Social communication

Today there was an article in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet where I together with another six people ranked how Swedish politicians behaved in social media. Here is a short post to let my Swedish readers in on the background.

Idag hade Svenska Dagbladet en text om politiker och sociala media. Jag tillsammans med Joakim Jardenberg, Björn Falkevik, Marie Demker, Therese Göterheim, Sofia Mirjamsdotter och Brit Stakston uttalade oss.

Både Joakim och Brit har publicerat sina svar till Svenska Dagbladet så jag tänkte göra detsamma. Jag hade däremot lite svårt att överhuvudtaget lista några politiker (ni som följer mig har säkert läst min åsikt om politikerna och sociala media tidigare ) därför skickade jag följande svar till journalisten Tobias Brandel som stod bakom artikeln:

Hej Tobias! Nu har jag kollat igenom hela den här listan och kan bara konstatera att samtliga politiska bloggare borde gå följande grundkurser:

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I am pretty darn proud to announce that I’ve been picked as a member on the jury of the first international social media award show for communication and marketing professionals. The award show called The Bees Award will be held in San Francisco on November 9 later this year and it’s open for submissions as of today.

The Bees Award have gathered some of the leading social media experts from around the world to judge this award and I’m honored to be included in that list. Apart from the honor it’s also a great opportunity for me to scan some of the best case studies in the world when it comes to social media. I’m sure once the 9th of november has passed I’ll be packed with inspiration to share with you guys.

This new buzzing contest will award winners in the following categories:

  • Best 140 Characters (SMS, Tweet)
  • Best Use of a Micro-Blogging Platform
  • Best Use of a Social Media Platform
  • Best Use of mobile
  • Best Relationship With Bloggers
  • Best Conversation with Customers
  • Best Use of Alternative Tool(s)
  • Best Use of Media Press Room
  • Best Writing
  • Best Art Direction
  • Best Social CRM
  • Best Student Work
  • Best Innovation
  • Best Campaign
  • Agency of the Year
  • Client of the Year

And besides me, here’s the jury and their twitter accounts and blogs:

So, what the heck are you waiting for. Make sure me and the other jury members eyeball your social ideas!

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Today when you market a product and actually manage to make an impact the first thing that happens is that people go online, not to your brand site but to Google.

Have you Googlified your brand and business?

A search on your product or service reveals everything there is to be found related to that brand of yours. You might think they’ll head over to one of your campaign sites but think again. People who search [click to continue…]

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State your problems first. Then it might turn out social media is not what you need. And if it is. The do something unique made to work. Don’t just treat it like another channel where you can dump your offline activities.


A sloppy little drawing I did this morning inspired by the works of Al Baik.

Oh…like when you do traditional advertising you actually need money. It’s not free to reach success. And oh nr 2 – online communication is about creating equity over time. Campaigns might work every now and then but overall you should strive to build a socially distributed content driven platform over time. Then you might get fans. Might…

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I have gotten the question over and over again from people, organizations and brands: “How do we start a blog the right way” – I’ve decided to put my advice into writing.

Some of you might think this post is unnecessary. Other people have written about this already. I thought so too until I started searching for good posts on how to set up a kick ass blog and learned most things written on the subject either covered the tool or the actual writing but not actually leading you to do it the right way I think there’s room for another post on the subject.

The purpose of this post is sort of a combination of two things that I hope will lead to the following:

  1. Make sure agencies cannot charge big money for setting up your blog. Setting up your personal or branded blog is to me a democratic right and should be free and accessible for anyone who has something to share.
  2. I think more people should start a blog. It’s good for you. It’s good for the democracy. It’s good for the world.

Here is the essential guide on how to start and configure a blog that will rock the world:

1. Buy a unique domain name for your blog and preferably do it at the same place where you intend to host the blog

Personally I’ve followed WordPress own recommendations and used Bluehost.com to buy my domain name and then installed a WordPress blog with their simple script functionality. It’s a 3 minute process from registering that domain [click to continue…]

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Every now and then when I spend time online I find things that make me shiver cause they’re so freakin cool. Today I found an open source project that matches that description and I’d like to share it with you. It regards an organization called Ushahidi and their kick ass crowdsourcing platform.

Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, was initially a website developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi’s roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. Since then Ushahidi have grown from an ad hoc group of volunteers to a focused organization.

Crime reporting in Haiti with the Ushahidi platform

Now the platform is available as an Open Source platform and it kicks ass. It’s among the coolest mashup platforms I’ve seen. Since launch the Ushahidi collaboration platform has been used to collaborate on crime tracking in Atlanta, , wildlife tracking in Africa, monotoring of voting in Mexico, mapping the crisis in Haiti and even cleaning up after the Snowmageddon in Washington and a lot more. The platform lets you contribute via mail, Twitter, SMS and online reporting.

You might have read the book Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. If not the short story is basically that Clay writes on how internet fundamentally changes the way we communicate due to the fact that this world wide web thing creates a never ever seen platform that enables people to create, share and consume information at a close to no cost. The Ushahidi platform is more or less rocket fuel for the ideas Clay is bringing forward in his book.

What do you wanna mashup? Head over to Ushahidi and get going!

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A common question I get from companies is “How do we get people inside our company to spend time on our intranet”. My answer is always – “make sure you tie your intranet closely to your daily operations”.

Make people feel visiting the intranet has something to do with their work and not only for the fun of it. Only this way will you create the need for the collaboration, socialization and engagement that an active intranet (and your company) needs. This however turns out to be a major problem for most [click to continue…]

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Think social media and conversational marketing might be the next train to heaven for your brand but don’t know where to board? Well, here’s three social media marketing models that will make sure you’ll find your station.

If you wanna get moving into the social country of love where conversation rules you’ve gotta get one thing straight. Valuable content is king. Buying a loudspeaker and start tweeting wont get you anywhere. Swedish brands like Comhem and Boxer have effectively proven that just twittering the 140 sign language doesn’t earn you any followers. Every social network will provide you with it’s own possibilities and traps. A well executed strategy is a must or you’ll end up in a minefield.

Here are 3 models by Johan Ronnestam that will guide your brand towards a successful social media strategy.

3 Models That Will Guide You Into The Social Media Landscape

  1. The Social Staircase

    The Social Staircase is a model that focus on the overall process. It’s the stuff that pays for your ticket to love.

  2. The Social Tool Matrix

    Now you know what kind of presence your business needs. Now it’s time to map the tools to make sure you know what to keep your mouth shut, when to speak and when to listen.

  3. The Social Viral Spiral

    This is about speed. Spread that love I’m talking about below. But make sure you do it with finesse and timing. Create a couple of Social Viral Spirals and you’re ready to make out!

How your brand makes good use these three [click to continue…]

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Social Media And Our Beloved Europe? The Truth Or At Least Part Of It.

January 22, 2010

Students over at the Berghs School of Communication asked for some advice on research about social networking behaviours in Europe. As I gathered my links and sources from my Delicious account I ran into this wonderful presentation below by Tom Smith from Trendstream. The presentation was given by Tom to the IAB Europe Social Media [...]

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Svenska politiker i sociala och digital media under valet 2010. Några råd på vägen – Det handlar om vem du är, vad du tycker och hur vi kan bli vänner.

January 5, 2010

Det började igår med att jag läste en artikel på SVD där man skriver: “Sociala medier ny PR-kanal”. Strax efter retweetade jag @byBalsam som uppmärksammat chefredaktören Martin Jönssons morgontweet (som senare bloggade om allt buzz). Inte många timmar efter postar Brit Stakston en strålande betraktelse av hela historien som hon idag följde upp med en [...]

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Brand and Communication Predictions For 2010 by Johan Ronnestam

December 31, 2009

This last year, 2009 has been a blast in many ways. Almost every day I’ve received interesting news from friends, other bloggers and my RSS feeds. Even thought we’ve seen one of the most severe economical downturns this year it seems advertising, communication and technology has been the business to be in. Brands seem to [...]

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A Book, MashUp, PDF or Whatever You Wanna Call It By Johan Ronnestam

December 30, 2009

I’ve always wanted to write a book. This is NOT it! So far this year my blog have had more than 115 000 unique visitors and just over 240 000 visits. I’ve written more than 500 blog posts covering everything from design, gadgets, trends, technology, advertising, innovations, personal things, branding and more. About 28% of [...]

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