Video Post: Axiom @ The Cannon River Winery

It's been a busy month and a half here at the office, so we all took the afternoon off to unwind. Even better, our office-wide unwinding was at the Cannon River Winery in Cannon Falls, MN. The weather was perfect as we got to tour the winery (and eventually tasted a few wines of course).

We put together a little video about our day, and this video also kicks off an ongoing series of "Axiom @" videos that will chronicle the different places and events we're lucky enough to attend.

Google Launches its Own Social Network

When you need to find something on the web, chances are that you use either Google, Yahoo!, or Bing. They are all pretty darn similar; you can find articles, images, get directions, get emails, and so on. This week Google stepped out of the search engine shell, and oh boy is it getting attention!

Google has created a social networking site of its own, Google+. The program will allow users to create circles of friends, video chat with friends who are online, collect stories and videos you like, and much more. All features are designed to be as easy and user-friendly as possible.

Sounds great, right? Well Google isn't receiving entirely praises. Two of the main gripes are that the layout is extremely similar to Facebook's layout, and that you need to be invited onto the site (just like Facebook's early years). Both of these have positive sides, however. The Facebook-like design will make it more familiar to users, meaning easier to pick up on. The invitation-only membership will not be a problem once more people use the program. As more people join the network they can invite more and more friends.

The program is still new. I am very excited to see how it changes and adapts to users' comments! I have no doubt that Google+ will give Facebook a run for its money!

Happy Social Media Day!

That's right, June 30th has now been dubbed Social Media Day! The day isn't formally celebrated here in MN, but our Axiom team is still excited! Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia were two of the first cities to recognize the new holiday, while San Carlos, CA and the entire state of Arizona also led the way. Recent additions include Las Vegas, San Jose, CA, and Dublin, Ireland.

Today is a chance to recognize all that social media does for us. Just imagine life now without it! Online news sources are the only news media that have seen increases in audience numbers throughout the past years; print, TV, and radio have had declining audience numbers. Then there are outlets like Twitter, Facebook, and the many blog sites.

All of these media channels help make our busy lives a little easier. Thanks to social media it is easy to keep in touch with people who are far away.

Brand Advocate Behavior

Brand advocacy has become big business in the last few years. With the increasing infatuation with celebrity, the influence of social media, and the era of “consumer power,” brand advocates have risen to become a powerful ally to the marketer.

Brand advocates are people who habitually share information on the products they use, whether it be online or around the water cooler. They are people of influence and they are able to use many different outlets to voice their reviews, opinions and thoughts on a brand. Understanding brand advocate behavior is very important for marketers and a recent study sheds more light on these highly influential people.

The study was conducted by Dr. Kathleen R. Ferris-Costa at the University of Rhode Island, College of Business Administration and a social marketing company called BzzAgent.
The study looked at brand advocates and the way they think, act, and influence others.

Some of the questions the study focused on were who exactly are these brand advocates? What do they do differently, and why do they do it? Where do they live online? How do they like to interact with companies?

Advocates were then surveyed about their online activities and their responses were compared to those from typical web users. The data set is based on a representative sample of Web users from BzzAgent’s Agent network and from the general Web population. The findings helped paint a picture of the motivations and actions of brand advocates.

Here’s a look at some of the more interesting findings:

-Brand advocates are more than 2.5x more likely to use social media to expand their social circles than normal web users.
-They are 50% more likely to influence a purchase than normal web users.
-They communicate frequently to relax and genuinely enjoy sharing product information.
-Brand advocates are 70% more likely to be seen as a good source of information by people around them.
-They have strong opinions about products and where to buy them.

In summary, brand advocates tend to use social media to spread "the word" about a product. However they aren't just mindlessly spitting product information, they generally want to help others by recommending a product they might enjoy. This study proves once again that brand advocates are a lucrative form of marketing.

Getting the Gist of Lists

I recently came across an article on ReadWriteWeb that discussed Twitter's inability to fully take advantage of its Lists feature, noting a recent report showing that 44% of their own employees don't even create lists.

The report went on to show that 30% of Twitter employees don't subscribe to lists, while 51% don't subscribe to the official Twitter list. These numbers led the article to conclude that Twitter is doing a poor job of taking advantage of a "super-powerful" feature.

But should these numbers really trouble Twitter all that much?

Personally, I don't feel this is much of an issue. Yes, building Twitter lists can be a useful tool, but at the end of the day it's really just an organizational system. And like all methods of organizing, there isn't one right way to do it and it may not work well for everyone.

To be honest, I myself don't subscribe to many lists, and I definitely don't utilize them on a regular basis.

However, my own (lack of) List use aside, I do agree with ReadWriteWeb that Twitter should consider expanding the List limit beyond its current 500 user maximum.

Do you create and subscribe to lists yourself? Let us know in the comment section below.