Get ready for the next Social Media Apero in Basel is on 12th of October 2010.
The topic to discuss about is “The Web is dead” as titles the cover of the Magazine Wired in September 2010.
Join us at Kohlmanns in the hearth of Basel, Steinenberg 14 (Barfüsserplatz) on Tuesday 12th of October at 18:30.
Have a look at the event on Facebook and Xing

Posted via email from chiarabolognini’s posterous

Get ready for the next Social Media Apero in Basel is on 12th of October 2010.
The topic to discuss about is “The Web is dead” as titles the cover of the Magazine Wired in September 2010.
Join us at Kohlmanns in the hearth of Basel, Steinenberg 14 (Barfüsserplatz).

Posted via email from chiarabolognini’s posterous

The second social media apero is over and we are getting ready for the third social media apero. To get a better understanding about the format of the event you can have a look at the latest Social Media Apero video interviews gallery.

Worn out about sticking on your laptop? Don’t pass up the chance to meet the international social media crew in Basel.

The third international social media apero will be hold in the hearth of Basel again at the restaurant Kohlmanns. See the MAP on Blomap.

Guests and members of the social media Basel group are coming from the countries bordering on the west, France and Germany, obviously from Switzerland and having different nationalities.

You can join the group and the event on Facebook and on Xing or follow us on Twitter.

Posted via email from chiarabolognini’s posterous

The third Social Media Apero in Basel is due on 15th of June at 18:30 at Kohlmanns in Basel.
See the map:
http://www.blomap.com/Switzerland/Basel/Restaurant_Kohlmanns/1428/9/MAP/

This sort of international event is not very common in Switzerland. We are trying to spread the “meet-up” format and differentiate this event from the standard seminar or work-shops events. To gather together people with the same strong professional interest in social media is a plain way to build a commonly shared social media awareness and culture.

I am a Web and Social Media manager and founded the brand-new social network www.Blomap.com in the late 2009. My start-up is the owner of this project, it’s a Web and Social media agency www.swissiteinternational.com

Join the event and introduce yourself, become part and parcel of the social media crew in Switzerland.
Register for the event on:
or on Facebook http://tinyurl.com/27k7clv
or on Xing http://tinyurl.com/2cyvrgb

During the event will be also introduced the first Swiss Social Media surgery meant to help people acquire social media skills and attain mutual help on social media projects.

Posted via email from chiarabolognini’s posterous

This sort of international event is not very common in Switzerland. We are trying to spread the “meet-up” format and differentiate this event from the standard seminar or work-shops events. Gathering together people with the same strong professional interest in social media is a plain way to build a commonly shared  social media awareness and culture.

I am a Web and Social Media manager and founded the brand-new social network www.Blomap.com in the late 2009. My start-up is the owner of this project, it’s the Web and Social media agency www.swissiteinternational.com

Join the event and introduce yourself, become part and parcel of the social media crew in Switzerland.

Posted via email from chiarabolognini’s posterous

This month I had an accident and was operated so all my work was stopped because of health issues. I am trying to apply for an extension for extenuating circumstances but none sent me the form, so I have no idea of how it works.

I had to postpone the second social media apero on 4^th of May and I could not work to gather together more people because of my health issues and because I wasn’t confident about my health situation on that day. I am still wondering if I will be able to go there tomorrow.
I reached 25 guests, 32 maybe attending.
I could not work to find a sponsor and the group did not help, so I informed the group that everyone will pay for its drinks.

However, the work done before the day of the accident and some work done afterward resulted in the expansion of the Social Media Basel group with 61 members and the fan page with 121 fans.
I personally have reached 521 Facebook friends, most people are interested in social media and web.

The expansion of my audience will start again once I will recover.

I only was able to attend a Social Media Seminar where I verified that the language they use is Swiss German, so I was completely cut out.

The only good point was that a person recognized me and contacted me on Facebook afterward.

I was unable to develop further contacts even after this event since my bad health condition.

The business customer I found for Blomap, a real estate in London very keen on Social Media, didn’t push me to further advertise its apartments. In addition to that its assumption that I leave in UK made me feel yet more isolated, since I could not introduce myself to an event of an hotel consultants group where he mentioned Blomap on Linkedin.

The client of my company Swissite International, the bride-shoes online shop which requested a social media campaign on Facebook including group and fan page, delayed on signing the contract and my accident stopped also that.

The Social Media Natives blog will start someday, as soon as I will recover.

I ran some other Facebook and Ad Words campaigns and they brought traffic and some new members to Blomap. I must say more traffic than members. This is due to the double nature of Blomap which is either a community or a blog platform open to everyone. The adwords campaign gave me reason to think that the travel topics are the most relevant for the Blomap business.

The Web-developer delays continuously on its tasks and I am looking for other developers. It is very difficult to find someone honest, professional and competent.

 

In addition to that I started working with the affiliate marketing publishers and the two Italian publishers revealed a very low commitments to the job.

