How Social Network Marketing Works

Recently I read an article on How Social Network Marketing Works written by Crawley and I found it to be very informative. Here is a quote form the article and a link to the website.

"Most marketers would ask the wrong question here: “how can social networks make me more money?”

The problem with that approach is that you tend to focus on immediate means of monetizing the value of social networks such as MySpace, Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn,Mixx, Stumbleupon, Reddit,Twiter and Flikr, while ignoring the real reason these networks were setup and how you can use those ideas to help your business.

MySpace, Orkut and Friendster grew as means to stay in touch with friends, meet new people online and to share ideas. LinkedIn has a similar slant - it is great for entrepreneurs and professionals who want to mine their contacts for hiring / outsourcing. And Flickr is just a blindingly simple tool for sharing photos.

The success of social networks marks a dynamic shift in how people are using the Internet. We’ve evolved from just searching for information to creating and participating in social spaces with other individuals through the Internet. This model is based upon the hive mentality where people identify themselves as part of a group with similar likes and interests that draw them together. This is easy to do online because the traditional communication barriers of physical locations no longer exist."

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.theecommercesolution.com/blog/2007/05/01/how-social-network-marketing-works/

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

By
Richard Dawkins

http://www.richarddawkins.net

Today I would like to introduce you to one of the original thinkers included in The Third Culture: beyond the Scientific Revolution (Simon and Schuster, 1995) by John Brockman. Richard Dawkins who you can read about on http://www.edge.org or on his own website RichardDawkins.net (A Clear Thinking Oasis). Both websites are examples of the new community of intellectuals in action. Thinkers who are defining the key interesting and scientific questions of our times.

In The Blind Watchmaker the author Richard Dawkins who is definitely one of the great ones and one of the leading intellectuals of our time talks about the difference in the complexity of design.

“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose. Physics is the study of simple things that do not tempt us to invoke design.”
Of course as Mr. Dawkins points out we think physics is complicated because it is hard for us to understand. I agree with the author the best we can do is understand the general principles of science of biology and physics. After we understand the basic principles then we can understand “hierarchical reductionism”, which we can use to describe the view that complex systems can be described with a hierarchy of organizations.

Dawkins talks about another eighteen-century theologian William Paley who in his Natural Theology- or Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature, published in 1802 argues for design and the existence of a God. Mr. Dawkins greatly admirers the Paley’s writing skills but disagrees with his conclusions. Dawkins argues for the Darwin view.

“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature. It is the blind watchmaker.

I think the question should be why are these views or set of ideas; the Darwinian explanation vs the Conscious Designer theory not a part of our general education system? Why are these ideas not understood nor discussed? Hopefully I can inspire you to read more by Richard Dawkins and other Third Culture intellectuals. This is the best part of the Internet. It aids us and makes possible our questions with research and information that can lead us to knowledge, to understanding the intellectuals and ourselves. It leads us to ask the right questions, which is still one of the best ways to logical change and learning.

Futurist

“Today the term most commonly describes authors, consultants, organizational leaders and others who engage in interdisciplinary and systems thinking to advise private and public organizations on such matters as diverse global trends, plausible scenarios, emerging market opportunities, and risk management.” Wikipededia

We at Relativity will also want to show the relationship between the professional consulting institutions like RAND and academic groups, visionaries and third culture intellectuals. What is the difference between anticipatory thinking, prediction, technology forecasting and futurist?

Why do we not think of Jules Verne or H.G.Wells as futurist but philosophers? Can what we collectively think and dream create the future. Are we co-creators or just witnesses to the evolution of life. Why do we consider literary intellectuals “the intellectuals” excluding scientists such as Edwin Hubble, John von Neumann, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, or Arthur Eddington?

We definitely want to talk about recognized futurists: Ray Kurzweil, John Naisbitt, Alvin Toffler, Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking and others. How can we understand the difference between these scientists and “men of letters”? Where do we draw the line between the methodologies they used and their personal beliefs.

