Book Review: Marketing to Millennials

They got me with the introduction. 

 “They” being authors Jeff Fromm and Christie Garton. The hook for me - stats. The Marketing to Millennials intro is not the standard “why we wrote this book and there’s how it’s laid out” bit, instead it highlights the research that was the catalyst for the book. The numbers are compelling and made me want to gobble the rest of Fromm‘s and Garton’s sensibility up.

The book is part resource (research from Forrester, Pew, BCG, Gartner, Barkley, etc.), part storytelling (many millennial interviews) and part case studies (several brands that are maneuvering their way into millennial relevance, daily consumption and loyalty.) Yes, you did read right, millennials can be fiercely loyal - if a brand lets them be - and this book explains the how behind the what.

The book flow is one that I akin to marketing research books I read for my MBA classes. It is straight forward and business-driven with a focus on explaining the millennial market backed with multiple research findings, discussing the unique opportunities, pointing out the gray (ie – Is this a life-stage driven or a true generational difference?) muddledness and providing in-depth analysis on how brands succeed with millennials.

Each chapter is easily digestible starting with a millennial quote that is a summary statement for the chapter’s theme.  There are at least two charts from industry research powerhouses in each chapter backing up the authors’ key points. The case studies are landscaped in a helpful “Who? What? How? Impact?” framework. And at the end of every chapter, there’s a handy one-to-two page key takeaways summary.

The content is solid for any company that is creating and marketing brands targeting millennials or those they influence. I think it’s relevant for companies that are trying to attract and keep millennial employees as well. Here’s an excellent review by Bob Morris that goes into detail about the content.

I really didn’t know what to think going into this book as I really didn’t know if the subject matter was core to my current role. Given how many brands my company, Expion, works with that target millennials and also given the average age of our office is 28 – this book is a necessary resource for me. I’ll definitely be keeping this book handy. I don’t say that about most books I read. I typically read and give away. Marketing to Millennials needs to stay within arm’s reach for me. 

·   Disclosure: I received a free copy of Marketing to Millennials from Jeff Fromm to review however I’ve given that book away and have ordered a few on my own dime – one to keep on my shelf and a couple to give to industry colleagues.

 

For Immediate Release (FIR Live) Panel on Influencer Marketing

Editor's note: This post was originally published on Expion's blog.

The first Google+ Hangout on Air (HOA) for Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson's For Immediate Release was Saturday, June 11, 2012. The topic was Influencer Marketing and the "feisty and fun" panel from left to right below were:

• Andrew Grill CEO at influencer platform Kred 
• David Armano EVP, Global Innovation & Integration at Edelman Digital
• Shel Holtz - For Immediate Release Host 
• Gini Dietrich CEO at PR firm Arment Dietrich 
• Neville Hobson - For Immediate Release Host 
• and me - Zena Weist VP, Strategy at social software company Expion

For those of you unfamiliar with Shel and Neville's FIR Live weekly discussions, it's 60 minutes of unscripted, robust Q&A on a trending industry topic with audience participation via Twitter (hashtag #FIRLive) and group chat. Influencer Marketing Review highlights a few quotes from the FIR panel to whet your appetite:
  The panel all agreed that when creating advocate lists, the influencer scoring systems can be "one of many" identifiers. The key being not to use an influencer candidate's score such as Klout, Peer Index and Kred as the only qualifier. Another point that resonated throughout the discussion was the industry's responsibility to educate organizations on the pros and cons of utilizing influencer scoring systems. Really enjoyed the G+ HOA format.

I'm looking forward to taking in more FIR Live webcasts on the HOA platform. Thanks again for asking me to participate Shel and Neville! In my next influencer marketing post, I'll share a few resources that I've found extremely helpful, so stay tuned.

Operationalizing Social Media To Become A Social Business

Last month, I zipped through the following deck at Jason Fall's Social Media Explore Summit in Dallas. It includes two Fortune 500 case studies discussing how firms incorporate social media into enterprise-wide programs. I was lucky enough to have led both initiatives - one with a C-suite champion and one without.

