Feb 9, 2010
Although both “international SEO” and “multilingual SEO” have become popular keywords for all types of agencies to target in their own self-promotion efforts and are popular type-ins of the relevant domains, “international social media” isn’t yet anywhere on the radar. The term “social media agency” is searched for in Google just 1,900 times globally per month compared with “seo agency” which hits 9,900. Perhaps the buzz lags behind the reality? Why so? Too difficult, perhaps?
Feb 8, 2010
Apple clearly recognizes the importance of the mobile web, but did they get trigger happy and launch the iPad too soon? The launch of the new Apple device has lit up the internet with all sorts of criticisms, praises, questions and opinions. A question remains for those of us in the search marketing and social media world—how will these tablets incorporate the use of social media?
Feb 4, 2010
Some novel research on the social networking phenomenon has turned up a slightly surprising result: The most influential spreaders of news aren't necessarily those with the greatest number of online friends or followers.
Rich Thomaselli
Feb 1, 2010
The mea culpa and brand-saving by Toyota Motor Corp. began today, as the embattled carmaker launched a public relations defensive on all fronts -- print, TV and social-media networks -- in a bid to salvage its image in the wake of the 2.3 million vehicle recall.
Jonathan Salem Baskin
Feb 1, 2010
Toyota has announced a shockingly comprehensive response to relatively limited reports of a sticky gas pedal: it has suspended production and sales of nine models and recalled millions to replace the potentially offending part. Comparisons have been made to Johnson & Johnson's famous and much lauded reaction to its Tylenol product tampering crisis in the early 90s.
I don't think anybody is going to write a textbook entry on Toyota's actions, however. And it's too bad: as the President's chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel said last year, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
This event is likely Toyota's biggest branding moment in recent memory, and what is it telling customers, renters, dealers, vendors, and employees? Nothing, or not much as far as I can tell.
Feb 1, 2010
I was talking with an old college friend the other night when he asked me what I was writing about these days.
"Covering Chrysler," I said.
"Really? I thought they were out of business."
His perception makes it painfully clear what Chrysler Group CEO Sergio Marchionne is up against.
special report
Jan 29, 2010
What will the future of social networking look like? Imagine this: your digital video recorder automatically copies a television show that several of your friends were talking about on a social network before the show went on air. Or this: you get into your car, switch on its navigation system and ask it to guide you to a friend’s house. As you pull out of the driveway, the network to which you both belong automatically alerts her that you are on your way. And this: as you are buying a pair of running shoes that you think one of your friends might be interested in, you can send a picture to their network page with a couple of clicks on a keypad next to the checkout counter.
Brian Solis
Jan 29, 2010
Good friend Stowe Boyd recently shared a quote by Gabriel García Márquez, “Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.”
Indeed, quite simply many of us live life allowing specific, trusted individuals to know us in one or more of our personae. Our moral compass as well as outside influences affect how we balance our three lives. The size and permeability of our personal dividers vary in the separation of each life and resemble doors that open and close based on our desires. We nurture each individually with slight coalescence, but concentrate on the establishment of a distinct ecosystem for cultivating and grooming who we are in public, private, and in secret.
Steven Spear
Jan 29, 2010
Long the quality and efficiency standard-setter, Toyota now has an ostrich-sized egg on its face — a problem with sticking accelerator pedals that led to global product recalls and a suspension of production and sales.
There are important lessons to be learned from Toyota's stumble: Competitive success is fluid. It depends on continuously discovering better ways to do work. The capabilities to do this are powerful but fragile and need constant reinforcement. Relentless attention to their development can lead to great success; conversely, a loss in attention can have grave consequences.
Jan 26, 2010
Why do most marketing messages fail to engage potential customers? Why are most internal corporate communications viewed as a bunch of baloney? Why do we distrust big media, big business, and most politicians (big or small)?
It's simple, really. Have you heard the expression, "The meaning of the message is the response it elicits?" It suggests that when you communicate a message -- whether you do so face-to-face, over the telephone, on the Internet, over the airwaves, or in writing -- the message means what the receiver of the message thinks it means. And increasingly, what most messages mean to us is apparent.
Jan 21, 2010
You know that feeling you get when watching that show, What Not to Wear? Cringing and squirming, you watch as delusional people show off some of the most hideous outfits – they think they actually look good when it is so clear they don’t. That they would be so self-unaware is unbelievable. Well, that’s how I’ve felt as I’ve witnessed the recent campaigns by two fast food restaurant chains. They may think they’re rockin’ a good thing, but they’re not – and I’m incredulous that they don’t see it.
Jan 20, 2010
It happened last year, around the first of July. In my experience, the switch was just about that abrupt.
All last spring, most senior business leaders I met shrugged off the business applicability of Web 2.0. Allowing access to social networks in the workplace was something they were willing to consider only if it was absolutely necessary to keep younger employees from complaining. Twitter? What was that?
