By Ann Oliver, Account Director

My key takeaways

We’ve all heard the impressive statistics about women and the online world.

•  Women are the majority of internet usage now – 53%
• The fastest growing group on Facebook is women.
• Women who are on the internet trust the internet information more than other sources

I attended BlogHer ‘09 in Chicago and the focus of this conference was specifically on women and blogs. More than 1,400 bloggers, marketers, media reps, and PR practitioners were in attendance. This is the fifth year for the BlogHer Conference and the largest to date.  BlogHer was created in 2005 with a mission “To create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community, and economic empowerment” according to their website.

During the course of three days, I learned so much and it helped put many of the stats we all hear into context.  I attended Blogher ‘09  not as a blogger but as a marketer trying to better understand the incredibly powerful world of women bloggers. The conference is set up in two parts;  Blogher Business and BlogHer ‘09. BlogHer Business is directed to marketers,  blog writers, and other social media practitioners who are interested in reaching women online. BlogHer Business highlights best practices and case studies for connecting with women online, specifically in the social media space.  Following BlogHer Business is BlogHer, which offers blog writers many tools such as technical labs (called Geek Labs–what a great name!) education workshops, intense breakout sessions focused on hot blogging topics and lots of opportunities for networking, connecting and just plain socializing.

I attended both and was overwhelemed by the experience. From a business perspective, I learned a ton and have many great case studies and best practices to share (the top takeaways follow).  As a woman and mother, I was encouraged by the sense of community, support and camaraderie these women share. You may have seen some less than flattering articles or posts about bad behavior (especially as it relates to “swag”) by the women in attendance. But overall, the women I met were smart, ambitious, considerate and they were in attendance to learn, share and become better at their craft.

At the Business conference, five case studies were shared and each used social media to build successful marketing programs. These case studies were presented by the actual marketers who developed and ran the campaigns–having a first person perspective made the cases more real especially when the marketers spoke of the challenges they faced–internally and externally.  

Key takeaways:

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By Alaina Sheer,

Thinking outside the box is as easy as changing the way you see the box.

As marketers we tend to view each medium as an isolated channel serving to only communicate with potential consumers within that channel. We talk often of “breaking through the clutter” because consumers are “tuning out” all of our messages and then some of us throw our hands in the air, understandably so, and say, “where do we start?” 

The first place is to start is in your own mind. 

Instead of visualizing Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube as separate entities think of them as one. All are  intrinsically tied together and becoming more so every day as the users are demanding ways to integrate their content.

If I haven’t lost you… I really hope I haven’t - here’s an example. 

I first learned of Twitter at SXSW Interactive in 2008 when the crowd literally controlled the speaker’s questions by using Twitter to collectively change the dialogue during an interview with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook.

I immediately discounted the silly name and realized that Twitter was definitely something I should join. But I still hesitated.

As much as I wanted to try Twitter, I couldn’t rationalize or justify taking time away from my blog’s active comment section and post writing. I needed to be sold on Twitter.

And then, while surfing other blogs, I saw my first Twitter widget.

They look like this, as seen on Twitip.com, an excellent blog on Twitter by ProBlogger or @problogger if you’re on Twitter.

or can be custom designed to look like this. 

See the little Tweet there? This musician has it feeding into the top of his page. He’s using that prime piece of real estate to update his fans. 

Twitter widgets automatically update just seconds after you update your Twitter account.

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By Alaina Sheer,

I’m a single mother. 

Finding time to even brush my teeth is a miracle in its own right. Single parents are perhaps one of the hardest demographics to reach but a growing one. And if your brand can reach me and actually drive me to a purchase you can reach anyone. 

Just before the new year I decided to take a last minute trip to Chicago. 

I took a few minutes to search for a hotel on Hotels.com and felt instantly overwhelmed. I had no time to search through all of their options. What I needed was a hotel on or near Michigan Avenue for less than $100.00.

The days leading up to my trip quickly passed and I had yet to book a room.

Then I reported my dilemma on Twitter. 

And you’ll notice, within just a few minutes a representative from the travel website Resideo.com had replied to me with a recommendation. You’ll see up there in my dialogue that their first suggestion didn’t quite fit. I responded back with a thank you expecting them to quickly give up.

Instead they responded back after some research with a hotel that fit the bill.

I clicked through to their website and immediately booked a room. 

So how did Resideo find me?

They weren’t following my Tweets and I wasn’t following them. They are probably using a tool like TweetDeck to monitor the constant buzz of conversation on Twitter. When anyone mentions the word “hotel” or “vacation” TweetDeck alerts them and within seconds Resideo can respond.

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By Kathleen Ramirez, Fahlgren EVP and Corporate Media Director

Inspiration for sharing ideas, opinions and epiphanies

It’s December 31, 2008.

Almost 3pm.

Almost time to go.

My office is relatively clean and organized.

The to-do list has been done.

Despite a productive holiday workday, I can’t help but regret the fact that I have lacked in being able to generate interesting, thought-provoking posts for our Agency blog.

I was doing my daily reading when I came across a post by famed blogger Chris Brogan. He is, in my humble opinion, one of the mavericks (needed to get this word in one more time this year) and gurus among the many social media zealots.

Anyway…his most recent post 27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community, reignited my desire to raise my voice, pass along interesting info and pose a question or two in 2009. I won’t list all 27 secrets. You can do that on your own. I will say that the one point that is most important in my mind is #5.

Write something useful for people.

An initial list of ideas that I will commit to writing about in 2009 include, but are not limited to:

• The Evolving Friendship between Web and Mobile
• Rise of the Engaged TV Viewer
• The Relationship Between Media and….Media
• Twitter for Rest of Us (aka tools for the non-social media maven)

But you know….it’s not about me.

What do YOU want to read about in 2009? Curious minds and writers want to know….

Happy New Year!!!!