Meet the earnest, fresh young face of social activism, version 3.0.

In an email blast yesterday, Chris Hughes, the 26-year-old Facebook founder and high-profile force behind the Obama campaign’s social media initiatives, unveiled his latest direction: a website combining social conscience and social media. Jumo.com is “soft-launching” its initiative to connect volunteers with causes -- and gathering email addies — in lead-up to going live in the Fall.

Here’s the site.

And here’s the email blast he sent out.  Notice his well-known informality, a hallmark of his youthful approach to creating a voice for his every brand. And note that at the tender age of 26, Hughes may be positioning himself to join the Carnegies, Mellons, Buffets and Gateses of the world as a do-good-by-doing-well game changer.  Stay tuned.

I just wanted to let you know about my new startup called Jumo. We're announcing today that we're building an online platform to connect individuals and organizations working to change the world. More...

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It seems like everyone has a social media presence these days. My favourite florist has a blog.  My neighbour who is a teacher by day and a freelance photographer by night is twittering. The Indian restaurant below our office has a facebook fan page. Heck, even the mom-and-pop store down on the street is on social media.

Indeed, these days virtually every small business owner has jumped onto the social media bandwagon – each having a Facebook page, Twitter account, RSS feed, and blog (either one or all of the above). After all, the cost of setting up is practically zero – all you really need is a computer with an Internet connection.

According to Business.com, the top five social media resources used by small businesses, most of which involve relatively low cash and IT investments are:

1.    Webinars / Podcasts
2.    Ratings & Reviews
3.    Company / Brand Pages on Social Networking Sites
4.    Company Blogs
5.    Social Media Search

And yet, while many small brands are on social media, the majority of companies are just taking up web space, rather than doing something strategic with it. Social media has leveled the playing field, as James mentioned in his last post, but the opportunities don’t exist without a clever strategy.

Brands like Blendtec and Moonfruit are good examples of small companies that have successfully created big buzz with a small budget through innovation– not money. More...

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When it comes to social media it is not the ‘big bucks’ that matter, but the understanding and engagement within the channel.

Just look at Ford, P&G, and Coca Cola.  All three are huge global brands that have embraced social media. They understand its capability and cultural significance. As long-time masters of embracing cultural changes (who have made this an integral part of their brand DNA), their shift in favor of social media sites, makes good sense.  However, Coca Cola’s mandate to its agencies to move away from “Campaign” websites associated with big buck spend, in favor of social media sites where the people they want to talk to already hang out, signals an effort to spend time—not money—where it really matters.

While the less cash a social media campaign requires may seem like a blessing, it is also a headache for big brands. To some extent, the playing field has been leveled. Next generation social media monitoring tools are allowing smaller brands to react to big brands quickly and effectively.  More...

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When it comes to measuring activity on the web, only one thing is certain: traditional analytic measures will never give you the full picture.

Take for instance fashion retail brands—particularly fast fashion retailers such as Zara, H&M, Top Shop, and Century XXI (US), which compete on their ability to stay on top, or ahead of fashion. The brands create excitement by delivering style at an extraordinary pace.

For these brands that are trying constantly to stay ahead, typical brand tracking becomes relatively difficult to apply to marketing and retail activities. Imagine trying to understand how to improve traffic with three to six months of consumer data, when you’re already aiming to launch a new line and completely redress the retail experience around a new season. How can brand marketers be more forward looking, versus retrospective, without getting lost in the ‘future trends’?

Because of this struggle, ROI should be measured by the brand’s ability to understand and apply real-time trends that are coming to life online.  This is the power of real time analytics. Brand marketers in these organizations should ultimately be held accountable for how quickly they can capture trends from social media, and more importantly, how effectively they can feed those into their business to impact brand activities.

So, what are some examples of fashion retail brands that are effectively learning from social media buzz and applying this to brand management? More...

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Forget traffic. Forget dollars and cents. For measuring ROI in social media, engagement metrics are all that matter.

Okay, we all know that pure numbers can’t measure the world. Social media is particularly tricky to tack down to numbers; how do you measure the quantitative value of this comment thread on Facebook?

Is that one point for iPhone? A negative point for BlackBerry? How many for Android? Does it add .000001 percent to Apple’s brand valuation? You get my point. We know this post has value, but trying to quantify that value might not be the right exercise. More...

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