 

I applied to UK affiliates on Zanox (affiliate marketing distribution agency) in order to start a business with some international publishers and the next step will be delivering affiliate links to these publishers who will earn 30% percentage of the income gained through the affiliate links.

 

It is highly likely that I will need to monthly pay a team of publishers/bloggers to work on Blomap, since I see that the current publishers are not so much committed to the project, probably because of the unsecure income.

 

The necessity of a new developer and of publishers considerably increases the risk management.

 

Whatever will be the next result I see two possible future ways for Blomap:

- a non commercial way, because of lack of capital to invest on the further development of the community, so Blomap will be a simple community for the time being.

- a commercial way, because of arose opportunities of capital to invest, given that I will find some investors.

 

Most communities have no business onto the internet, so it would not be crazy to think to a non-commercial way for Blomap.

Blomap could stay for the moment as a creative project of my company, a sort of flagship.

 

However, the possibility to have capital to invest could quickly change everything:

• I could make those usability improvements which can make blomap much more usable to use;
• I could translate it in several languages;
• I could invest in advertisements and attractive functionality;
• I could pay bloggers/publishers and community coordinators to expand the community and to develop the affiliate marketing business and other possible business opportunities.
• I could have a real office.

 

In fact, the tourism industry has a very large target group and it is completely converting onto the internet.

So my previous idea of making Blomap an online global journal could not bring me any money at the moment. If this concept will develop it will develop later, once the community will become considerably big.

 

What I criticise of my work at the moment is a slight lack of project management due to my health condition. Things changed or stopped because of my temporary health condition.

Furthermore I stopped using any project management software and this is a very bad move, I will recover it asap.

 

Even the place where I live makes me feel demotivated. Switzerland does not excel in media innovation, that’s it.

In addition to that the language Swiss Germans use is an inaccessible dialect. However, I started a German course to refresh it (I had to stop it because of my health conditions) and I am going to attend a three months proficiency English course starting in September in UK. Enhancing my language skills would be greatly beneficial to communication issues which are against any business opportunities even if learning Swiss-German is rather impossible.

In fact, once I will be fine the first move will be gathering information to find and convince investors to invest in my company, very good language skills will be very useful.

 Chiara Bolognini

 

 

 

Posted via email from MA Media Suite — Production Lab

Blomap

 

Web-development and usability improvements

 

The web-developer is still working to allow html in the text area in Blomap. Actually, it turned out that more than a simple html link is needed to track the affiliate links. The publisher team looks still waiting but I am very worried about this delay. It is making me not starting my business, that’s it. So I am gradually looking around for a support to this developer.

 

Affiliate Marketing

 

I decided that the best way to track the affiliate links on each publisher at first would be to dedicate each publisher to a client and see how this develops in terms of business.

 

Editorial plan and stance

 

As for the editorial plan and stance nothing changed in my plan so far. I have just to work more intensely on producing content.

 

Ads

 

The Ad Words and Facebook campaigns brought some new members and considerable traffic to Blomap. This was a trial ad campaign that will run again once the publisher team will be active. In fact, specific campaign on some publishers’ Blomap spaces or on specific locations will be obviously profitable.

 

Business customers

 

My potential business customer, a real estate agent, is supporting me to attain hotels as clients through Linkedin. As for his apartments I would like to advertise on Blomap, I had to delay since I found an issue in the database related to London. The developer is delaying even on this task. This is another reason why I strongly believe I need a further support in the web-development. I cannot pass up the chance to attain new clients because of all these delays of the web-developer.

On the other hand I had the opportunity to attain a new client for Swissite International my web and social media agency owner of Blomap. The client is a bride shoes online shop which is requesting a social media campaign on Facebook including fan page and group page. I’ll obviously profit by this opportunity and will advertise the shop on Blomap as well.

 

Partnerships

 

I did not have the opportunity to find any partner for Blomap so far, though I am expanding my network in Switzerland and this is a good move towards my future business partner.

 

Social Media Basel Group, Apero and more

 

I am organizing the second Social Media Apero in Basel. I found a comfortable venue where I reserved a couple of tables. I had to sacrifice the internet connection in favor of reserved tables. People are informed and will provide themselves with internet connection through mobile phones and similars.

 

The guest star I invited, Gerd Leohnard, accepted to join the next apero, unless paying events will bring him away.

However, the Social Media Basel fan page on Facebook reached 102 fans and the Social Media Basel Group page 57 quality members. It’s a very good result as a start.

 

Social Media Surgery/Factory

 

I applied for the Basel incubator to start the Social Media Surgery/Factory, but it looked they did not understand the project and asked me to refer to the sociology department.

Actually, the culture is one of the biggest hurdle I will have to drive through.

However the next social media apero will give me the opportunity to meet again people who proposed me some venues for the next social media apero and I’ll propose them to guest the social media surgery in place of the apero.

 

Social Media Natives

 

I haven’t got the time yet to start the blog. But I’m keeping it in mind and I’ll start it asap.

Posted via email from chiarabolognini’s posterous