media aces

Yann Gourvennec and Hervé Kabla are pleased to be able to invite you to attend the first instance of our  Media Aces Conference, which will be devoted to the French chapter of the association. 

This conference, which will take place on Dec 14 at 10:00am CET at La Grande Arche in Paris La Défense, is our first event devoted to enterprises using social media as a professional tool, that is to say blogs, social networks, communities, micro-blogging, etc. 

The following participants are already registered for that first conference.

Speakers from Ericsson France, HighCo DATA and Société Générale will present how social media helped them achieve their professional goals. 

• Christelle Alexandre, Manager Communication, HighCo DATA
• Olivier Cimelières, VP Corporate Communications, Ericsson France
• Franck La Pinta, Responsable Marketing Marque Employeur, Société Générale

The Media Aces Conference will followed by a private Media Aces Lunch, for Media Aces members only. The venue is the very trendy restaurant o110 at Paris-La Défense at the top of La Grande Arche. All registered Media Aces members are free to join the event, which will occur in the auditorium of la Grande Arche in La Défense.

Technorati’s annual report "State of the blogosphere" does not detail any information regarding "social media" in general. However, this year’s edition emphasize’s a phenomenon Technorati describes as "brands entering the blogosphere".

As a matter of fact, the report states that "Brands make up a major parot of blogger’s online conversations. More than four in five bloggers post product or brand reviews, and blog about brands they love or hate (…) Companies are already reaching out to bloggers: one-third of bloggers have been approached to be brand advocates".

Leveraging on bloggers communities in order to promote brands, products or corporate messages is not a new phenomenon. But more and more companies have understood that the better way to engage with customers is to use the same tools and spaces they are using: social media. Blogs are not the single space where brands are discussed, accused or loved. Facebook, Twitter are the channel more and more users are using, in order to get some visibility from the brand.

Using social media for customer engagement is not a dream: it’s a reality that all sizes corporations should consider in the near future. Media Aces is certainly the best way for them to experience such tools, share best practices and methodology with already experienced corporations. 

IABC, the International Association of Business Communicators, published on their Social Media Release blog the results of their last survey. This survey provides interesting hints about SOcial Media usage by communication professionals, especially regarding the raise of new tools like Twitter of Facebook.

Key Findings:

• Almost four-fifths (79 percent) of the respondents report that they use social media frequently to engage employees and foster productivity, outranking even email (75 percent).
• Company blogs are the most popular social media tool currently in use (47 percent), with discussion boards ranking the highest for future planned use (33 percent).
• Current use of social networking sites such as Twitter (21 percent), Yammer (20 percent), and Facebook (18 percent) is significant, but organizations are planning to use those tools even more in the future.

One of the most interesting results of this survey is that IABC members consider social media as a way to preserve their "engagement level", despite reduced communication and marketing budgets.

The IABC is an international association, with representatives in several countries, including France and UK.

 Media Aces is now on Facebook. We have created a ne Facebook group in order to enable members and fans to exchange information on the organisation. The group is a first stage in the building up of the community. The facebook group will also come in handy when it comes to exchange ideas and information about oru forthcoming events such as the Sept 14 unconference of the French chapter which will take place at the Grande Arche in La Défense in Paris. 

Of course, we knew already about it, but it’s been made public only recently that the late Blog Council has changed its name to Social Media Business Council (aka SMBC). We are very pleased to be able to relay that information (note: I am a proud member of smbc) and we wish our friend Bob (picture below) and the whole council a lot of successful un-conferences and blogwell meetings.

The aim of the name change is I believe obvious, that is to say to send a clear message to the business community - and the social media community - that social media isn’t just about Corporate blogging, it’s about a much broader range of subjects and tools including micro-blogging, social networking and others. This however - I can almost hear a few giggles here and there - that Corporate blogging is over and that we made a mistake by promoting Corporate blogging. Nothing could be more false. It means that Corporate blogging is one of the tools - and a powerful one at that - and that it cannot stand on its own without a few others on the side. 

For your benefit, here’s the press announcement made by the Blog C… sorry, the Social Media Business Council  

Blog Council becomes the Social Media Business Council, moves to SocialMedia.org

Posted by on June 30, 2009

Big news from all of us here at GasPedal and the newly renamed Blog Council: Our community for social media leaders at large companies has officially changed its name to the Social Media Business Council and has moved from BlogCouncil.org to SocialMedia.org. Here’s the press release with more details:

Chicago, IL — The Blog Council, a community of social media leaders at large companies, has officially changed its name to the Social Media Business Council and will call SocialMedia.org its new online home.

“Every day, our members share advice on how to build successful, scalable and self-sufficient social media programs,” said Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Social Media Business Council and its parent company, GasPedal. “This new name and domain better reflect the wide range of issues our community focuses on.”

The name change was a collaborative effort, with members sharing dozens of name suggestions before selecting Social Media Business Council through a vote at Member Meeting 4 in New York City.

•  read more on the blog of the Social Media Business Council

note: picture courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyku/ on Flickr, this picture was made available by its author under the Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic creative common licence