As you can tell, BoumanBlog has taken a back seat recently.  I have been inundated with many tasks and responsibilities.  BoumanBlog has never really found a true voice after I returned from Thailand.  Ultimately, this has been the demise of BoumanBlog.  Therefore, I will be implementing changes in the near future.

Recently I have steered this blog toward my professional thoughts, social media.  I have lost the interest of some key and loyal friends and family who don’t understand or are that interested in my profession.  Therefore I intend to blog my thoughts and opinions on social media and technology on the blog of my tweet up LA Tweet.  I co-founded LA Tweet so social media professionals could casually meet and create a brain trust of social media knowledge for themselves and their clients.  We’ll meet once a month, so check out the site if you’re interested.

I have purchased the domain, JesseBouman.info as a professional bio page.  If you would like to know what I am up to professionally, use this page as a reference.

Finally, this blog will most likely end.  It’s a sad moment because BoumanBlog.com is how I started my social media path.  It presented many opportunities and in a way shaped who I am today.    I will continue to blog, only at Demeter Interactive’s blog, Da-Meter.  I hope you migrate over and read my thoughts regarding social media.

www.demeterinteractive.com/blog

Thank you everyone who has read BoumanBlog over the years.  It’s been a pleasure writing for you.  I hope to entertain and teach you more as the years go on over at Demeter Interactive’s blog.  Cheers!

You can also spy on me at Twitter.com/jessebouman or Twitter.com/demeterinteract

Social media is changing the behaviors of potential consumers.  By combining traditional advertising principles and the features of today’s social networks, brands are able to reach a large audience and disseminate their brand.  Through social media, brands bring value to their audience and broaden their viral reach, which in turn impacts  consumer’s behavior and attitude toward the brand for the long-term.

The impact social media has on consumer behavior highlights the fact that social media is not a fad but rather a     stepping stone to the future. Social media is bridging the gap from the previous generation’s marketing/advertising philosophy with today’s technology which  heightens the effectiveness.   Before there were social networks, smart phones, and blogs, advertisers used print. They designed beautiful ads that had the right information, branding the company through visuals. They could estimate how many people would be directly exposed to the ad (i.e. subscribers) but they couldn’t determine how many sales they made directly because of it. That didn’t mean those ads didn’t work. People who were exposed to the brand, felt connected with the brand through their visual ads and when the time came for them to buy product X, Brand X popped into their head. The ad did it’s job, but calculating the ROI is nearly impossible. Social media’s value overlaps this older advertising ideology.

Justifying social media’s value is the great debate.  Traditionally, the ROI would be calculated rather quickly by plugging figures into a neat equation.  Social media’s value extends beyond raw numbers.  Word of mouth is the most coveted type of marketing.  A personal referral is much more trusted than an unsolicited marketing message.    If you read my “The #1 Reason to Send Traffic to a Facebook Fan Page Rather than a Website” post, I argue why you should send people to your fan page. The main point was the online ripple effect through news feeds. People can see an individual’s association with a brand. This residual and indirect brand affiliation is the SMI (Social Media Impact) of your social media campaign.  This SMI is what separates social media from print ads despite their obvious, underlying overlap.

The Social Media Impact is the reason it is pertinent for companies to have their presence on social media sites. These interactions and associations consumers have with brands online are what is changing their purchasing behavior.  This is the value of social media.  Like print ads, social media presents information, connects emotionally with prospective consumers, and builds awareness for the brand.  Again like print ads, it’s difficult to

quantify exactly how many direct sales result from the ad/profile because many of the purchases will occur weeks or months after the online encounter and possibly offline.  Unlike print, social media’s clear, online viral spread perpetuates the brand’s message and reach without much effort (Analytics can calculate visitors from social networks to final purchases, but those numbers are not comprehensive due to SMI).   Companies are doing themselves a disservice by not assimilating with today’s online climate.  Achieving a high SMI will alter a greater number of potential consumer’s purchasing choices, thus benefiting your brand long-term.