Operationalizing Social Media

Though I cut the presentation down by half, there's just too much content to cover during a 30 minute talk. I felt like I was running a marathon and though the Dallas crowd was very responsive, I know I should have kept to key points thahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift help tackle cross-functional social media programs. In fact, Jason reminded me last week to "whittle the sucker down to core points, dammit." ;)

So for Nashville's Explore, I will be slashing the copy, cutting out slides and focusing on sharing the social business headlines. I will be explaining the watch-outs and providing you with core takeaways while weaving in Edelman's social business methodology along the way to help reinforce the key guiding principles that will help you make your enterprise-wide social media initiatives successful. I hope to see you in Nashville on April 13!

In the meantime, check back here for deeper dive points of consideration from the above deck. I promise these posts will be in bit-size, right-size digestible chunks for you to have for reference while you are developing your enterprise-wide social business plan.

Still Walking Down the Digital Path with a bit of a Different Swagger

My career has been a winding path on the digital superhighway to say the least. I began in the early 90s in interactive marketing with digital start-up agencies (I remember posting on newsgroups using 2400 baud modem - completely dating myself, aren't I?), switched to in-house with large corporations in online brand marketing, then IT project management, back online brand marketing which evolved into integrated interactive marketing and then my latest gig - social media.

Friday was my last day with H&R Block. I am no longer the Director of Social Media for the best tax company in the business. It was a very sad farewell as the people that make up the spirit of Block are some of the brightest-minded and dedicated individuals that I've come across in the corporate world. I will forever be indebted to so many of them for their support, friendship and guidance. We had an amazing two tax seasons together and I'm excited to see how Block continues to integrate social media into its core operations, marketing and communication efforts.

So where am I off to are you wondering????

I doubt it's a surprise to those of you that know me well...I'm heading to Edelman, specifically Edelman Digital as VP of Digital Strategy. I'm excited to join Dan Cornell's team and work with industry friends David Armano, Dave Fleet, and Phil Gomes and industry mentor, Rick Murray. I'm staying in Kansas City but will be traveling to Chicago frequently for work and to grab rides on David's Harley every now and again with Mrs. Armano's blessing.

It's been 15 years since I've been on the digital agency side...I'm craving it and can't wait to start down this new path. I'm really looking forward to sharing more here again about this industry and the passion I have for it.

Posted via email from zenaweist's posterous

Communication Shutdown

Amber Naslund wrote a thought provoking, "get-your-cause-on" post on Brass Tack Thinking about yesterday's autism awareness event called Communication Shutdown that sparked my response below (I changed it a bit from the comment I left)...

Being a mom of an autistic kid and being an autism advocate I completely got the premise of Communication Shutdown. Silence was our life when our son was 2 1/2. We went from a very vocal infant to a barely audible toddle in less then 12 months. For me, this event brought back the diagnosis, the struggle...gosh, it was almost 10 years ago.

Our son is 12 and as I mentioned he has autism. He was diagnosed at 2 1/2. The county early developmental team working with us at the time said that he would never be able to attend a typical school setting because he was mostly non-verbal and had so many delays. They told us to plan for in-home schooling, etc.

Well, our son's story is one of challenging the labels and the "low" expectations. We made our own game plan with the help of many a therapist/teacher and lots of loving repetition and I'm happy to say our 12 yr old is in a typical school setting without para support. We have our challenging moments (mostly social interaction, communication cue missteps) but we are moving forward every day.

He and I discussed yesterday's Communication Shutdown and he was thrilled about the worldwide effort to (as their chater rsays) create "a sense of disconnection and a sense of frustration. By creating a little empathy, we hope to encourage a wider understanding and acceptance of people with autism – an understanding we recognize those in the autism community already have."

He saw me sit down at the laptop and start up tweetdeck (by habit) while he was working through homework last night. I told him, "Oh man, this Communication Shutdown thing is hard for me. Do I ever want to get on Twitter and share this news...but I can't."

His reply, "Now you know how I feel about 87% of the time, Mom." And he smiled adding, "This is good."

Awareness is good. For me, the Communication Shutdown was a one day event to help people walk in my son's autistic shoes. From the blog #shutdown posts and twitter comments of the folks that did it in support of autism (but didn't know anyone directly with autism), I read a lot of "this was helpful". In my mind, it was a learn by doing (or lack of doing) model.