But by summer, the conversations I was having with senior executives about the use of these new technologies took on a very different tone. Recognition grew that 2.0 technologies could be used to change the way work gets done in fundamental ways. Interest in exploring these new ways of working, of sharing information, of collaborating to enhance productivity and meet business goals, was here.
Tom Asacker
Jan 19, 2010
During my early years in large scale project management with GE, I was exposed to an idea by an outside advisor which he referred to as the three knobs. In essence, every project is ultimately controlled by turning (up or down):
1. The time knob - The duration of a project (e.g. implementation, ROI, etc.);
2. The money knob - The dollar investment; and/or
3. The people knob - The human capital investment.
Jan 18, 2010
The Harvard Business School teaches future executives the gold standard in brand crisis management. The model dictates that a company should communicate clearly with the public about a crisis, cooperate with government officials, swiftly begin its own investigation of a problem and, if necessary, quickly institute a product recall.
The template is based on Johnson & Johnson’s conduct in 1982, when several people died after taking tainted Tylenol pills. The company’s reaction to the crisis is widely regarded as exemplary. But last week, Johnson & Johnson appeared to abandon its own template, stunning a few business school professors. Its conduct also drew harsh criticism from federal officials.
Jan 8, 2010
Keeping quiet works when operating elite hedge funds, but it's usually not a great strategy when running a retailer.
For the past six months, Sears Holdings Corp. has been operating an online marketplace that allows third-party vendors to sell goods on its Web site. But few consumers knew about it.
Sears waited until Thursday to unveil "Marketplace at Sears.com," disclosing that its Web site carries more than 10 million products, including furniture, art, cosmetics, appliances, sporting goods and shoes.
Perhaps Sears could learn a lesson from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which at the start of this decade also shunned the spotlight, but changed its strategy after too much bad publicity. Now, Wal-Mart goes out of its way to be heard, even as it spends relatively little on advertising.
Tamsen McMahon
Jan 6, 2010
Despite lip-service to two-way communication, branding has often been a one-way effort: we decided what we wanted people to think about our companies and designed marketing and communications that made that happen.
Or so we hoped.
But a brand is the collective impression people gain not only from you and your marketing efforts, but from all of their interactions with you—and the interactions others have as well (newly amplified through social media).
That means we need to look at the process of branding in different way: through a social lens.
John Baldoni
Dec 18, 2009
"We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world," writes New York Times columnist David Brooks. "Individual responsibility is contained in the act of selecting and constantly revising the master narrative we tell about ourselves."
Brooks' explanation about choice of narrative can apply to leaders seeking ways to navigate our recession. The relentless tide of bad news may tempt those in charge to adopt a pessimistic view point, but leaders owe it to their followers to spread optimism. Without excluding reality, leaders need to inspire not simply hope, but also resilience. Storytelling can help in this effort. Here are some suggestions for crafting your own story to make sense of adversity.
Nov 24, 2009
Twitter is amongst new media channels that are challenging how we communicate, with whom we communicate and perhaps most fundamentally how we (Marketers) influence people.
Analysis of these new social media channels has been hobbled by old world thinking, when it comes to marketing, from the world of Television and Magazines or, when it comes to measurement, from the world of traditional web analytics.
These new channels, twitter and facebook and youtube and tumblr and, yes, even blogs, are very distinct customer / participant experiences. Stale marketing or measurement thinking applied to them results in terribly sub optimal results for all involved.
Nov 20, 2009
According to Watson Wyatt's newest communication survey for 2009/2010, companies that are effective communicators "have the courage to talk about what employees want to hear," "redefine the employment deal based on changing business conditions," and have "the discipline to plan effectively and measure their progress effectively." Does this really matter? Yes. The study shows that companies that communicate effectively had a 47% higher return to shareholders over a five-year period (mid-2004 to mid-2009). The link between communication and these three levers of performance — courage, innovation, and discipline — is a welcome one. These are themes that I have written about, taught and coached for years. Here is how you can utilize them in the workplace.
Anjali Ramachandran
Nov 19, 2009
I’ve been thinking of how to measure engagement in the digital space for a while now, so I wanted to aggregate my thoughts and put them in one place. This post is intended to be provocative and get people thinking about how the current thinking of measurement of social media should change. It isn’t meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution – more an articulation of things that people should consider more and more when they embark on work in the online social space.
Nov 16, 2009
From a holistic perspective, we talk about the need for organizations to become more socially calibrated—able to adapt and respond to changes both externally and internally. The three areas where emergent outcomes can manifest are, participation with your customers, collaboration between your employees and optimization in the interactions/transactions between your business and its partners. Digging into customer participation, it’s clear that in a networked economy customers demand engagement, information, support and ultimately, value and ecosystems such as Twitter are beginning to deliver here.
