I can’t believe it’s already Christmas, but here it is so as we’re wrapping up for a few days, we thought we’d take the opportunity to wish you all an amazing Xmas… And so here is Robin and I in a little ‘Christmassy’ video:

The app we used for the message is actually something we’ve been busy over the last few days helping Skype launch in time for Christmas, with a small influencer campaign covering the US, UK, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

We’ve had a great response so far, with stories from TechCrunch, TechCrunch UK, Girly Gadget, Geekissimo, Pixel y Dixel, Frankwatching and many others.

The video messaging application is available via Skypevideocards.com and also via a dedicated Facebook app.

If, like me, you still haven’t had the time to send some real Christmas cards to your friends and family, why not send them your wishes via a Skype video card.

Happy Christmas everyone!

As I’m attending LeWeb’08 in Paris, I thought I’d share some interesting things I’ve been hearing at the conference. To begin with, an interesting quote from Georges-Edouard Dias, SVP, E-Business at L’Oréal: “brands are part of the conversation”.

Let’s rewind and go back to 2005 when L’Oréal set up a blog for Vichy, one of their brands, to promote an anti-wrinkle cream.

As I mentioned last week, blogging in France is big. So big that France leads the world when it comes to the number of blogs per internet user and it was therefore only natural for brands to identify blogs as business opportunities.

L’Oréal was probably one of the first brands in France to get involved with blogs. The Vichy blog featured Claire, a consumer who was reporting on a daily basis on how great the Vichy treatment was – very quickly though, Claire was identified as a fake blogger, paid by Vichy and it backfired on them. Since then, the “Vichy case” is referred to as a ‘what not to do’ in social media case study, in the same way as the Wal-Marting Across America and All I Want for Christmas Is a PSP examples from the English speaking world.

It didn’t work at the time, but listening to Georges-Edouard yesterday though, it is clear that L’Oréal have learned a lot over the past few years and it’s actually quite refreshing to hear brands such as L’Oréal talking about online conversations and saying that brands have to be sensitive enough to listen to their customers.

Interestingly he mentioned that “we no longer learn marketing in books” but rather by being sensitive, by listening to people online and becoming part of the conversation.

At a time when conversational marketing is still so new, a very inspiring story.

We’ve been pretty busy at We Are Social this week (as we are normally!) – yesterday, Robin announced the launch of our English website and here I am today to tell you all about the French version.

When it comes to Social Media, France is such an important market that it made sense to have a website and blog to engage with French brands and online influencers alike. The French market is actually pretty specific when it comes to Social Media on the basis that blogs are predominant within the social media landscape (France is ranked first in the world when it comes to the number of blogs per internet user). Social networking and micro blogging however are not yet as big as in the UK, but they’re growing rapidly – for example take a look at Facebook stats: in December 08, there are circa 6 million of French people on Facebook versus 2.5 million back in July 08.

And luckily we now have quite a few of those French social networking people in the team to be able to carry out campaigns in France: meet Violette, Camille, François and myself as the French “Chef d’Orchestre”.

By the way, I’ll be in Paris next week at LeWeb’08 so if you’re around and want to catch up, let me know!