There's so many wonderful autism awareness organizations providing a ton of amazing information, programs, etc. every day including Autism Speaks and The Autism Society of America. There are fantastic autism resource blogs as well. And April is Autism Awareness Month with April 2 being World Autism Day. So there's a lot of resources and discussions going on every day. The Communication Shutdown one day event was one more way to help people understand how complex and how frustrating autism can be.

For me, yesterday was my day to listen and not connect. It was a good reminder for me on how far our son has come and that he still struggles every day. Today and every other day (but yesterday) is my day to share our story and hopefully help some folks along the way.

Posted via email from zenaweist's posterous

My Mom's Battle With Cancer is Over

My mom, Maralyne Monsour, died at her home with our family by her side on September 12 just a few days short of her 73rd birthday.


She was an amazing woman...so very strong, such a fighter, so beautiful (inside and out)...such an amazing mentor. Yep, I miss her a lot and her death is the reason for my absence from this blog.

When I sit in front of my laptop, it often triggers memories of being with my mom for therapy, surgeries and recovery. Her ten year battle with cancer is inspiring. She's my hero.

It's because of her brain cancer diagnosis in 2007 that I become a heavy user of Twitter for instant information, contact and mass notification on Mom's condition.

Her passing is still really so raw that this post is a short "letting you know why I've been away" update and also a quick thank you to everyone that has helped me through my mom's passing. Thank you!

Commitment versus One and Done - Relationships

So I talked about how important executive level buy-in was for the social media leader's success in my last post. I know it sounds like a given, but I've worked in both environments. If you have buy-in, you have budget, you have executive sponsorship, you have the green light. Without buy-in, your social media initiative at best is a pilot program that might get traction but most likely won't.

The premise of this series is the CMO's commitment shift to more long-term customer lifetime value versus short-term spikes. Here's the four CMO shifts, I think need to happen for social media initiatives to get legs in the corporate world:

1) Peers/your team buy-in, hire leader
2) Relationships
3) Conversations vs campaigns
4) Long haul sentiment change (YOY) vs buzz spike (quarterly)

On the relationships front, it's the direct marketing lens that we are focusing on in social media...or more appropriately we aren't transaction based, point of sale based - we are looking holistically at the customer's experience with the brand and their life time value. So the shift is from a one and done transaction or get-the-sale-in-for-this-quarter-or-die mantra to a long-term customer relationship mentality. This means a focus on LTV metrics not just quarterly sales objectives.

I promise we'll dive into what that means from a social media metrics standpointin the last post of this series. Back to relationships...

Social media provides you ample opportunities to listen to your customers and potential customers through their journey with your brand and to engage with them through social media channels when it makes sense. Relationships take back and forth dialogue - there needs to be give and take or there's really no connection nor skin in the game.

Take advantage of the social sphere to listen and course correct along the way through conversation pulse analysis. Your customers will take note of your "big ears" and will show their appreciation through brand loyalty.

Next up...conversations vs campaigns.

Be Social - I Am One of You

Take 1: April 2008 - I Am One of You

So we're munching on our salads and I'm tell Chris what a "true north" moment I'm experiencing: I'm eating lunch with my social media mentor; later that day, I planned to meet some amazing social media rock stars at NewComm - Erin Kotecki Vest, Joe Jaffe, Shel Holtz, Shel Israel, Cathryn Hrudicka (yep, her cat and I share names), Jim Long, etc.; and, how all of this was very surreal for me to take in.

Chris stopped me mid-sentence and said, "You represent a brand doing social media...you are practicing the preach. You bring just as much to the table as everyone you just mentioned...including me. Remember that."


Take 2: May 2010 - I Am One of You
Fast forward to last week, I'm having lunch with my new boss, Jenny Love, VP of Communications at H&R Block. The social media team was shifted under Communications from Marketing with the new re-alignment. Anyway, we're munching on our salads, enjoying eating outdoors on the first nice weather day in Kansas City in a long while, and talking shop.

A woman comes up to us asking if we can spare some cash as she and her family have fallen on hard times and she needs to buy groceries. I only have my debit card was my response. Jenny reaches for her wallet, talking kindly to the woman, making eye contact the whole time and hands the woman some cash. The woman was very thankful. I had skepticism written all over my face.