Nov 12, 2009
Social networking is one of the fastest-growing activities among mobile users around the world. And as one of the primary ways mobile users communicate with one another, it is proving a significant driver of Internet usage on mobile devices.
eMarketer predicts the number of mobile users accessing social networks from their mobile devices will reach 607.5 million worldwide by 2013, representing 43% of global mobile Internet users. In the US, mobile social networkers will total 56.2 million by 2013, accounting for 45% of the mobile Internet user population.
Nov 12, 2009
Microsoft Windows 7's launch video was a viral smash. And while some believed it was because people thought "HostingYourParty" was a riotously bad -- Microsoft is enjoying the last laugh. Still, despite the negative attention directed at the instructional video, which was intended for people hosting Windows 7 "house parties," the tech giant managed to reach a lot of consumers. In fact, from Oct. 22-29, more than 800,000 people attended more than 10,000 parties in 12 countries hosted by Windows 7.
Nov 9, 2009
Not content with bringing socialism to its boardroom, Flip cams to the family room, and comedic product placements to the nation's TV screens, Cisco has just unveiled a set of Web-based communication products that could put the San Jose company into direct competition with both Google and Microsoft. Its entry into two new markets--hosted email and enterprise social software--is, says Cisco, part of a push to make business more people-centric than document-centric.
This move signals a major shift for a company that is best known as the Internet's plumber (the Internet's backbone if you prefer). Along with a cloud-based mail system, WebEx Mail, the company is introducing a social video system, called Cisco Show and Share. According to the PR blurb, it "helps organizations create and manage highly secure video communities to share ideas and expertise, optimize global video collaboration, and personalize the connection between customers, employees and students with user-generated content."
Also on its way is the Cisco Enterprise Collaboration Platform, a cross between a corporate directory with social networking capabilities.
Nov 6, 2009
Awareness is rising of the impact on business of networked employees—those workers who are continuously connected to their social circles and can tap into them at will. The discussion seems to be shifting, ever so slowly, to the characteristics of companies that, rather than inhibiting these traits, want to reap the benefits of a networked workforce. Recent posts by Olivier Blanchard and Valeria Maltoni have speculated on the nature of these companies. Olivier calls them P2P companies; Valeria refers to them as connected companies.
They both see the recruiting process changing, for example, to one of inviting people already connected to the company through online and offline social networks to come work for them. The IT department becomes the ET department—Technology Enablement. P2P companies don’t outsource customer service. Collaboration is supported by the use of the best tools available.
Valeria Maltoni
Nov 3, 2009
Businesses that want to create long-term sustainable growth will be increasingly moving towards connected company status. That is the place where being social benefits the business by providing insights, strengthening relationships with partners and customers, and building and connecting a community with common grounds and needs. In many organizations, the listening post resides within the marketing group. As we discussed yesterday here and on Twitter, customer service should co-own the space and collaborate to develop big ears during customer conversations and interactions. In many B2B organizations, the customer support role is much expanded and works hand in hand with operations.
Gina Trapani
Oct 15, 2009
Google Wave is a new communication tool that the search giant bills as "what email would look like if it were invented today." While the plan to modernize email is laudable and ambitious, Google Wave's whiz-bang features can feel confusing and chaotic to new users. However, if regular people can make the leap that Wave does from email's message-based system to conversations as co-editing a single document, Wave could revolutionize the way we communicate and collaborate online.
Oct 12, 2009
Could airlines use digital media to help get themselves out of a rough spot?
This past week I traveled to two different destinations with two different airlines - the contrast couldn’t have been starker. What was the difference? One airline uses digital media to its advantage, the other one is still stuck in analog mode.
While the first trip went without a glitch - we even got to destination earlier both ways - the second one started horribly - with what turned out to be a 5 hour wait, time none of the passengers will ever get back. As I was waiting in line and meeting others who were in my same predicament, I thought about the many ways in which digital media can help this ailing and tired industry.
Oct 10, 2009
Over the past week Google has been rolling out the first invitations to its latest service, a complex "real-time communication and collaboration" system dubbed Google Wave.
Instead of sending messages back and forth, users create web-page-like documents called waves that others can modify or comment on, using a combination of features more usually seen separately in email, wikis, instant messaging and social networking (see a video introducing Wave).
Early reviews have been positive, and demand for invitations outstrips supply (Google says ours is still on the way). But even for those who have tried and liked it, Wave's potential is still hard to assess. The problem is that most talk about it is focussed on technology, not people.
Oct 1, 2009
Google last night invited 100,000 people to become the first users of its latest internet tool which aims to rival email, Twitter and Facebook.
Google Wave allows a limitless number of internet users anywhere in the world to have instant conversations and share files.
