I went from having no takers for a free copy of Greg Verdino’s new book microMARKETING to a bunch! It goes to show that timing in social media sometimes makes all of the difference (I sent my last ditch effort tweet on Friday at 3:52pm). Thank you everyone for submitting!

While there were some great examples of microMARKETING shared, there was one person who, for years, has exemplified microMARKETING at its core. And that person is Connie Reece.

Micromarketing

“Think and act small, because in the era of microcontent and microcultures the biggest marketing opportunities lie not in the one big thing but in lots and lots of small things.”

Including peas… especially petite peas. (A little pea humor is appropriate. You’ll see, keep on reading!)

Micromaven

In 2007, Connie started the Frozen Pea Fund—the first grassroots fundraising effort started solely on Twitter— to help support her friend Susan Reynolds and other women living with breast cancer.  The word spread through the Twitter community and beyond and to date, the Frozen Pea Fund has raised over $40,000. But it’s not just that Connie was cool enough to start a fundraiser on Twitter. It has more to do with the fact that Connie understood how to genuinely connect with people to provide mutual value and to build meaningful relationships.

Her efforts have earned the attention of large media outlets, including TechCrunch, the BBC’s technology section, Twitter’s blog (Does that count? I mean Biz posted it himself.) and The Washington Post. However, these traditional media efforts wouldn’t have happened without a lot of smaller microcontent efforts happening first.

Microcontent

It’s amazing the statement someone can make with their Twitter avatar. But that’s exactly what happened with this movement. A few people added peas to their avatars, which then spread to over  300 people adding peas to their avatars to help support and spread the word. Check out all of the “peavatars” on Flickr (I bet you’ll see people you know!). Not to mention all of the blog posts that were been written.

Microculture

When people bond over a common cause they tend to form microcultures. That’s exactly what happened with everyone who supported The Frozen Pea Fund. A lot of connecting, supporting and fundraising!

Happy reading Connie! Keep on being the micromaven that you truly are.

Recently, the New York Times ran an article called Brave New World of Digital Intimacy that dives into how relationships have changed now that interaction with others-and our lives- are shared on-line via applications like Facebook and Twitter. 

According to the article, ‘social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does – body language, sighs, stray comments – out of the corner of your eye.’

A lot of updates are limited to 140 characters and applications like ping.fm make it easy to broadcast daily minutiae across multiple applications at the same time. There seems to be an assumption that broadcasting equates to participation in social media and its applications. It certainly makes it easier, right? Instant communicate to all networks with one push of the enter key. 

But is communication with the network the same as conversing with the network? Connie Reece recently asked the question “are you conversationally tone-deaf?” and explained that one-way conversation (i.e. broadcasting) does not equate to a social media best practice. 

Social media leaders, who understand the importance of conversation, leave different update statuses on different applications like Twitter, Plurk and Facebook. Why? Because they use the applications for the different purposes they serve. Perhaps Twitter for business, Plurk for friends and Facebook for the combination of the two. Time consuming? Yes. But importantly, they realize that their communities are different on each networking application and conversations on each will be different. 

The article goes on to say that, “…this is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update-each individual bit of social information-is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting.” 

But, that’s not entirely accurate. The portrait being seen is the one painted by the broadcaster. They control what is known about them. Without any meaningful conversation, whether on-line or in person, it is truly impossible to know that person. Basing relationships on what broadcasted messages they leave behind can lead to potential parasocial behavior. Conversation is an art. It takes practice and is time consuming. Having ambient awareness isn’t enough to develop a meaningful relationship. And as more people start using social media tools to broadcast and not converse, social media will become no more than traditional marketing utilizing on-line tools. 

Ultimately as marketers it’s important to understand that broadcasting via social media tools will not help to engage customers, partners or employees anymore than newsletters and e-mail marketing do (i.e. one-way conversation). Ambient awareness does not truly provide the body language, sighs, stray comments that are only apparent during a real conversation. The only way to get to understand your customers, partners or employees and their wants, needs and goals/objectives is to have a traditional conversation. No tool or amount of broadcasting can replace that. 

What’s your take on ambient awareness?   

[NYT article hat tip: Alan Wolk]

[Image: iStock]

Internet World Stats, there are 220,141,969 Internet users in the United States (as of June 2008), which accounts for 72.5% of the population. Whether or not people are aware of social media, it’s tools bring us closer and more socially connected everyday.

I recently posted about Blog Action Day (coming up next month) and how we, as bloggers, can help spread the word about world poverty. I also mentioned that I am a firm believer of helping those at home first. Now is that chance. I truly believe that through social media tools and how connected we all have become, we can make a difference.

Recently, Hurricane Ike has caused some serious damage to the Galveston and Houston areas of Texas and people are in need of food, water, clothing, etc. Some families have lost everything.

Connie Reece, of Every Dot Connects, is doing her part to help those families in need. Connie has set up a special website to help the Capital Area Food Bank, located in Austin, collect donations.

An excerpt from the site:

Kim Denney and her thirteen-year-old daughter Tera evacuated from Lumberton to stay at a motel in the small town of Giddings, Texas. They drove an hour west to Austin because they heard about the assistance the CAFB was offering people. Denney and her daughter were grateful to receive “substantial food” and “something other than Ramen noodles,” which is what the two have been eating the past few days.

Tera Denney choked up while expressing her appreciation. “We didn’t bring much food, clothing or anything like that. It is just a big thank you. My mom and I both started crying the other day because we couldn’t pay for anything. We didn’t have enough money. My nanny had to give us $200 today to pay for the next few days of the hotel room.”

If you believe that hunger is unacceptable in the Unted States, then please help spread the word. The “Help Us Strike Ike with $5K in 5 Days” campaign has been kicked off and the clock is running!

Please help Connie get the word out by utilizing the social media tools you use daily to communicate: Twitter, Plurk, FriendFeed, or even e-mail to help the families devastated by Hurricane Ike! Every $5 donation will provide $20 worth of nutritious food. A $25 donation provides $100 worth of food…and so on.