Jenny says, "Ok, I have no idea what is going to happen with the cash, but when she and I made eye contact...I think she really needed to buy food for her family." She shrugs. "Any regardless, it's a good karma moment."

Later, as we were heading back to our building, we saw the woman heading out of the local grocery store with bags of food. She was telling a passer-by that she had food for her family because of the kindness of a stranger.

I leaned over to Jenny and said, "Thanks for letting me be a part of your good karma moment."

Yep, I know you can't make these "I Am One of You" moments up. They are opportunities to raise each other up and to remind ourselves we are all connected.

I'd love to hear one of your "I Am One of You" moments...

Be Social - What's Your Sawubona Moment?

Last month, Ben Smith (@benasmith) and Whitney Mathews (@whitneymathews from The World Company, successfully hosted the first Free State Social Conference with a bevy of amazing speakers; a local discussion panel (that I was lucky to be a part of); great old school, in real life conversations; and, an interesting mix of local/regional/national attendees made up of online newbies, powerhouse techheads, marketing/PR SMEs, and publishing whizkids.

My next few posts will not be recaps or reviews of the conference. Lots of local bloggers have provided excellent Free State recaps and review posts, Whitney captured most of them here. Remember the "here" link, we'll come back to it in my next post...promise.

Missed the conference? You can take it in via video archive. So no recap for me, I'm going to tap into a vein of thinking that lots of us have discussed before. It was the underlying theme of the conference. It's something that started with Chris Brogan's opening remarks and continued through out the day...to GET social media you need to DO social media, in order to REALLY do social media, you need to BE social.


I See You and I Am One of You

Since I'm talking about what getting, doing and being social mean to me - and I'm chatty - it's going to take a series of posts. I can't wait for you to share what it means to you. With all of us contributing, this series could go on a while. Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) kicked off the Free State Social Conference keynote using his iPad. No talking just words on the screen. The first screen said "I See You" and the second is pictured with Chris above, "I'm One of You." Thanks to Simon Kuo (@simonkuo) of The Westside Studio for the use of the photo.




You Matter To Me, You Are Worth My Time
The first time I met Chris in person was in early 2008, we were both at the SNCR NewComm conference looking (via Twitter) for a late lunch buddy. I had been reading Chris' blog since early 2007, we conversed via email and Facebook. He had helped me develop Embarq's social media road map, got me going on my blog, we talked kid stuff and shared telcom shop talk so when we met in person, we had history. But knowing Chris, he would have had lunch with me whether he knew me online or not. That's just his M.O. He breathes the essence of what makes social media um...well, what makes social media social.

Though Chris shares content freely (some 2500 words of advice a day) via his blog, see Chris really excels as an in-the-moment, get out from behind the (insert whatever face-to-face barrier you use here) ie keyboard, screen, etc. sharer. He knows the secret sauce is in the big share and he knows sharing it will not only help others, but will ultimately propel Chris.

Back to our first in-person meet up, Chris and I sit down for lunch. I take my phone out of my purse-mom-bag-laptop tote and put it on the table in front of me. It's my barrier, well actually for me, it was my crutch. I'm thinking of it as my "cool kid" badge because I'm all smart phone hip, right? Yeah, well no.

Leave it to Chris to school me within 15 seconds of sitting down. At the same time, Chris takes his phone from his trouser pocket, hits a button (I'm thinking mute) and sits it on the table. But no...He says, "This is a distraction, so I'm turning it off."

The dude was not pulling a "this is what I need to do" lame "look at me, I have big ears" pulpit play. No posturing going here. This was early 2008, this is just part of Chris' DNA and it's something we all need reminded of:

Let the person (yep, the one right in front of you) know I see you and you matter to me.

Chris uses the Zulu term Sawubona to describe this common courtesy which is rare in practice and he has written many a post on it. The first post I remember is The Community Ecosystem.

That one gesture of shutting his phone off with the four words after "This is a distraction" is my best Sawubona moment to date. Can't wait to hear your Sawubona moment.

Next post will continue with me getting a lesson on "I am one of you" over salads. Yep, about five minutes into lunch.

Chris Brogan - Going from Gee Whiz to Oh Crap!

Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) aka "No I Don't Sleep" Brogan spoke at the recent Kansas City IABC's Business Communicator's Summit. Here's two minutes worthy of a listen. Chris talks about moving from toe in the water trying social media out initiatives to the need for a more holistic company wide social media roadmap.

Johnny's Tavern: Keeping the Online Conversation Going Offline - A Local Restaurant's Social Story

Continuing with the IABC's Business Communicators' Summit, this post is focused on a Kansas City smallbiz example of using social media to continue the conversation with customers in between their in-store (in this case "in-restaurant") visits.

Alexis Ceule (@alexisceule) presentation on a small local business @JohnnysTavernPV's social media pilot program.

I think the key to Alexis' social site strategy for Johnny's is the focus on instant “in the moment” conversations. She pushed the organization to meet the customer at the point of need with relevant content and to build relationships.

Social Media Small Business Style: Johnny's Tavern

View more presentations from Zena Weist.

In fact, 85% of Johnny's social site conversations are not branded. Also, their tie social site promotions with having their friends, fans and customers meet up at Johnny's to shift the online conversation to "live and in person" get togethers. So Johnny's has become the favored place for "social site friends" to gather for catching up face-to-face.

Straying a bit from my re-hash of our panel, next up will be a brief post on Chris Brogan's KC/IABC keynote.

Social Fresh Nashville - Social Media Conference for Marketers

Social Fresh has created social media conferences tailored to marketers needs. If you are interested in finding out how large, mid and small-size brands have integrated social media into their marketing and communication, Social Fresh is a fantastic conference for you.

<p>What is Social Fresh? from Social Fresh on Vimeo.</p>

Social Fresh is a 1 day conference that is held in multiple cities throughout the United States and here's the 2010 conferences. The next Social Fresh is in Nashville (see full schedule at the bottom) on January 11. Jason Keath (@jakrose), Social Fresh founder, asked me to speak on the ROI in Community panel with Amber Nashlund (@ambercadabra) and DJ Waldow (@djwaldow).

Jason talks more about the variety of speakers (between 30-35 representatives from brands, agencies and vendors that have been blazing the social web trail) at the Social Fresh Nashville conference below including two phenomenal keynotes. One keynote is from my marketing friend that kicks serious social media bootie, Jason Falls (@jasonfalls) and the other brilliant online communications and marketing expert, Geno Church (@genochurch).

<p>Social Fresh Nashville Speakers - Social Media Conference from Social Fresh on Vimeo.</p>

Have you already registered? Please let me know your travel plans so we can meet either the night before, day of or at the January 11 evening gathering. If you haven't registered yet, you can still buy tickets. Hope to see you in the Music City next Monday!

 

 

 

 

Posted via web from zenaweist's posterous

Upcoming Events

Over the next couple of months, I'm fortunate enough to be attending several amazing social media events (some local to Kansas City, some not.) I hope I'm lucky enough to see you at a few of these shindigs, please let me (@zenaweist) know if you are going so we can definitely meet up.

The Quick-n-Dirty
This is the only virtual event slated. Aaron Strout asked me to talk about my day job as interactive brand strategy and marketing manager at Embarq on his (@aaronstrout) and Jennifer Leggio's (@mediaphyter) social media Quick-N-Dirty podcast (@quickndirty).
These two online marketing mavens discuss new social networks, social media case studies, new execs that are twittering/blogging and the hot topic of the week. Bryan Person (@bryanperson), one of my favorite social media practitioners, will be co-hosting with Jennifer.

Join the chat and listen in on Thursday, September 3 at 5pm CT. Every once in awhile, Jennifer will ask one of the listens to chime in, it would be great if it were you! If you miss it, you can listen to it shorty after it's live via Quick-n-Dirty's nifty On Demand Episodes.

Really "Way Too Early in The Morning" SMCKC Breakfast
On Friday, September 11 at 7:30am (I kid you not) if you dare, you will see mine and 60 of my closest cohorts yawning faces at our monthly Social Media Club of Kansas City's (@smckc) breakfast at the oh-so-yummy The Kansas City Cafe (@KansasCityCafe). Details on the "you will really want to wake up for this one" agenda will be posted on SMCKC's ning soon.