The service combines aspects of email, instant messaging, social networking and web chat and is aimed at friends catching up with one another and business partners sharing documents.
Sep 30, 2009
If a picture paints a thousand words, then how much is a tweet worth? Ten words, a dozen? When embracing Twitter, have you struggled to write something profound or worthwhile within the confines of 140 characters? I have. Don't get me wrong, "tweet speak" has its place in our digital world, but with every process that strips away the need to construct coherent and meaningful prose, not just blurts with links, we will, in turn, think less about what and how we write. It's already happening.
When talking about the art of communicating and storytelling, whether it's oral, aural, visual or in words (stay with me here, I am trying to correlate this with PR), the creative process is often lost during the template-driven process of writing a press release.
Denise Lee Yohn
Sep 29, 2009
I’ve been doing research on some companies and have spent quite a bit of time looking at companies’ corporate reports – e.g., annual reports, official statements, corporate presentations, etc. I’m amazed at how many companies completely overlook these reports as touchpoints through which people experience their brands. Often the reports are dry and pedantic or fluffy and full of corporate-speak – they don’t communicate or reflect what is differentiating or compelling about their brands.
What’s ironic is these reports are becoming increasingly important brand touchpoints.
Sep 23, 2009
Social media is helping to forge a new era in business transparency and engagement, creating both new challenges and opportunities. Gone are the days when companies could rely on carefully crafted press releases or flashy ad campaigns to communicate with their customers, often in an attempt to convince people that their products are the best in the field. In the age of social media, the rules have changed radically, and people today demand a more honest and direct relationship with the companies with which they do business.
Companies now face a clear choice: wall themselves in and become increasingly controlled and hidden, or use social media and other means to reveal their human side, welcome transparency, and forge new relationships with their customers. The old game is undoubtedly over, and the question now is, “what can businesses do to transition and succeed in this new era?”
Sep 22, 2009
Brands, which are mostly untrusted, must develop advocacy programs to influence their market. Despite the good intentions, several risks could undermine the effort and even cause public brand backlash.
Interesting. Recently, I attended a corporate event that showcased products related to an industry. Press, media, bloggers, and influencers were invited to attend, and meet a variety of vendors and see products. Some of the attendees were part of the company’s advocacy program and were sampling a few products. Some members of the the advocacy program are bloggers, one with a journalistic background. While the event continued on, a not-impressed attendee with a journalistic background started to make comments that some of the members of the advocacy program were not authentic and went so far as to say quite loudly during the presentation they were “shills”.
Let’s break it down, as these same events are likely going to happen to your advocacy program in person and online.
Sep 18, 2009
I've been thinking a lot about poop lately, and not just because I have two young kids. In particular, I've been pondering that clichéd philosophical question: If a bear poops in the woods and nobody's around, does it still stink?
Recently, DoSomething.org hosted what I'd normally consider a successful party. The event raised half a million dollars. We honored five amazing youths for doing amazing things, from building an orphanage in Nepal to registering thousands of new voters. Our red carpet at Harlem's Apollo Theater was packed with celebs, and performers including Boys Like Girls and Akon -- who crowdsurfed -- rocked the place. The 1,600 people there were floored. But did anybody else smell what we were cooking? Nope.
Jonathan Low
Sep 18, 2009
For corporate communications specialists and reputation managers in the post financial crisis universe, the combined elements of distrust for authority and demand for transparency converge on the internet, specifically in the realm of social media.
Hardly a day goes by without a breathless email announcing yet another conference, video, webinar or book providing the definitive answer to the mysteries of bending social media to one’s will. However, the relentless hype that has accompanied its growth may exaggerate or misconstrue its impact.
Professionals would do well to take a deep breath and begin to think about how to build a detailed business strategy that includes but does not necessarily focus on social media so as to create sustainable value.
Sep 16, 2009
The Telegraph recently featured a list of fifty things that are being destroyed by the Internet. The article is hardly surprising given the massive shifts the Internet brings to society, but it does raise a debate about what will be missed from a bygone era and what will be rightly forgotten.
The list covers the lost art of polite disagreement, various cumbersome fact checking situations and the blackout of news during holidays
Sep 16, 2009
The axiom that "the more things change, the more they remain the same" still holds truth. Today, like yesterday, visibility and credibility go a long way in forging meaningful relationships with customers, employees and media to produce real outcomes. The question is, what's so different about the way we're creating those relationships?
Earned media has never been more valuable; it's impossible to buy, after all. And while paid media's supporting role is very strong, companies are continuously looking for new ways to distribute authentic messages and engage others in what they do; corporate schtick has no place in that equation.
Sep 16, 2009
Imagine for a moment that tomorrow everything blinked off. All sense of normalcy gone. No Internet. No phone. No electricity. Nothing. But darkness.
