Today it's the last day of the year - as you might have noticed :-)
A lot of people did a great job with me this year and I want to thank all of them, also allowing me to prepare for a great 2010.

On this blog, I'd like to do something different: I want to highlight people who have been meaningful to my thinking this year through their digital and social channels. Mainly blogs, Twitter, FriendFeed, but also Facebook.

I want this to be a recommendation, so I won't focus on the widely known (but still stellar) Chris Brogan, David Armano, Jeremiah Owyang and Valeria Maltoni (and a few others), that really inspire me and do a great job. Don't get me wrong: they're great, but I'm alms sure you already know / follow / friended them sometime.

So what I will give to you is a focus on people who are probably less "mainstream" but so much an inspiration. Take a look at their job and - if you like it - follow them, let them know and let other people know, too.

PS: I'd love to see your recommendations in the comments of this post, too.

• HolyCow (AKA Mark Hancock): Mark is a planner with a huge experience and has a great approach to the "digital side" of planning. He's not a frequent poster, but when he writes, he doesn't just bring new perspectives or ideas to you, he pushes you to think further.
  Recommended: his thoughts about the future of marketing and advertising.
  Quick definition: Thinking Catalyst.


• Servant of Chaos (AKA Gavin Heaton): Gavin has a tremendous way to use social media. I would say he truly is a connector. Or an "Agent Zero", as Chris Brogan and Julien Smith would call him. He has a great passion in understanding how social media work and in putting people together to generate value. He's also very active on charity front and on doing good for his fellows.
  Recommended: his P-L-A-Y framework.
  Quick definition: Engaged connector.


• Social Strategy & Design (AKA Karl Long): Karl is actually pretty known and followed, but I wanted to include him in the list because I can't define him as "mainstream". His approach to social media is strategic and aims at seeing social media as a way to generate value. You'll find his post are truly inspiring and focused on communities rather than on technology. Which is good because it allows to apply his thinking to a wider range of tactics.
  Recommended: thoughts on post consumer society and the culture accelerator.
  Quick definition: Community Strategist.


• The Spinks Blog (AKA David Spinks): I discovered David's blog only recently and it was a shame I didn't do it earlier. Very interesting insights and nice way to put a spotlight on what works well in social media.
  Recommended: his thinking about connecting with the consumer through a long term engagement.
  Quick definition: Social Media Spotlight.

There are many more blogs and people I'd like to mention, but I'd just like to keep this post less than 4 chapters :-) , so I focused on the ones I thought you might not know and that could make an impact on you.

For 2010, keep an eye on how social media will change the way we think about relationship and communication between brands and consumer, also through these people's eyes..

A mention for Italian readers. Keep an eye on Rock & ROI, a blog by my friend Gabriele Cucinella. A new born blog, but very promising so far.

Back from Christmas lunches with our families and friends (actually about to start the second day / round), I've had some time to wonder about what is so good and revolutionary about the social web. Actually there are many reasons you might like social media: it can connect you with your friends, it can give you visiblity, it can be a source of inspiration for your job, it can be a tremendous way to spend your free time, it can connect you with brands, it can give you shopping advice and (add a thousand more).

I agree with all of the above, but I think that what I love the most about social media is you can't fake. You just can't on the long term. You have to be genuine and unique.

Even brands have to. They can't fake unique, it just won't last. There are numbers of smart people out there that can connect together and with your brand and verify every single word. It's not worth telling lies.

It doesn't mean that social media is not for your brand and company unless your product is a star. There are a lot of solutions / people / agencies that can help you find something unique and relevant to the consumer even in your cash cow, maybe even in your dog product.

So don't worry if you work for a brand. Social media in 2010 will be an enormous opportunity. It will create value for you and your consumers. As long as you understand you can't fake unique.

Have a great holiday, everyone.
Will be a little away from blogging in the next days, preparing a few good things for the next year. I really can't wait for them to start and for me to be able to share with you.

What do you love about social media?

Photo credit: Mackielew

Take a look at the internet today:

• Social search lets you see results that are relevant for your network of friends;
• Real time search shows you results that are important at the time you post your query
• Geolocation points out results relevant near you
• SideWiki lets you read user comments on any page

Now answer this question:
How important is Search Engine Optimization compared to engagement through social media?

Your customers are likely to be more interested in a fresh opinion from ther own friends (forrester opinions) than in a textual content perfectly optimized for search engines. Still wondering how this translates into ROI?