Kansas City Twestival 2009
In the evening of Friday, September 11, I'm definitely going to the KC Twestival (@kctwestival) at The Brooksider Bar & Grill. A plethora of my Kansas City friends are helping plan this incredible one night, one cause social web/IRL event for an amazing local, non-profit Wayside Waifs.

KC #Twestival 2009 from Judy-Anne Goldman on Vimeo.

Solis hashtag KC-style #solisinkc
woot! Thanks to The Greater Kansas City Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) (@kcprsa), Brian Solis (@briansolis) will be presenting The State of Social Media, an inside look at trends and ethics within the industry featuring current topics and statistics on Thursday, September 17 at AMC Mainstreet Theatre. Brian exhales the social web. If you haven't seen The Conversation Prism that he and Jesse Thomas (@jess3) developed, please take a look-see.

First Day of Autumn in NYC
Next up is OMMA Global New York on Tuesday, September 22. I just found out, I'm pinch hitting for my Embarq interactive brand partner in crime, Kevin Cobb (@kevinjcobb), on an online marketing panel with our strategic partners, Dax Hamman (@daxhamman), Vice President Display Media, iCrossing and Media6's CEO, Joe Doran (@doran_joe). When I can, I'll update this post with our OMMA topic details.

UPDATED OMMA Global NYC Panel details:
Our panel is on Tuesday, 9/22 at noon and the title is Leveraging the Power of Search Retargeting for Marketing Plans with Andrew Pancer, Founder and COO, Media6 Degrees; Dax Hamman, VP, Display Media, iCrossing;Ben Seslija, Senior Director, Acquisition and Analytics, Clickable; and Mitch Spolan, Yahoo! Inc.


IZEAFest 2009
Next stop is sunny Orlando at the beginning of October where I'll be experiencing my first IZEAFest (@izeafest). Here's my history on the how. I'll be speaking on the What Advertisers Want panel and I'm beyond excited about being part of this timely conversation. I can't wait to recap blog about the lively discussion around this topic.


And last but definitely not least, Kansas City's own IMS
On October 8, I will have the pleasure of walking through the Embarq social media case study with two of the company's key social web SMEs Kevin Cobb and Linda O'Neill (@lindaoneill) at The Kansas City Integrated Marketing Summit (@IMSummit. Unfortunately, Bryan Person is slated on an IMS panel at the same time as I'll be talking so we each are going to tape the other and we promise to share highlights. The great news is we both will be front and center live tweeting one of our favorite online savvy, witty Bostonians Doug Haslam's (@DougH) Effective PR in a Social World presentation later that afternoon. Do you have any fun ideas on a hashtag for Doug's preso?

Twestival - Kansas City

Twestival is a worldwide fund raising effort that is occurring this Thursday, February 12 organized 100% by volunteers around the world via social media - mainly twitter. 100% of the money raised from these local events will go directly to support charity. Specifically - water projects.

Why water?
One in six people on earth don't have access to safe, clean drinking water.



Why Twestival?




The Kansas City Twestival volunteer team (@KCTwestival) has done an amazing job putting together and getting the word out about our local tweetup with a cause including this fantastic video from Ramsey Mohsen:

Twestival, Tweet. Meet. Give.



All the details on the February 12th Kansas City evening event are at KansasCity.Twestival.com. I'm looking forward to taking part in this worldwide charity event with my KC friends. Hope to see you there!

Ambient Awareness

I found this fascinating quote on Twittermaven today:

As you'd expect, the world of Twitter has been abuzz.  For the last two days, the conversation about the article has been robust as it seemed that everyone had something to say about ambient awareness. And of course, there were some great pieces written about the article.  Alan Wolk wrote an amazing piece, Social Media's Defining Moment, identifying the importance of the article "because it's outside the usual geekosphere bubble and has the imprimatur of social science. The placement in the Times means that it should be getting a lot of traction since it's the first place many non-tech journos will go for insight into "that whole Twitter thing."Warren, Twittermaven, Sep 2008

You should read the whole post.

Social Media Roadmap

As you're building out your company's social media roadmap, I recommend considering a few, if not all, of the following social media strategies:

1) EDUCATE: To create breadth and depth in employee base to give them the tools and opportunity to actively engage in social and emerging media.