What would you do? Well, if you're not throwing yourself out of a window in panic or looting the local electronics store (duh), your next step would be to start doing whatever is necessary to survive. Things like hunting for food, finding water and gathering firewood. But then what? Well, you’d probably reach out to others. That’s right, you’d turn to your network.
Sep 15, 2009
This news might actually sway some of the executives left who still fear the use of social media for business.
Research from Penn State found that a full twenty percent of tweets mention specific brand names or products. Out of half a million tweets examined during the study, one fifth were essentially free brand advertising.
Those tweets contains a mix of requests for information about specific products as well as responses to those queries from people’s networks, giving companies an unprecedented window into the concerns and questions customers and potential customers have about their products.
Sep 15, 2009
Non as in non-profit.
The first issue is the way you describe yourself. I know what you’re not but what are you?
Did you start or join this non-profit because of the non part? I doubt it. It's because you want to make change. The way the world is just isn't right or good enough for you... there's an emergency or an injustice or an opportunity and you want to make change.
These organizations exist solely to make change. That's why you joined, isn't it?
The problem facing your group, ironically, is the resistance to the very thing you are setting out to do. Non-profits, in my experience, abhor change.
Sep 11, 2009
Twitter, the fast-growing microblogging site now seeking ways to make money, expanded its terms for users on Thursday to allow advertisers to reach the Internet site's more than 45 million monthly visitors.
Twitter, the two-year-old venture capital-backed company that lets people send an unlimited number of 140-character messages, is just now beginning to ramp up efforts to monetize, or gain revenue from, its popular site.
On Thursday, it revised its "terms of service" to specify that it may run ads.
Sep 10, 2009
AT&T knows its iPhone-burdened network has become a public relations mess, with a number of major news outlets recently recounting how heavy iPhone use has resulted in spotty service. But the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier's latest effort -- meant to address its network and explain why it took so long to turn on a long-awaited multimedia message service for Apple's iPhone -- isn't helping.
Sep 8, 2009
Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of putting together a website or social media campaign is the copy. Many people assume that the same words that work for print campaigns or materials can just be copied and pasted for the web, but that’s just not true. The web is an entirely different medium, and copy needs to be treated with the same respect that design and user interface elements get.
Text is a very important part of user experience on the web, so it needs and deserves the same sort of design consideration. You must make your text usable in the same manner that you do the rest of your website or social media campaign materials. In short: text is user interface.
Sep 8, 2009
There is an expression among performers: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” The idea behind it is that making people laugh can be, well, no laughing matter.
What is true in show business is true in marketing, as many brands that have centered their campaigns on humor have learned. For instance, Bud Light beer has been struggling in its most recent commercials to strike the right balance between amusing consumers and getting them to pay attention to the sales pitch.
As product attributes were played up and laughs were played down, Bud Light began to lose ground to rival brews. That led executives at Anheuser-Busch InBev to promise a mid-course correction that will tilt back in favor of fun.
Similarly, the Butterfinger brand of candy bars, sold by the confections and snacks division of Nestlé USA, has gone back to comedic advertising after several years.
Ken Fromm
Sep 3, 2009
In part 1 we looked at how the real-time Web is a new form of communication and creates a new body of content. The immediacy of the Twitter channel is a third fundamental characteristic of the real-time Web and one of its prime currencies, not surprising given the name of the space. Because of demand within the eco-system, quite a bit of effort is being made on storing, slicing, dicing, and disseminating information as quickly as possible. The fundamental implication of this activity (without any explicit markers being laid down) is that the velocity of information within the Web data system has just increased by an order of magnitude.
Sep 2, 2009
Skype's new owners — Silver Lake Partners, Marc Andreessen, and company — are getting a company valued at $2.75 billion (according to former owner eBay) with 405 million users. That's $6.79 per registered user, and a little over five times Skype's 2008 revenue of $511 million. Skype grew by 44% in 2008. So did the sale — in which eBay retains a 35% stake in the company — come cheap or dear?
My guess is that the buyers got a good deal because the human voice is our most fundamental communication medium.
Sep 2, 2009
Talking about communities, and newspaper communities in particular, often leaves people with a warm and fuzzy feeling. It's true that being a community manager enables you to meet wonderful people, but the reality of daily community management can be difficult and unsettling. Every community manager has to deal with community politics (the online equivalent of office politics), disillusionment and a lack of appreciation. However, there are some ways to deal with all of these problems.
Sep 1, 2009
When Barack Obama hired John Berry to head his Office of Personnel Management earlier this year, the president did not mince words.
“John, we’ve got to make it cool again,” Obama said to his new hire.
Many of the nation’s brightest graduates are snapped up by tech start-ups claiming to offer not only high compensation but the feeling of being part of something exciting — not to mention such perks as meals by gourmet chefs, exercise and laundry facilities, haircuts, massages and other amenities designed to smooth the transition from college to adulthood while instilling a sense of loyalty.
