Move over GM, Tostcu Mehmet from Gaziantep, Turkey will show you how to work Facebook. Tostcu means sandwich shop in Turkish. Gaziantep is a major city in the Southeast region of Turkey, known for its cultural heritage, phenomenal cuisine and entrepreneurship. Mehmet is the owner of this 'Tostcu' in Gaziantep who takes orders from his clientele in the area via Facebook. That's not all -- you can even chat live with Mehmet's staff. One click from the simply designed Facebook tab will launch your MSN.

To date, the page has over 1,200 likes and more than 150 check-ins. The dialogue between Mehmet, his staff and customers is the kind you can't imitate through all the social media tricks in the house. The comments read as if everyone knows each other and Tostcu Mehmet always thanks those customers who order through the page.

No fancy app or sapplet. No check-out cart. Just authentic hospitality, rapid response and a network of loosely connected individuals in one area.  

Wish they delivered to my office!

These are the latest/pending acquisitions by social media giants Facebook, LinkedIn and the omnipresent Google. What does it all mean? Even the largest distribution channels need sticky content. Yes, I used that web 1.0 word 'sticky'. I could have said 'engagement is the new king.' Bottomline, advertisers need eyeballs to stay with content for a long period of time so they can sell more and more. Whether you're looking at a friend's photos, a colleagues' slides or getting social ads served to you, it's the same basic principle of being exposed to a message. 

Emerging Trend #1: The latest Nielsen report on Hispanics' use of mobile and social media shows that this population segment is significantly more likely than the rest of the population to use mobile devices and social media to connect and communicate. 

Implication: Digitally savvy Hispanic consumers serve as a proxy for proactive consumers who are open to brand communications and who will pay for content. eMarketer projects Hispanics to spend $500 million on mobile apps in 2012.

Action: To augment multi-cultural campaigns, invest in social media and hyper target through mobile. Hispanic users are 25% more likely to follow a brand than the rest of the population.  

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I will be speaking on my book Implementing Word of Mouth Marketing: Online Strategies to Identify Influencers, Craft Stories and Draw Customers tomorrow at the University of Chicago. The event is a joint effort by Chicago Booth Business Book and Marketing Roundtables as well as the Savvy Women in Marketing group. Networking starts at 6PM at Chicago Booth Gleacher Center, 450 City Front Plaza Drive, Room 100.

Here's a synopsis of my presentation:

Setting up for Success: How to Generate and Measure Business Impact in Social Media

The euphoria around social networking compelled many businesses to join consumer conversations, pen expert blogs, and set up social media communities. Yet many corporate players share the challenge of attracting the right audiences to these venues and showing a return on their initiatives.

There are systematic ways to set up for success in social media and scientific methods to gauge results. In this session, you will learn how to:

-          Understand conversation trends and get to know your influencers

-          Distinguish between sustainable social media initiatives vs. creative but short-lived ideas

-          Prepare your organization for social care

-          Set benchmarks and measure success

 Ping me a note if you will be there! Looking forward to the discussion.

My friend Stephen Baer, managing director of the Game Agency, published a terrific article on toy makers' transformation into digital content publishers on MediaPost. Stephen cites the NPD Group reports on declining toy sales (by 2% in 2011) and says that the industry is trying to revamp by acquiring 'digital customers'. Here's an excerpt from the article, giving Mattel's initiatives as examples of this emerging trend:

"Mattel is introducing a new platform called Apptivity that will allow kids to take a physical toy and safely play with it on their iPad’s screen. In May, the toy maker will begin with Hot Wheels Apptivity, which lets kids take a 1:64 scale Hot Wheels car and race through three game modes on the iPad. The company will also introduce Apptivity to the youngest techies-in-training with Fisher-Price’s Laugh & Learn Apptivity Monkey, an interactive plush learning toy for babies that give them their very own apps on mom or dad’s iPhone or iPod touch device. Later this year, Mattel plans to roll out this technology to Barbie, Monster High, WWE, Angry Birds, Cut the Rope and Fruit Ninja."

To read the full article, which is full of examples from brands such as Hasbro and Identity Games, click here. 

Info-Currents April issue went out to subscribers at the beginning of the month. Here's a sneak peek at the trends covered in April. If you would like to sign up for this monthly future social media trends newsletter, click here. 

Emerging Trend: Online/mobile advertising will improve with cues from offline data.

Implication: Location-based services will inform mobile and web-based services about users’ purchase intent. Consumers will get more relevant ads and coupons served to them on their mobile devices based on their physical paths.

Action: Watch retailers that integrate mobile payment systems such as Google Wallet and Square. Consider partnering with players digital marketing software companies such as Kenshoo and Proclivity Media. They will have the most detailed data on consumer decision journey.

Cravebox is a new marketing service from the smart folks behind SheSpeaks, the word of mouth marketing company. The opt-in service sends a mix of products in a box to subscribers at $10/month. It's like 'an omnibus for new-to-market products' that get bundled when being presented to customers. 

Who picks the products? Consumer Curators who sign up to scour for products. Currently, they are looking for products in these categories:

• Health & Wellness
• Cooking, Baking & Grilling
• Beauty & Skincare
• Hobbies, Crafts & Recreation
• Kids, Babies & Parenting
• Home Organization & Home Cleaning Solutions

Why is all this so smart?

1- Influencers get to pick products and spread word of mouth through Cravebox subscribers -- brands that participate circumvent the challenges of finding their influencers and creating communities

2- Subscribers are paying to get a valuable package, but also covering some of the business costs

3- The opt-in trial process gets people more vested in using and talking about the products than your typical sampling program. The subscribers are so enthusiastic to receive this mix of new things, they don't hesitate to try, talk and post about them. Here are 4min+ videos of those who're going through their box.

Intrigued? To sign up for Cravebox, click here. 

What do you think of the phablet as a concept? Smart phone + tablet, that is. Samsung and LG are the two players offering this type of device now, with some saying that Samsung's Galaxy Note is ahead of LG's Optimus Vu is in the lead in terms of video, battery, display and overall user experience. Fans also gasped in shock when LG's Optimus Vu launched in Korea at close to $900. If you read Mike Elgan's post and reader comments here, most agree it is a step in the right direction. 

Phablets let you economize in terms of space (5" screens should be big enough to read, write and watch), without compromising on functionality. The winning models will be those that combine video, voice and basic work functions (note taking, graphics, email) while remaining on the light side. 

In this issue: Women taking over social media, Asia Pacific and Middle East reigning mobile video viewing, young adults join teens in dropping email. Sign up here. Sneak peek below.

It was an action-packed week for those following the social curation space. Pearltrees raised $6.6 MM in funding, while Pinterest colonies continued to bubble up. GigaOm's Bobbie Johnson correctly reminded people that content curation is not just about Pinterest, it also includes players such as Delicious, Mlkshk, Paperli, and shoppers' delight Svpply. I'll add FFFFound to that list.

It's hard to say who will be a winner among these services in three years. It may depend on:

a- Number of dedicated return visitors, who do not stop clipping and curating after the 'in-thing' fades out

b- Whoever manages to make the best sense of aggregated consumer data collected on these sites

Nonetheless, the rush to these content curation sites underscores online populations' preference for image-based communications, supported with few words -- if at all. Visuals help communicate fundamental concepts at a basic level. There may be deep thoughts and long dialogues with rich vocabulary behind them, but the more we clip and click, the fewer words we need to get the idea across. As Lawrence Baines, the author of the Futurist article: "A Future of Fewer Words?" indicates, we're losing precision and eloquence as we use fewer polysyllabic words. 

The sharp increase in social curation site users confirms the universal language of the Web as 'the image.'