Can we some day join together the best of our scientists, philosophers, and futurist? Is there time and space? As we reach the end of time, what questions should we be asking?

The End of Time

The End of Time
By
Julian Barbour
http://www.platonia.com

The question is: what is the universe and how does it work? What is the relationship between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics. “The aim is to try and find a description of the entire universe that is quantum mechanical and understand how it nevertheless it can look like the classical world that we actually see and experience.” i.e. a complete cosmology.

Quantum mechanics 1925, gave a new picture of physics. It tells us the world is not classical like we see it. It says time and space are relational as opposed to Newtonian absolute. It leads us to question is there some sort of unobservable framework of everything.

The world is relational and Barbours’ basic idea is that time as such does not exist. “But there are things that you could call instants of time or ‘Nows’. That’s my ontology of the universe- there are Nows, nothing more, nothing less.” Therefore what we consider as time or motion is really an illusion.

To help explain this Barbour uses the idea he calls Platonia. “Platonia is a special case of a very basic concept in physics called a configuration space or stratified manifold-the strata are what I call frontiers.”So if we take the structure out of the configuration space what is left is the stratified manifold, or Now. A picture of time or motion, a Now. QM tells us that until observations are made, for all these quantities, there are no definite values, but only probabilities.”

So JB is talking about a quantum cosmology that if we could understand would make it possible to make predictions about the universe which we cannot do at this time.

The Third Culture

The Two Cultures by C.P. Snow , 1963 talked to classical academicians the traditional intellectuals and scientists . How they related to each other and communicated. Snow suggested that the two would emerge into a new third culture because the old traditional was a closed system. In reality today’s scientists are going directly to the general public.

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution by John Brochman ,1995. The author had had ongoing one-on-one discussions with the new third culture scientists in his book and at his website http://www.edge.org.

The third culture has become “science” and it is the “public culture”. It is the thing that is most interesting to the public and is changing our understanding of everything at an incredible rate.
Topics: artificial intelligence, artificial life, neural nets, superstrings, nanotechnology, the human genome, expert systems, fuzzy logic, Gaia hypothesis, virtual reality, cyberspace to name only a few.

Relativity will be reporting on who these third culture intellectuals are and why what they are saying is relative to our world. We will be connecting the dots’ which is one definition of an intellectual and a good teacher.

The fundamental questions asked in the book: “Where did the universe come from? Where did life come from? Where did mind come from? “ How did this complex system evolve and how do we understand and make sense of it all.

Making Friends: LinkedIn vs. Facebook vs. Twitter [cartoon]

I found this cartoon online the other day on the HubSpot Internet Marketing Blog and thought it was pretty telling of the way people see making friends in the social networking sphere. Let us know what you think.

"Making Friends in Social Media" by HubSpot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture

The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture
By
Fritjof Capra

http://www.fritjofcapra.net

“After a time of decay comes the turning point.” I Ching

Capra is one of those original thinkers connecting the world of science and spirituality dots. In The Turning Point he drives home why our current Cartesian, Newtonian and reductionist paradigms which are the basis of the United States, military-industrial-academic complex has lead us to a state of profound, world-wide, and multi-dimensional crisis. This time we could be facing the very real threat of extinction.

These intellectual elite have created the ‘mainstream academic view’ which has lead to rampant inflation, massive unemployment, and a gross misdistribution of income and wealth, along with the never-ending escalation costs of war and empire.

The author explains why high inflation, unemployment, energy crisis, health care crisis, pollution, environmental disasters, a rising wave of violence and crime are all connected to a crisis of perception. This all leads us to try to understand our world with an outdated mechanistic view and apply it to a reality that we can not understand.

“What we need, then, is a new ‘paradigm’- a new vision of reality, a fundamental change in our thoughts, perceptions and values. The beginnings of this change, of the shift from mechanistic to holistic conception of reality, are already visible in all fields.”

Capra’s goal is how to create the framework that would allow all the separate movements and similar intentions to interrelate their aims, or attention. He wants to focus their attention on their new paradigm of intentions. This could lead to a transformative change and be a turning point for the whole planet.