Ken Fromm
Aug 31, 2009
Like cloud computing less than a year ago and social networking two years ago, the real-time Web is the new black on the tech circuit. The trend has been publicly bandied about this summer, starting with a few industry get-togethers, followed by several enthusiastic testimonials from investors (notably angel investor Ron Conway's widely posted list of ways for Twitter to monetize). It was then capped by a glowing report in BusinessWeek in early August. That a serious trend is on the rise would not be doubted by those watching Twitter's rise in usage and media popularity. In fact, the debate this summer has centered not on whether something is afoot but rather on what to call it. Ron Conway favors "now media" in the belief that it's a media phenomenon. But most commenters, led by several bloggers and lead investors, prefer to call it "real-time Web".
Aug 6, 2009
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time touring the world in support of my ideas and thoughts on the direction of new PR, branding, service, and marketing communications. My reward and inspiration to continue is sourced from each person I meet and the experiences and challenges they share. I’ve learned that our greatest hindrance to evolve is not our unwillingness to do so, our indoctrination in new media and communications is truly obstructed by the executives to whom we report and serve.
Jul 23, 2009
In true Zappos fashion, CEO Tony Hsieh alerted the masses that his company had been purchased by Amazon via a tweet and his blog.
Jul 14, 2009
Online lending pioneer LendingTree has weathered a tough couple of years in the mortgage and real-estate industry. But now the business, whose parent Tree.com spun off from IAC last year, is gearing up for a rebrand and a renewed marketing effort.
Jul 13, 2009
It's been called micro-blogging, micro-sharing and a variety of other phrases including the word ambient. But there's a significant attribute that's been less discussed and is critical to both business and social implications regarding how we live and work. Technology allows us to signal our every movement, thought, action and status in real time. It's pretty powerful stuff and why millions of people are addicted to telling their own social systems what they are doing whether it be a status update on Facebook or a tweet.
Jul 13, 2009
At the Real-Time Stream event in Redwood City, California organized by TechCrunch, industry pioneers and pundits discussed the state and future of the Real-Time Web also increasingly referred to as the “now” Web.
Brian Solis
Jul 13, 2009
Social media has evolved beyond a series of platforms that enable content publishing, sharing, and discovery into a genuine, peer-to-peer looking glass into the real world conversations that affect the perception, engagement, and overall direction of the brands we represent.
Jack Trout
Jul 13, 2009
While the mind may still be a mystery, we know one thing about it that is for certain—it’s under attack. Most Western societies have become totally ‘‘overcommunicated.’’ The explosion of media forms, and the ensuing increase in the volume of communications, has dramatically affected the way people either take in or ignore the information offered to them.
Jul 10, 2009
I spent many years of my career in the hospitality business and the first rule of thumb when dealing with customers was, “if a guest had a positive experience, they’ll tell 3 people and if they had a negative experience, they’ll tell 10.” That same idea holds true in the new media world, except the numbers have grown exponentially. Instead of it being 3 people – it’s 3,000, or instead of 10 – it’s perhaps 100,000. The numbers aren’t meant to scare you. But what should you do when something goes wrong?
Jul 6, 2009
I'm asking because technically, it really isn't. Let's take a step back and think about the strong word in the term social media. We've had all kind of media for ages - print, then the novelty of radio, then video that supposedly killed the radio stars (they also said that sound in movies would never take off, oh my), then the Web.
Jul 3, 2009
The discovery of the world's oldest musical instrument -- a 35,000-year-old flute made from a wing bone -- highlights a prehistoric moment when the mind learned to soar on flights of melody and rhythm.
Jun 30, 2009
It was a comment from Zoë and a title of a blog post from Chris Brogan that made me ask the question. Twitter can be tiring and pointless noise, and social media can be a bunch of chores, if the intent does not match the intention. If your involvement is not engagement, then what happens to the outcomes?
Jun 30, 2009
In no place has the seismic illumination of communication as an innovation been more punctuated than the Obama administration. Yes, while smart and astute policy adjustments and groundbreaking new lawmaking have been vital to our nation's healing, so, too, has been the manner in which these transformative changes have been communicated.
Jun 29, 2009
Industries worldwide are transforming as the economic upheaval takes its toll. It's affecting both leading brands and challengers in nearly every category.
Jun 22, 2009
Now that the refrains of "Twitter Revolution" and "the first uprising powered by social media" are fading into the distant memory that is 24 hours ago, we can start debating what impact, if any, it had (or is still having) on events in Iran.
Social movements are, well, social, by their very definition; people have been agitating and acting together since the platform tools to do so were quill pens, inkwells, and whispering in one another's ears. Nothing new there. So the first question to ask is whether new media changed the conduct or outcomes of the social event itself (i.e. in Iran).
