaeknasp8mcoZFX3epoMbLIsKq8ZnWfZ5YgjTodJMAFZebkkrREm1V8Mw8kw11o7h20Qs=

Social Media Marketing - Survey Results

Thanks to everyone who participated in our online Survey on Social Media Usage during April/May. Respondents included both large and small companies as well as industry associations.

Here are some of the top-level findings of interest:

1. Period of time using Social Media: 25% less than 6 months, 15% for 6 to 12 months, 30% more than 1 yr, and 30% don't use social media
2. Types of Social Media used: Twitter (63%), Facebook (68%), LinkedIn (47%)
3. Frequency of Twitter Posts:Every day (46%), Weekly (23%) Monthly or less (31%)
4. Reasons cited as "important" for using Social Media:Building company brand (94%)Finding customers/prospects (84%)Tracking competition/industry trends (60%)Drive product/service innovation (60%)Finding employees (30%)
5. Responsibility for tracking & posting updates:In-house primary task assignment (22%)In-house secondary task (27%)Out-sourced (15%)Ad-hoc or no assigned responsibility (36%)

These findings tend to track with other surveys that I've seen, which confirm a high level of interest in using Social Media for business purposes but a big gap between those companies that have well-defined programs and those that don't.

It has become very clear that social media forums such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others are now a key part of the overall marketing, branding and customer service mix for all companies. It's inevitable that your customers, competitors and partners are going to communicate about your market using these forums - - most already are.

The critical question is what are you going to do about it?

Social Media Marketing for Business (Survey)

The brave new world of Social Media offers lots of opportunity for business marketing. However, it can also seem confusing and sometimes overwhelming.

While some companies are getting excellent measurable results, others are either wasting their time and money or are just sitting on the sidelines because they don't know how to get started.

The bottom line is that information about your market and your company is already being shared by your customers, prospects and competitors every day through Social Media channels.

They are building relationships, strengthening brands and increasing prospects. You need to be out in front of the curve on Social Media or you may just get left behind!

Consider the following metrics for the "big two" Twitter & Facebook:

Twitter:

• 180 Million Unique Visitors per Month


• 300,000 Users Added per Day


• 1,500% Growth Since 2006


• Over 30 Million Tweets Per Day

Facebook:

• Over 400 million Facebook members


• Average user has 130 friends


• Users spend over 500 billion minutes on FB per month


• More than 100 million Facebook users engage with Facebook on external websites every month


• New tools allow FB users to "Like" external sites while browsing - thus driving their Friends to follow them

The Bottom Line:Marketing is no longer just a "one-to-many" advertising proposition or a PR program aimed at "influencing trusted intermediaries" to drive public opinion. It has now also become a dynamic "many-to-many conversation" in real time, where virtually everyone can be a powerful influencer on a brand's reputation.

Fortunately, there are lots to great tools out there, such as Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Open Graph and many others, which can streamline your ability to leverage these dynamic conversations. But even the best tools are only helpful if you know how to use them.

If you'd like to participate in an anonymous survey on the
Usage of Social Media Marketing For Business, click here.

Happy New Year - Signs of Growth are Spreading

Everywhere that I turn these days, there are new and encouraging signs of growth -- especially in the tech sector.
Here's a sampling from just the past few days:
Wholesale Inventories & Sales See Strong Gains
IC Industry on Cusp of Market Boom
Global Chip Sales Soar
Manufacturing Expands at Fastest Rate Since April 2006

I'm going to keep an eye out for more "green shoots of growth" and post them here and on twitter, as well as sharing them with my client companies. From a practical standpoint, the more we pay attention to positive trends, the faster those trends will accelerate.

In one of my recent eNews letters, I passed along this quote from Colin Powell: "optimism is a force multiplier". I truly believe that and I'm making it my mantra for 2010!