2) SEEK & CULTIVATE: New employee talent and corporate resources to better position your company as a “thought-leader” in this emerging space while tapping appropriate external influencers.

3) INTEGRATE: Create conversations that are media agnostic and evergreen; ensure all marketing and communication strategies are interwoven to create consistent messaging.

4) RESEARCH & MONITOR: Invest in socnet-specific research to identify emerging trends, shifting your company from followers to leaders; monitor brand perceptions to identify positive lifts and capitalize on them.

5) MEASURE: Use media appropriate metrics to evaluate performance against best-in-class examples.

6) INNOVATE & EXPERIENTAL: Utilize the socnet opportunity to evolve your company into one that is dynamic, interactive and relevant; leverage practical opportunities via networks and conversations to position your company for future growth.

I'll write more about each of these strategies in my upcoming posts.

@garyvee's 101 Wines

I've just finished reading 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World, by Gary Vaynerchuck, star of WineLibraryTV.com. I am definitely inspired and delighted, and once I purchase and give one of the several wines I've highlighted as "must definitely buy" a go, I'm sure I'll feel the thunder and my world will be rocked because well, I adore wine.

I do have a HUGE confession to make and it's a bit embarrassing...I don't really know, know Gary. I have never watched WineLibraryTV.com. Until very recently, I didn't know Gary's a "wine guy" by trade. I thought he was an "Internet tech start up" guy. See, I heard about Gary on Twitter, he was organizing Good People Day.

When I saw his video, I thought to myself this is a guy after my own heart. He is passionate about people, he truly loves helping people - making them feel good, sharing the love, paying it forward...all that good juju stuff that makes me tick - he's all about that.

I started following him on Twitter and I refer to him as "garyvee" which is his Twitter handle. In my mind, when I say it I'm visualizing @garyvee, which is the way (@ in front of someone's twitter handle) you send a message (tweet) to someone's specific attention on Twitter.

So, I found out about his book via Twitter and was intrigued as I love big, bold red blends. Full disclosure here - Gary was sending books out to bloggers to review. My blog has maybe 20 readers on occasion, so I doubted I would receive a book. I'm delighted Gary sent me one. So, yes I got it for free, but now that I've read it, I have 3 copies on hold at Border's that I'm gifting tomorrow. Yep, it's that good.

Anyway, I started his book over the weekend and just finished it tonight. I decided not to check out WineLibraryTV.com until after I wrote this post because this review is about the book.

For some reason I actually read the introduction to Gary's book, typically I don't. For me, intros seem like afterthoughts in most non-fiction's with little real value.

Well, this intro truly sets the stage for what 101 Wines is and specifically what it's not. Gary is a "no-bs-cut-to-the-chase-this-is-how-it-is-baby" type of a writer. His style drew me in.

I strongly suggest reading the book from front to back, first read through. Don't skip around. Gary expands thoughts from one wine story to the next. He weaves in wine education, humor, amazing descriptions of tastes ranging from leather to chalky cellar-dust to lilacs to rare game topped with a spread of jam...my mouth was actually watering with several of his pictorials.

Gary freed me from some preconceived notions I had on blends. I love them and have since I was introduced to the Cain Five 1998 blend in 2000. I just thought for some reason I should only be drinking pure 1 grape wines - Cabs, Pinors, Merlots. A lot of the wines, Gary has chosen for his 101 are blends.

I have highlighted wines in this book that are right up my preferred palate and have found others that I'm eager to try that are way out of my comfort zone and I love, love, love that I've gotten a push to do so.

This post could go on and on, because obviously this book has struck a cord with me. Here's the deal though, I really don't know a lot about wines as you can tell, I just know what I like - the tastes. With this book, I now have better parameters when I'm telling the wait staff, Joe at my local liquor store or a wine sommelier what I'm looking for - usually I say I want a peppery blend with a nice finish. Now I will say, I'm an Old World, Eastern Spice, Dark Vader - Dark, full-bodied, OS terrior blend lover.

My favorite element of this book though, is the continuous "people" theme Gary has throughout. It validates what originally drew me to Gary, his caring nature. I'm looking forward to getting to know Gary and wines even better through WineLibraryTV.com.