I'm not sure it did.
Jun 21, 2009
Political revolutions are often closely linked to communication tools. The American Revolution wasn’t caused by the proliferation of pamphlets, written to whip colonists into a frenzy against the British. But it sure helped. Social networking, a distinctly 21st-century phenomenon, has already been credited with aiding protests from the Republic of Georgia to Egypt to Iceland. And Twitter, the newest social-networking tool, has been identified with two mass protests in a matter of months — in Moldova in April and in Iran last week, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to oppose the official results of the presidential election.
Jun 18, 2009
After a decade and a half of evangelisation by the likes of Seth Godin (re his book entitled: Permission Marketing) and those who followed in his footsteps, Marketers are now finally waking up to the idea that pre-formatted communications aren’t the right way to engage with customers.
Alexandra Samuel
Jun 17, 2009
Online community and social media are hot areas for business these days, as companies recognize the Internet's potential to deepen customer relationships, share knowledge and strengthen teams. In the nonprofit sector, relationships have always been the key currency: the relationships with the members, donors and supporters that NGOs depend on for volunteer labor, financial support and advocacy muscle.
Clay Shirky
Jun 16, 2009
While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.
Denise Lee Yohn
Jun 16, 2009
I’m taking a break from the series on brand value creation for a post on a topic I’ve been reading a lot about lately — saying “thank you.” For people in general, service providers specifically, and companies, communicating sincere gratitude, it seems, is a lot more complicated than you might expect.
Jun 15, 2009
Seriously. It’s ruining you. Well, at least sometimes it is. Because when we bring marketing into a relationship, we damage it. As we’ve said before (and we’ll say again), nobody WANTS to be marketed to.
So I think it’s really, REALLY important to remember to take off our marketing hats and just be a person thinking about how to relate to other people in a honest, open, transparent way.
Jun 11, 2009
If you haven't been living under a rock lately, you've probably heard a lot about Twitter, the free micro-blogging utility that allows members to share short messages, or tweets. Twitter has suddenly become the digital arena for people to observe and engage in pop culture. Demi Moore saves lives on her Twitter page, and Lindsay Lohan publicly breaks up with significant others on hers. It's also a place where brands can interact with consumers directly, to either reinforce strong relationships with their loyal bases or attract new followings.
Jun 10, 2009
It should come as no surprise that the entire sports world is reaching out to fans with social media tools. But just how engaged are these groups with the latest in communications technology? Because the National Basketball Association (NBA) is in the thick of its playoffs, we’ll use them as a guinea pig.
Jun 3, 2009
In all my years in the brand business I have yet to run into a company that doesn't have a set of brand guidelines. You know, the carefully crafted criteria for tone and manner, the graphic standards--colors, logo typeface, and the like. Some even include terminology, the voice and verbiage required for use in ad copy, speeches and collateral material. While this is all well and good, it's not nearly good enough at a time when "who" is increasingly trumping "what" as a crucial factor in brand success.
Jun 2, 2009
Social media is revolutionizing our lives as individuals and as marketers. In the last year, Facebook exploded globally and Twitter grew by a staggering 1382%. Last week Google launched the ‘Wave’, a new in-browser collaboration tool, ushering in the era of real time, aggregated communication.
May 29, 2009
Twitter. Facebook. Blogs. Let's face it: It's nearly a full-time job just to keep up with these new media tools, never mind to learn them well. But how can you use them to strengthen your current career or, even better, to build yourself into a brand?
Though most experts agree there's no substitute for face-to-face networking, using social media tools can help you become a thought leader in your space and even drive customers to your business.
May 24, 2009
Adopting a new company name isn’t enough. If an organization is really proud of its new moniker – and it ought to be – then promoting the new identity with all its important constituent publics is a necessity.
Here are the steps that a proud company should follow in letting its publics know who exactly it has become:
Media Arts Lab
May 12, 2009
Everything is information and information is everything. It’s the mantra of marketing in an age where people are constantly creating collectible data—all the things we do, say, use, buy, click and share are data points in the graphs of our lives. But in an increasingly visual society, pie charts and bar charts can’t begin to do justice to this wealth of information there is to digest now. Data visualization tools are helping to change the ways we look at information and audiences.
May 7, 2009
When you’re building a movement, the central aim is to drive people to action, not simply create awareness or spark conversation. To do this, you have to communicate very differently.
Apr 16, 2009
The toll-free number.
The email to tech support.
The Tweet?
Is Twitter the natural evolution of customer service? The immediacy and transparency of tweeted support is all the rage, with defined case studies (@ComcastCares, @JetBlue) and emerging software to enable and track it.