Social media impact doesn’t magically occur. Merely signing up for a social profile and posting a message doesn’t help you either. There is no SMI with a static page.   With so many people online, you need to give people a reason to come to your page. This is not an easy task, contact Wpromote’s social media Social media impact doesn’t magically occur. Merely signing up for a social profile and posting a message doesn’t help you either. There is no SMI with a static page.   With so many people online, you need to give people a reason to come to your page. This is not an easy task, contact me for help integrating your brand on social media.   contact@boumanblog.com

I apologize to everyone for my long, unexpected hiatus from blogging.  I’ve been working on several different matters that have consumed a great deal of my time.  At some point I’ll share these with you.  One of the items on my list has been reading up on social psychology, consumer behavior, and attempting to hypothesise how that ties into social media.  Therefore, I’ve been attempting to consumer textbooks, old college notes and anything else I can get my hands on to educate myself.  My room is reminicent of my college days with all the books lying around.  I will soon have a blog post with my initial thoughts.  It better be good, because I’ve building anticipation with my lack of blogging.  Ok, maybe that’s just me

There are still plenty of companies and individuals who still don’t quite grasp the concept of social media and how they should use it.  Let me break it down into an easy to digest analogy that we can all relate to…dating and long term relationships.

The first step is you have to make yourself look goood.  This means dressing well for women and creating a dynamic profile on a social network.  You want to make yourself stand out from others and this is the first step to doing so.  Now that you’re presentable, reach out to women/consumers you are interested in and think will be interested in you.  Even if you’re dressed to the nines, it won’t mean anything unless you actively go out and meet people.  When you first make contact, be sure to bring value to the table.  Why should they go out with you when there are a ton of other options out there?  Make sure you’re interesting, give people a reason to stick around.

When you do get the girl/consumer and there is a  budding relationship how do you keep it going?  Listen.  Simple, yet so important.  You have to know what they’re saying about you and your competitors and use that to your advantage.  Aside from listening, you need to let them know that you’re listening.  Which means conversing back and forth often.  Keep daily contact, several times a day, to keep their interest and let them know you’re there for her/them and that you’re always listening and willing to be there for any reason they might need.  When you’re conversing, remember that’s it’s not all about you and what you have to say.  If you’re the only one talking, especially about yourself, the girl and the consumer will lose interest and leave.   There is always another guy or brand out there.  When you’re talking, go with the flow, not everything said is premeditated.  You have to find that balance between listening and sharing that you can only figure out as you go along.

If you follow these steps, you will have a healthy, successful relationship that both parties benefit from.  More than likely, the girl and consumer will tell their friends how wonderful her boyfriend/brand is because of these in tuned conversations.  Communication is key in any good relationship.  So there you go.  That is how social media interaction is like dating and long term relationships.

If you have any more questions about social media or how your company can start to incorporate it feel free to send me an email at contact@boumanblog.com.  Take a look at my LinkedIn Profile for more professional information.

*This post was originally posted on Wpromote’s Blog.

by Jesse Bouman and Amanda Moshier

It’s no news social media is changing the landscape in online marketing. One of the more influential social media tools is the social network Facebook, and the practice of sending viewers to a company’s Facebook page and not its homepage is a growing trend (See Carl’s Jr TV Ad). More companies should take heed.

Not every company ‘needs’ social media and not all traffic should be sent to Facebook, but most brands need at least a presence on the main social networking sites. Read on for the #1 benefit of sending consumers to your Facebook fan page and how to start looking at social media as a branding vehicle.

The value of filtering website traffic through a Facebook fan page

The main reason brands set up a presence on social networks like Facebook is to create a bond with consumers they hope results in organic word-of-mouth generated via enthusiastic fans. On Facebook, the relationship between a brand and its consumers develops via interactions occurring on the brand’s fan page. Frequent two-way conversations strengthen the bond between brand and consumer. Likewise, the more interaction, the better the chance a consumer becomes a brand evangelist (someone excited about promoting your brand to friends and peers) and, where applicable, a customer – which is exactly what you want and the #1 benefit of sending traffic to your Facebook page.

