Affinitive’s Social Media Playground

Welcome to Social Media Playground, a place to discuss all things related to word of mouth (WOM) and social media marketing. Brought to you by Affinitive, a word of mouth and social media marketing, technology and strategic solutions firm located in New York City and San Francisco.

Affinitive’s Social Media Playground

What I’m Reading: The Social Media Bubble

April 1st, 2010 · View Comments

I fully intended on writing a blog post about this blog post by Umair Haque in Harvard Business Review, but it quickly (very quickly) turned into a seven page manifesto that certainly isn’t appropriate to publish here.  I’d lose you three paragraphs in. In this post, Haque discusses the relationships that are created through all [...]

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Tags: Research · Social Media · Strategy

Evolving Beyond Communities of Unconnected Communities (Part 1 of 2)

September 28th, 2009 · View Comments

In four separate client conversations over the last couple of months I’ve heard nearly the exactly the same phrase – “We have several successful social media efforts, but we’re missing a ‘hub’ that ties them all together.”  Welcome to the strategic phase of social media marketing. This lack of integrated strategy is largely a result [...]

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Tags: Strategy

New Comprehensive Word-of-Mouth Marketing Industry Report Released

July 30th, 2009 · View Comments

On the heels of the first-of-its-kind WOM industry study in 2007, The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), in conjunction with PQ Media, just released their Word-of-Mouth Marketing Forecast 2009-2013: Spending, Trends & Analysis study. It’s chock full of great data and insight, and includes the following eye-opening prediction: Total spending on WoM marketing is [...]

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Tags: Case Studies · Industry News · Marketing · Research · Social Media

Generating WOM for a New Product or Service that Doesn’t Yet Exist

March 8th, 2009 · View Comments

How do you get people excited (and talking) about your great new product or service while it’s still in development? Here are five tips that have proven successful: Tip #1: Motivation If you are truly starting “from scratch,” with no existing customers (let alone an existing CRM system or even an email list), you’ll need [...]

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Tags: Marketing · Social Media

My ROI – Measuring the Returns of Social Network Marketing

February 23rd, 2009 · View Comments

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Online Community Unconference East 2009 at Baruch College here in New York City.  It was my first unconference and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I met a lot of interesting people and participated in some lively discussions about online communities.  One particular session left me with a lot [...]

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Tags: Industry News · Marketing · Research · Social Media

A Social Media “Gut Check” – Own Your Presence. Own Your Relationships. Own Your Data.

February 17th, 2009 · View Comments

The recent, unannounced changes to Facebook’s terms of service seem to have gotten many folks up in arms. While this has caused a stir among consumers and privacy advocates, it is also raising flags with brands who are voicing concerns about what this means about ownership of their profiles, relationships, and data. Can Facebook use [...]

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Tags: Industry News · Marketing · PR · Social Media