Apr 14, 2009
A couple of Domino's employees are suggesting that the chain's subs have a secret ingredient. In a video posted on YouTube last night, two youths identifying themselves as Kristy and Michael besmirch a pair of sub sandwiches and the pizza chain's reputation. Michael inserts pieces of cheese into his nose and waves pieces of salami behind his backside. Both the salami and the cheese are placed on the sandwiches. The video had gotten more than 21,000 YouTube views at press time.
Apr 13, 2009
Wells Fargo & Co. has told securities analysts that it expects its first-quarter earnings will be $3 billion, easily topping the $2 billion it made during the same period last year. Bank of America is significantly hiking the interest rates it charges at least four million credit card customers, and other banks have or will institute programs to force borrowers to pay more, and/or pay more often. So the banks needed public bailouts in order to free up lending again, and they're going to make a killing while making it harder for credit card users to borrow? This isn't just a communications nightmare. It's real.
Apr 6, 2009
When considering the tools of social media and how they relate to your business communications needs, it’s important to think about two parts of the equation: possibility + function. These tools open up new ways to communicate, which is great. It also means that you have to consider what the functional goal of that communication means to your need.
Brian Solis
Mar 30, 2009
What follows is a detailed mission statement and instructional guide to help you successfully endeavor into the social world of online communication and relationships building.
Mar 25, 2009
Everyone wants the truth, right?
Ask your spouse or your boss or your employees or your customers… they’ll tell you all they want is the truth.
But that’s a lie.
Chris Brogan
Mar 25, 2009
I don’t have much use for case studies. Or rather, I collect them, but mostly to show other people. It’s not that they’re not useful. Instead, I just find that lots of people use case studies as excuses or defense to show the boss instead of as learning tools to better align their strategy. You might use yours just right. I use mine as springboards to build and plan.
Mar 22, 2009
Yes, PR is often about intentional deceit, but when done right even scorned companies can get a fair shake
Mar 18, 2009
You can pretty much bet on this: If consumers are looking for insurance these days, they're not going to AIG.
Mar 16, 2009
Status updates on sites such as Facebook, Yammer, Twitter and Friendfeed are a new form of communication, the South by SouthWest Festival has heard.
Mar 15, 2009
Beleaguered dealers frustrated with General Motors Corp. for sitting quietly on the sidelines are clamoring for a national ad campaign to counteract the daily drumbeat of negative news about whether the company will go belly up.
Mar 13, 2009
This puts marketers in a difficult position, as oil companies arerun by smart, principled people who see the situation, yet mistakenly believe that it can be best addressed by producing the worst sort of distracting, dishonest communications. Marketers and their agencies are all too willing to produce mainstream media advertising and digital campaigns claiming that the oil industry is actively working to get out of the oil business. No it isn't.
Richard Waters, Chris Nuttall and David Gelles
Feb 27, 2009
At first glance, Twitter has all the hallmarks of an internet fad. Britney does it and so does Lance.
Barack has been at it for ages. It comes with its own quirky language. Messages are known as tweets
and people who read your messages are called “followers”. Then there
are the particular Twitter culture and modes of behaviour: sociability
is enhanced by “retweeting” messages you find particularly illuminating
– rebroadcasting them to your own followers. Among hardcore users,
gratuitous self-promotion is frowned on.
Yet there is more to this new internet fashion than meets the eye.
Feb 11, 2009
The microblog site Twitter
has raised trivial communication to an art form. Inevitably, it has its
gala awards ceremony, complete with feuding contestants. Winners of the first annual Shorty Awards,
honoring users of the medium of 140-character messages, or tweets, will
gather to honor one another Wednesday evening in Brooklyn. For many,
it's a celebration not just of winning, but of surviving the drama of
it all.
Feb 8, 2009
One of my favorite coffee shops here in Raleigh is part of a strip
mall, and the businesses all share a common bathroom. Recently, someone
started locking the communal bathroom, and a sign was scotch-taped to
the door. In that inimitable management-font-style, the sign read: “THE
BATHROOMS HAVE BEEN LOCKED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE.”
Jan 18, 2009
At its peak on Saturday, 215 people a minute
were becoming fans of Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III on a Facebook
page set up to honor the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549. By 2 p.m. on Sunday, there were more than 300,000 fans and 14,000 wall posts. Meanwhile, Vitrue's Social Media Index was
showing scores for US Airways soaring since Thursday. At their peak,
the airline's scores were up 171% from its December average, reaching a
three-day average of plus-135%.
Dec 14, 2008
It’s a lovely idea: a social-networking site
with automatic translation bolted on. That’s Meedan, a gathering place
for English and Arabic speakers who want to exchange thoughts on Middle
East issues. Comments are translated automatically and instantly;
Nebraska can now chat with Nablus.
Seth Godin
Dec 12, 2008
Headlines matter now more than they ever did. Headlines provoke and introduce. They cajole and they position. No headline, no communication.
Davis Thinking