Sending traffic to your Facebook page doesn’t mean your website is out of the picture; ideally, sending traffic to Facebook excites users about your brand and compels them to visit your website with more enthusiasm than they would have had visiting your site blind.

To get people excited, however, you must create a Facebook fan page that rocks.

How to create a Facebook fan page that rocks

If your create your Facebook Fan Page properly, it will encompass much of the content included on your website. In turn, sending traffic to your Facebook page does not mean a lost opportunity to educate consumers about your brand; rather, it is an opportunity to engage with consumers before they visit your site, increases the chances they will travel further down your sales pipeline.

Let’s look at Wpromote’s Facebook fan page:

Looking at the screenshot above, you can see it is possible to feature a lot of content on a fan page. In addition to providing background information on our company and mission, we share product information via a ‘Services’ tab which links backs to respective departmental web pages, links to our other social media profiles (Twitter, etc.), and photos and videos of our staff to put faces to the Wpromote name and make us more accessible to consumers and fans.

Providing users with enough information about your company and clear options to further engage with your brand means interested parties will take the time to visit your website; since you’ve already engaged them, the chances they take steps to communicate and hopefully, do business with your company, are higher.

Leveraging a Facebook fan page for greater brand awareness

By now you likely gather sending people to a Facebook fan page means more time spend with your brand, higher levels of consumer engagement, and better odds a consumer becomes a customer, but that is hardly all Facebook can offer.

In addition to acting as a consumer engagement tool, Facebook makes it possible to spread the word about your brand virally with relatively little effort, thanks to the way it shares information. Specifically, Facebook posts user actions to the main News Feed which notifies a user’s friends about pages they have become a fan of in addition to other common activities.

In turn, if one user becomes a fan of your page, this exposes your brand to an entirely new set of potential fans (with no extra action required on your part). The same goes for any action a fan takes on your page, such as answering a question, posting a link, or commenting; all user-generated actions boost brand awareness exponentially.

To understand how information travels on Facebook, consider this scenario:

Fan X answers a question posted on your fan page. His 478 friends are made aware of this activity via the News Feed, and 2 of his friends become fans of your page, exposing it to their 284 and 938 friends, respectively, and the cycle continues.

In this instance, one post and fan’s comment on that post potentially exposed your brand to 1,700 new people. Does your homepage offer the same ripple effect?

The bottom line

Utilized smartly, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool. To leverage the potential ripple effect offered by Facebook networking, create an optimized fan page, let people know about it by any means possible, and engage fans to build relationships and foster viral word-of-mouth.

If your company does not have a Facebook fan page or you are unsure if your fan page is being utilized properly, email jesse@wpromote.com or follow Wpromote on Twitter @wpromote to discuss your Facebook presence and overall social media strategy.

Today, after months of searching, I finally found an apartment to move into. It’s a 2 bedroom 2 bath six blocks away from the beach in Santa Monica near Main St. I looked at over 30 apartments and emailed dozens more. I am exhausted and relieved. Aside from a sweet pad with a rad view, what did I get out of my apartment search? It reminded me that I have qualities that will make me a good entrepreneur.

Jesse: “I’ve looked at like 30 apartments.”
Friend: “That’s crazy, but then again it’s you. So yea, that makes sense.”

Sometimes I question whether or not I am cut out to be an entrepreneur. If I was, wouldn’t I have started by now? Well, forget all that pessimism, because my apartment search gave me renewed hope about my abilities.

I forgot that I can have an obsessive personality when I’m passionate about something.  It definitely flared up during my apartment search. I was so focused on my goal of finding an apartment that everything else was blocked out. I had tunnel vision, the only thing I could think about was finding an apartment.  Failure wasn’t an option.  This sounds very similar to all the stories I’ve read about on successful entrepreneurs.  You work endless hours but you’re so focused that it doesn’t seem to bother you.   You do what you have to in order to succeed.