You don't necessarily have to choose SEO vs social media, but the latter has a unique power that even the best optimization can't reach.

We'll soon no longer need to optimize content for search engines: search engines will be optimized for content.

This is the time of the year when we read so much about what future will bring.

I have no "predictions": actually some thoughts about next year, I can see some trends developing, also with the help of an inspiring Chris Brogan. So: no predictions, just challenges.

The social web challenges of 2010? I've been thinking a lot about location and relevance: context becomes everyday more relevant to information, even physical context of course.
This is true also when you provide content or information to your community: the same piece of information needs to be adapted to the communication act. Sender, receiver, message and channels are the main variables that come into play and that users will adopt as a metric to determine how relevant a content is. Of course, the strongest of all context is location: basically because we're immersed in it and also because technology is developing so much that we can use the web as an hypertext for reality (with applications like Layar).

I'd like to add two more trends: the other day I was reading this post by Chris Brogan: he has an incredible ability to summarize trends and evolutions. He states that four elements are going to be relevant (on both consumer and business side, I say): velocity, visibility, proximity and relevance.

So: proximity (location) and relevance. I strongly agree on the former two, too, this is why I want to include them here and give a little more detail.

Velocity characterizes our transactions not just because every communication act gets faster, but also because channels are increasing at an astonishing pace. The key to manage velocity is to allow visibility for content that's relevant for you: this can be done via software (setting up rules on your feed reader is an example), but also through a more "human" contribution. You can follow you friends' recommendations and leverage on them to did what's important for you. My take? Combine both as much as possible to get the best of relevance.

Since the elements that Chris pointed out look so direct and straight to the point, I think the visual above helps fixing them and can represent a background to work on those themes.

There is a nice conversation on Chris's blog in the comments about this topic, feel free to add your take there, or here in the comments if you prefer.

Content curation is a trend we should expect to grow in the next months. As users (also call them consumers or audiences) are over-exposed to content of any type, created by brands and by other users, an important resource becomes everyday more precious: time. And its value is matched only by the value of attention.

Brands have a great opportunity here: curating content means respecting user's limited time, by dealing with other users content and preparing it.

The "preparation" (or "curation") should be done by an editorial staff (which brands can also outsource, but that needs to be totally aligned with the brand). The editorial staff works inside the brand's universe: personality, culture, values and relationships. The editorial staff curates content by:

• finding content, by activating constant monitoring on the topics that might interest the audience;
• tagging content, giving it a coherent classification that makes it easier to read / watch / listen;
• rating content, by putting in the spotlight content that is more relevant;
• commenting content, interacting the its creator to understand it better and to get in tough with the final audience of her / his work;
• updating content, to be sure the provided information is still relevant after some time;
• contextualising content, by adding to it information and "handles" that make it suitable for the context it will be (liked from or) published to;

What are your experiences with content curation? Do you deal with it as a spectator, creator or brand person? Let us know in the comments.

What are your main objectives when you plan your communication initiatives on digital channels? Do you need to be seen or do you need to make an impact on people who get in touch with your brand or product?
I bet in most cases it's the latter.

So, if you want to make an impact it's important you care about context: don't just pollinate the web with your message, but do it minding all the variables that are contextual to the moment when your target gets in touch with the message.
These variables are not just demographics (geography, race, gender, class, age), but also psychographics (behavior) and sociographics (influencers, friends, type of on-line relationships).
If you set up initiatives that help spread your content while minding the context, you're likely to have an impact. In the end it means your "video" (wanna-be viral) might be seen by less people, but the ones who see it have a high affinity with it and it translates more into sales, leads or (place your objective here).

Distribution is important as well, but only when it's a part of context. If you pollinate your web filling every possible website with your content, if you are aggressive on conversations and randomly shout a link to your content, it you bet big numbers will save you, you're probably going to have a bad surprise as soon as your effort doesn't make any impacts or has negative impact.

When you leverage on context, you are more likely to have high affinity communication, when you leverage only on distribution, you leverage only on reach.

So, care about context and consider distribution just as a part of it.

Otherwise, if you care only about distribution, people won't trust your communication, your brand and product anymore. They won't even trust the type of communication they're seeing. This is already happening: you can see today on Advertising Age that online ad industry needs to advertise about advertising to gain back trust. Do you really think it will work?

What's your view about context vs distribution?
Share it in the comments.