A couple of reasons why I don't want to engage in your brand online.

On May 29th, 2009 Henriette Weber wrote:

1. you mainly do producttalk - so you got the conversation thing going on - apart from no one is answering.  you blog about your products, you blog about how great you are - and I don't really care to ask why you do that. It just annoys me to pieces and I am out the door. Why don't you tell us what makes you so great, why don't you tell us what you are so passionate about that it wakes you up in the middle of the night ?

2. You don't do cool stuff. Maybe you talk a lot. But you don't really do anything cool as a brand. You don't have a knitting community. Haven't you heard ? everybody should have their own knitting community these days. If you can't fit knitting into your branding - find something else that does good and resembles the knitting community - I have my coworking boat. Yep and it's what people they talk to me about when we meet. Who cares about Henriette Weber or Toothless Tiger ? Let's talk about the coolest boat around (shares still available btw).

3. you broadcast continously on  social media. Broadcasting can be ok - if it's relevant for me and it gives me more of what you know. It gives me the unicorns, fluffy clouds and my little pony's of you - it's brilliant. If it's out of context it's pretty lame and more badwill than goodwill. Oh remember there is a reason that it's called "conversational tools" right ? maybe it's not meant for broadcasting then.

4. you think your better than your competitors and you continously highlight yourself.  again who cares ? tell me why you exist, tell me what you oppone against as a company and as a person. and act out why you are the smartest kid on the block, instead of just talking about it.

[social marketing, return on involvement, webethics] [4 comments]

Business unusual in the life of Henriette Weber

On May 20th, 2009 Henriette Weber wrote:

this post is coming at you from henrietteweber.com =)

So the videos from two talks I gave 2 weeks ago in Hamburg and Stockholm are online.

Here's the one from next09 called: "rockbandism" or "why every company should be a rockband" based on my ebook with the same title - filmed by the amazing Andrea Vascellari

Here's where you find the video of my talk on rockbandism

Here's my talk on "return on involvement - how you can use social to create business unusual" from disruptive media a couple of days later i Stockholm.

Here's where you find the video of my talk on return on involvement

This week I am working on putting last hands on a new ebook that is probably going to be entitled "from hopeless to hot - a crashguide in social marketing" - I don't know yet - I change my mind all the time =) anyway the suggestion came from Eva Jonassen who send me a mail with the coolest suggestions...

Also I have made up my mind to move socialmediacamp copenhagen  from the 5-6 of june to the 12th of september - this is mainly do to heavy workloads on the PR and publishing side of my big book (entitled return on involvement - how you can use the social web to create business unusual" which is due to come out shortly.

that's about it these days - what's happening on your side on the internet ?

[businessunusual, rockbandism, speeches, video, next09, disruptivemedia, smccph] [0 comments]

Why should we ever engage ourselves in brands ?

On May 12th, 2009 Henriette Weber wrote:

Im just back from next09 in Hamburg and Disruptive Media in Stockholm (you can find my talk here). It has been a hectic but really learningful week, filled with great people, great talks and new insights. This morning I watched one of my favorite speeches in a long time again: Brian Solis on "putting the public back in PR" - the reason I guess I find this talk at the top of my conference experience is because Brian is so right in my opinion.  It leaves me to touch on something that I mentioned in my own talk at disruptive media - why should we ever engage ourself in a brand ? I mean:

1. a brand is not a person
2. brands are normally really boring
3. they normally don't do anything in this world if they can't measure it or can't make money on it.

aka. they're not human.

So why should we engage ourselves in brands ? Well first of all because of the utility and convinience they provide. but I think that Umair Haque (or Jeff Jarvis ? don't remember) said it very well at next09. "the only reason we engage ourselves in brands is because they make us better". The experience of the brand is  giving us some sort of value that we didn't have before. The experience of the brand get's us closer to our own personal truth (whatever that is)...

The great thing is that with social tools - it is so much more fun to create this involvement in the brandexperience - it's not really easier, it still has to be a brilliant creative mind that comes up with the call-to-action for the involvement. The hardest thing is to find that magic something in your brand that people loves - and it might not be the thing you think it is - what are people  saying about you - and where?

Now the thing that people are already saying - might be what you need to start out with =) - now go ahead and engage some people

[branding, disruptivemedia, human, involvement, social, userexperience, value, socialmarketing] [6 comments]