Also like a start up, I researched the hell out of my apartment search.  I was on every apartment site looking for the best deals. Since I was looking at places in Santa Monica, an area that I’m not too familiar with, therefore I cast the widest net possible to see what kind of apartment I could get, for my budget, in the nicest area possible.  Which area did I want to live in? Wilshire/Montana in Santa Monica? Main Street in Santa Monica? What about surrounding areas like Venice, Mar Vista, and Culver City? Well, I searched them ALL. Like I said, I looked at over 30 apartment in person and I emailed dozens more. It was a maddening process.  Slowly as I educated myself, my choices narrowed down, and my vision become much clearer.  That kind of due diligence is needed before launching a company.  My hard work and persistence paid off and now I have a great apartment in a wonderful area.

I know talk is cheap and these are just words until I take action.  But my level of self doubt decreased dramatically when I realized the similar characteristics between my apartment hunt and a start up.  Now, I should really get on this goal.  (Big ups to Mike Williams for this blog comment on my “Do I have Entrepreneurial Courage?” post)

On my Bucket List 2010 I listed being less judgmental as a goal for 2010.  It was on my list for 2009 as well.  I’ve been told I am too quick to judge and it’s detrimental to my relationships with people.  Right away, I decide if I think I’m going to like the person or if I’m not.  It’s not the final opinion of the person, but more times than not it is.  I’ve done this my whole life, you take social ques from the new individual and deduce a rough judgment of the person.  Recently I’ve been feeling guilty for doing this because so many people have scolded me; never judge a book by it’s cover they say.  Well, I’m done feeling guilty and I don’t think I’m going to stop judging…thanks to Malcolm Gladwell.

I am a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s work, owning all of this books.  Currently, I’m reading his second book, Blink.  The book’s tag line is, “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.”  The basic premise of the book is that we automatically and very quickly jump to conclusions about particular situations and more times than not, we’re correct.

“Snap judgments are, first of all, enormously quick: they rely on the thinnest slices of experience.  But they are also unconscious.”
Admittedly, I am not done with the book.  However, if you’re ever read a Gladwell book, he keeps the same basic theory and just backs it up with a handful case studies.  After reading the first 100 pages, I firmly believe that I have a very reliable thin slicing ability.  Just because I make a snap judgment, that doesn’t mean I’m totally off.  I will be more conscience of initial judgments but that doesn’t mean I won’t listen to them.  To date, they have served me quite well.  I should mention that Malcolm Gladwell does make references when thin slicing backfires. Most noteably, he mentions Warren G. Harding.  His height and good looks fooled everyone.  Low and behold, he was considered one of the worst presidents of all time.  This is why I will be more conscience of my judgments, but again, I trust myself far too much not to thin slice.
*Maybe I’ll write a better post when I’m done reading the book.

In September I wrote a brief review of the movie (500) Days of Summer.  I was (and still am) a fan of the movie, no matter how sad some moments are.  In several parts of the movie, including one of the final, most telling scenes, Summer and Tom share a park bench overlooking downtown

Los Angeles.  It seemed like such a serene place.  In the middle of the hustle and bustle of downtown Los Angeles, there is this park that you can relax, slow

down, and get a view of downtown.  As soon as I saw that park, I wanted to find it.  This past weekend, I did.

The park is better known as Angel Knoll, right in the heart of downtown LA.  It’s much smaller than it appears in the movie (I at least thought it was much more vast in the movie).  Yet, when I walked down the slight decline from where I parked my car on Olive St, I knew I had found it.  I sat down on a bench and just relaxed.  My mind went blank.  I just sat there, a partial smile on my lips, with a feeling of inexplicable happiness.  How could a simple site from a movie make me feel like this?  I don’t know.  I just know that I sat there for probably 45 minutes, gazing out at the buildings, feeling the crisp “winter” air of Los Angeles hit my face, and smiling.  I didn’t worry about hypothetical life situations, I didn’t worry about my future, I didn’t worry about the present.  I just sat there, relaxed…which is a rarity these days.  Tom Hansen was right when he said, “It just makes you feel… peaceful.”