“This new vision includes the emerging systems view of life, mind, consciousness, and evolution: the corresponding holistic approach to health and healing, the integration of Western and Eastern approaches to psychology and psychotherapy; a new conceptual framework for economics and technology; and an ecological and feminist perspective which is spiritual in its ultimate nature and will lead to profound changes.”

I agree with Capra that what is at stake is the survival of our civilization. We need a cultural, as well as a scientific revolution.

Blogs in Plain English

This is a video for people who wonder why blogs are such a big deal.A great job by CommonCfraft yet again on this topic.



Get more videos like this at: http://www.commoncraft.com/

RSS in Plain English

The people at CommonCraft made this video for people that have not yet felt the power of our friend the RSS reader. They want to convert people and if you know someone who would love RSS and hasn't yet tried it, point them here for 3.5 minutes.

Another great piece by CommonCraft



Get more videos like this at: http://www.commoncraft.com/

Podcasting in Plain English

This is a 3 minute explanation of podcasting from the folks of CommonCraft. I just cannot say enough about these people and their ability to communicate effectively to their marketsace. Awesome job with the message and also with the proiudction and camera work CC!



Get more videos like this at: http://www.commoncraft.com/

Twitter in Plain English

This video is a quick and plain English intro the micro-blogging service Twitter. Have you tweeted lately?



Get more videos like this at: http://www.commoncraft.com/

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Commoncraft made this video because they want people to see the power of social bookmarking and how it makes web pages easy to remember, organize and share.

It is a great overview of Social Bookmarking and a great example of camera work and production expertise.



Get more videos like this at: http://www.commoncraft.com/

Social Media in a Nutshell

A simple story that illustrates the forces shaping social media.

This is a great overview of social media and great camera work as well.



Get more videos like this at: http://www.commoncraft.com/

Social Media Slide Show

Marta Z. Kagan, developed this set of slides because she is hopelessly addicted to start up scenarios and needed to help people the people she serves get their hands around the topic of social media.

Provocatively titled What the F**k is Social Media?, I nearly blew it off because I thought it was going to be the usual tired "get on the bus or get left behind" sort of production but the slide show is not that way at at all. There is nothing "new" in this presentation on social media but it is one of the better explanations that I have seen out there to date.

What The F**K is Social Media?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialmediamarketing marketing)

Online Reputation Management – Controlling the Conversation (Day 3)

The resolution to this problem is to create a participant group within your target audience of creatively conservative and loosely guided members. The only effective process to accomplish this goal is to employ a persuasion-based campaign. The difference between a manipulative campaign and a persuasive campaign is symbolically holistic. Manipulation employs tactics that force a participant to act through emotionally charged and fear based tactics. Persuasion based campaigns employ a mutual benefit based model that affects both sided positively and creates good will over time. Persuasion causes people to act because of relational connections at both logic and emotional levels. Persuasion leverages opportunity and complimentary benefits.

Using persuasion to control conversations and create consent over time is far more effective measured over long-term return on investment models and easily employed within indirect marketing campaigns. Indirect marketing leverages the benefits and opportunities presented to an audience without the need to commit or be responsible. Messages embedded into indirect marketing presentations allow you to effectively groom and control conversations without the propensity of manipulation and possible destruction of good will.

Online Reputation Management – Controlling the Conversation (Day 2)

Western media has taken on a direct sales oriented mannerism and many marketers fall victim in mimicking this approach while trying to establish an online reputation. This approach works for some but for most, it ends up having a very negative impact on controlling conversations, creating consent and return on investment models. The reason for the negative results is that people attempt to manipulate others through presenting information or sales pitches guised as emotional appeals that either are perceived as unfair or are emotionally charged to force consent.

