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Fast.Fwd.Innov@tion

Fast.Fwd.Innov@tion is focused on social media, strategies to leverage users & consumers communities to inspire, involve, and engage them with brand/ product/ community. To make it happens it requires communications planning, word of mouth strategies, marketing & community management skills, and platform efficiency knowledge. These matters would be treated along with some news regarding the digital world and influential people

Reebok + Run Easy campaign = not advertising but engagementYesterday

“Run easy” vs. “A little less pain”. Reebok’s vs. Nike’s motto. Turning running into a sport anybody can enjoy is the claim of the new campaign or “movement” started by Reebok. A slightly different consumer approach from Nike’s running brand image (that is about efforts, pain, and aiming at the performance) but which can change the deal if the campaign isn’t just a campaign and moves to become the way to engage consumers in running.

Running is hard because of it’s solo aspect, in the effort and in the way to go running. That’s maybe the basis from where the communication company Carat suggested to go on the “it’s easy doing” concept. Yet, the fact is it’s hard to run, and hard to find interested people to come and join your running session. And going for a session once in a while is a pain, then you have to go at least once a week. But pass the concept.

Where I’m really uncomfortable with is about the website. Providing the ability to people to share and discuss running is great, but many running websites already do that and users won’t care about creating a new account when they

Review of the Internet news of the DayYesterday

From emerging tech trends that would matter for marketing, investment in digital media going down in Q3, to Zappos’ 10 communication principles (based on WOM), and a list of reason to use social media as a CRM Tool. Here are the links.

6 emerging (marketing) tech trends to watch: As you read this, you will probably be reminded of that awful online reality: Whatever technology you have been using to garner all those online eyeballs will soon be obsolete. That’s the truth of online work, for good or bad. No matter how current you are, tomorrow is a new day and someone clever is going to create something remarkable that changes the game… Read more on iMedia.

Digital Media Investment Down in Q3: New study from UK industry analysts StrategyEye shows a slowddown in M&A and VC investments in digital media from Q2 to Q3. The company says it tracked an 38% decline in the number of deals and an 81% decline in the value of M&A and VC investment in digital advertising, video, mobile content, gaming, social media and online media… Read more on Business Week.

Zappos’ 10 (communication) Principles: Have you heard of Zappos.com? If not, you need to start paying attention. Zappos is a rising (well, risen) star in the ecommerce space. They’re selling a

Fast.Fwd.Innovation weekly TakeawayYesterday

While I’ve been traveling to the Silicon Valley and been more on meeting interesting people in the San Francisco Bay, some posts have been released over last week: from the music business that is moving due to MySpace privileges provided to Majors, creating a community asset by leading the conversation, a case study of a Cisco social media strategy, and some new ideas automakers have found to engage (more) with their customers. Here are the links:

MySpace Music + Long tail = Indie labels not worthy enough for MySpace: Indie labels have launched MySpace service, giving credit to this social platform to make big players join the party. They’re generating pages and traffic by inciting their artists to jump into that virtual gig that has become MySpace. But by treating music Majors and indie label differently, the News Corp. company may create a situation that finally helps a new music platform to take the floor. And by pressuring its community (indie labels), MySpace is moving from a social platform to a MTV-like music news website… Read more here.

Community + leveraging = You have to lead or fail: Leveraging the global brain is one of the objectives of the community creation: generating more ideas, more information, more feedback, more insights, and ultimately sparing time and money in the process. And Loyalty and incr

GM + Social Media = Creating a fan baseOctober 3

Gasoline price rising and loss of $15,5 billion in the second quarter have pushed GM to move forward and try new things. And the new thing is the relaunch of the social media strategy with the release of the new GMnext.com platform. Featuring executive blogs, consumer generated content, and social media tools (like Twitter and Youtube), the so-called social platform aims at targeting young car buyers. This is the context. But GM is missing the important part of the way it works with social media …

Creating a social platform isn’t just enough to get people notice of your brand and make them interested in the content you’re sharing. You have to consider their needs and interests and stick with them. You have to make the brand the “best friend to speak about your hobbies and points of interests”. That kind of statement turns any social media efforts into an opportunity.

What GM has released sounds more like a content aggregator, without any objective but to be a “landing page” as Natalie Johnson, GM’s Social media manager, says. Some basics have been forgotten in the process: li

Review of the Internet news of the DayOctober 3

From review of the business use of social media, the art of the customer surveys, the Redbull experiment of social graph, to the ROI of social media (that isn’t a one shot data), its lifecycle, and an influence study. Here are the links:

Social Media for Business - Who’s Doing it Well & How: Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, and former Forrester analyst, has recently launched her own company, the Altimeter Group. This week, she gave a keynote at the Social Media Marketing Summit 2008, San Francisco. Known for her commitment to social media, and belief that marketing and advertising are fatally flawed, Li started with a Google search on ‘Comcast’. The ninth result is a YouTube video titled: A Comcast technician sleeping on my couch… Read more on ReadWriteWeb.

The Art of the Customer Surveys: As a small business owner, you’re probably concerned about what your customers think of you, and many of you have done, or would like to do, customer surveys. A buddy of mine, Dave Wanetick, shared some interesting thoughts about customer surveys. He is the managing director of IncreMental Advantage… Read more on Open Forum by American Express.

ROI of Social Media is not a One-Time Deal: I was listening to this podcast by Francois Gossieaux with H&R Block CMO