*First scene in clip, 9 seconds, shows a brief shot of the park in the movie. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

“The longer I put off starting my own business, the longer it can remain a dream.  It’s not something I screwed up.  It’s like I’m giving up before I started.” -Fictional TV Character

Do I have what it takes?  It’s a question that I ask myself more and more these days.  In my bucket list for this year I state that I want to make  a considerable run at starting an internet or ecommerce business.  This has been my “end goal” for some time.  I finally have  a few ideas that could become viable business with the proper due diligence and hard work.  However, I’m scared shitless.

Do I have the passion and energy to bring these ideas to fruition?  If so, why haven’t I started working on them yet?  (I have taken small steps, but nothing substantial)  I think  the above quote rests on my shoulders like an anvil.  I think about it all the time.  I’m 26 and sometimes think (foolishly) my window of opportunity for entrepreneurship is quickly closing.  Yes, I understand how ridiculous that statements sounds, but think about it.  *What if I get married and/or have an unexpected child?  I now have people that depend on me.  I can’t just plop down my credit card, risk bankruptcy like I can now.  Right now, the only person I have to answer to is myself.  A family means that dreams are put on the back burner and basic necessities take the main stage.    The longer you work for someone, the more comfortable you can get.  This especially holds true if you have a family that has become accustomed to the lifestyle/security your salary has provided.  Plus, there are always bills. There is always an excuse.  Will I find the courage to overcome these apprehensions and dive into the torrential entrepreneurial waters?

“If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.” – Woody Allen

After reading the article “How My Start Up Failed” I felt this sense of excitement and a rush of doubt.  I loved what I was reading.  I love reading people have the guts to put it all on the line, bust their ass,  deal with failure, and start all over again.  Yet, there was this splinter of doubt bothering me.  Could I put myself $10,000 in the hole for this dream?  I have been so financially prudent my entire life, that part of me says, that’s ridiculous to jeopardize my credit for the long term with this.  The other half says, “Shut up you wanker and do it.  Make yourself happy!”  It’s sad that I actually consider option A.

Despite my monumental fears, I  plan on working towards my entrepreneurial dreams, and won’t let myself be discouraged.  I just need to put myself out there and keep plugging away.  I’m sure this isn’t the last time you hear about my dreams, my fears, and my willingness to proceed.  I hope everyone has the patience to come along for the ride.

*My friends and family have told me time and again that I need to stop worrying about “What If” situations.  I put my mind and body under a tremendous amount of stress with these hypothetical situations that often times never happen.  Maybe I should add this to my 2010 bucket list?

“Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It’s OK to fail. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing.” – H. Stanley Judd

Click here to view the embedded video.

Like I promised, here is my bucket list for 2010.  This year, I thought long and hard about these goals.  I broke it down to personal, professional, and task related.

Personal:

-Date more.  While I dated in 2009, I found myself hung up on several girls who just wanted to be friends.  This occupied too much of time.  Not in 2010.

-Be less judgmental.  I attempted this last year and I made meager progress.  I am too quick to judge, I need to give more people a chance.

- Talk to more strangers.  I’m going to build on the progress I made this year.

-Have a more positive attitude.  Goodbye pessimism, hello optimism.

Professional:

-My ultimate goal right now is to start an internet company that allows me to travel the world and run my company through my phone.  2010 is the year I take a serious run at this dream.

Task Related:

- Run a marathon.  I am signed up for the LA Marathon in March.  This is happening, whether I like it or not.

- Leave the country.  Plain and simple, it’s been too long and I’m itching for an adventure.

- Improve my CSS skills.  I can do basic CSS  manipulation, but I want to better understand CSS.

I’ve cut down my list considerably from last year.  This is an attempt to hopefully concentrate more on less and accomplish more.  Cheers!