This approach destroys any chance of building goodwill within your target audience. It also affects their willingness to engage or discuss your content in a repetitive or meaningful way. Manipulation creates a violently competitive negotiation environment. The problem with this type of atmosphere is that the people you have induced to be incensed threaten your reputation on a daily basis. Controlling this type of conversation is virtually impossible and most time damaging.

To be continued...

Online Reputation Management – Controlling the Conversation (Day 1)

One of the most difficult aspects of managing an online reputation is managing and controlling how people talk about you or your business online. Those online discussions can often make or break your business communication results. The impact of negative discussions or embarrassing content circulating within social media circles can often be catastrophic to an organizations overall market reach and positive return on investment.

The focus of anyone trying to create consent within a marketplace should be to persuade and not manipulate. After all, the goal of business communication and of reputation establishing media is to create positive and long-term results. How you create these results and subsequently control the conversation will have far-reaching effects on your online reputation.

To be continued...

Online Reputation Management - Business Communication for a Business Result (Day 3)

Business communication can often be illusive in an online and web 2.0 driven environment like the one we are dealing with in the current marketplace. It is often difficult to wrap your arms around the types of media and the number of outlets available to communicate with online. The best advice anyone can be given is to take time determining the best type of communication for your target audience and the results are sure to follow. For example, social networking and other interactive types of communication venues can serve as a way to engage in the grapevine. Relating your online business communication to offline communication scenarios will help you to determine the best courses of action for your online business communication campaigns.

The bottom line here is simple. Communicate to create a result for your organization not just to communicate.

Online Reputation Management - Business Communication for a Business Result (Day 2)

The most important reason for communicating in a business setting is to achieve the best possible results from every communication effort you produce and distribute. Avoid long boring messages that force your target audience to spend more than a few minutes initially determining if the message is of value to them. The faster you capture the target audience’s attention the more chances you will have to maintain it.

Do not just communicate. Start by determining your results. Then focus on preparing the proper media for your target audience. Finally, you need to be ready to perform once the communication creates the desired response from your target audience.

To be continued...

Online Reputation Management - Business Communication for a Business Result (Day 1)

Building a solid online reputation depends on how well you communicate your business message and how well you achieve results. The majority, at least 85%, of communication that you engage in online should be business result oriented. It does not matter what message your business is trying to communicate, communication for the sake of communicating is both inefficient and potentially damaging to your online reputation.

Researching your target audience is critical to your success as an online communicator. Taking time to understand your target audience and the communications styles they prefer will speed up your traffic gains and further solidify your online reputation. Take time to view your competitors and understand how they communicate with their target audience. Determine if they are successful and deploy your communications with the same tactics and strategies. There is no rule that says you have to recreate the wheel in business and doing so may indeed hinder your results and damage your reputation. Identifying your target audience can take a bit of time in the beginning but the research will pay off in the end.

To be continued...

Social Networking is NOT new!!!! - Duane Nickull

I met Duane while I was speaking in Dubai and found him to be very knowledgable. Duane is a great speaker and a really nice guy. Here is a video filmed during the conference in Dubai on Social Networking. Duane raises some very interesting and timely points.

"Duane Nickull talking at the New Media conference in Dubai, UAE at the JW Marriott Hotel about the radical changes in relationships between people at the social level and between people and businesses at the commercial level. Those companies that allow greater interaction are the winners of the future and those that fail to realize this new reality are destined for failure. "

http://www.newzmakerz.com/video/111/Duane-Nickull

Happy New Year

Happy 2009!

To all of our readers, friends, colleagues and the rest of the world. We wish you a happy and healthy new year.

Look for:

• Daily site updates on the website as well as the blog in 2009
• A new sleeker design for the website, blog and newsletter
• A new editorial focus to our content along with original works by our professionals
• A social networking feature for all of our readers and guest
• New and innovative service offerings
• Global marketing content
• Easier Site and Blog Navigation
• Follow us options on Facebook and other social networks
• Other exciting new features and options to numerous to list in one post...

The professionals at Relativity wish you and your organization a prosperous and happy New Year!

To Your Ultimate Success!

David C Skul
CEO
Relativity