Whether you plan to use social media for better PR outreach, marketing, or just listening to what customers have to say, the social media tools you use can play an important role in your business. What’s equally important is who uses those tools in your company’s name. Should you handle social media profiles yourself, or should you turn to a professional who can help you develop a solid social media strategy? [click to continue…]
I’m almost finished with my holiday shopping. But many people are still in full swing. Or maybe you haven’t even started yet. No matter where you are in the process do you think social media played (or will play) a role?
In this day and age I’d be very surprised if social media didn’t affect our holiday shopping in at least a small way. How? Here are a few examples of how social media might play a role in retail sales and your holiday shopping decisions. [click to continue…]
Recently I’ve torn into Mashable not one, but two, times. In both cases the issue had to do with them posting either misleading or downright false statistics and claims (and readers have since made me aware of two more instances with false headlines). People have been doing that for ages, so why did it bother me so much? It bothers me because that site has a large audience — an audience that seems to believe what they say, and an audience that proceeds to pass along that misinformation until it becomes “fact” in far too many minds, or even spreads to major media outlets (although that’s an issue all its own).
These stats issues have me wondering something. Does social media stop people from thinking for themselves? Have we lost the ability to think critically with the 24 hour news cycle and occasional blurs between general blog commentary and actual journalism (not that they’re mutually exclusive)? Let’s talk about it. [click to continue…]
First, let me say that I love Twitter. I was a slow convert, but love it despite its problems. And that said, I’m continually amazed by Twitter’s ability to create problems in an attempt to solve problems that were never really problems in the first place. “New Twitter” is just the latest example.
“Wait. What are you talking about?” I can hear a few of you thinking. Well, let’s see….
First Came the Retweet Button, Inhibiting Conversations
Retweeting has always been an important part of Twitter — the site’s viral element. It also enabled people to RT something while adding to the conversation (such as by tacking on a brief comment of their own). Then Twitter decided to add a RT button.
I think they really did mean well, given that the RT button meant you didn’t have to copy and paste in the original poster’s handle, saving you some of your 140 characters. But if it wasn’t to enable you to add more commentary of your own, how valuable is that saved space really? Not very much. [click to continue…]
I don’t make it a big secret that I’m not a fan of Facebook. Yet I don’t let the hype about the site get me down too much. That’s because I know it won’t be around forever — at least not in its current dominant role. You know how they say we can learn a lot from history. Well, that goes beyond war and politics. We can learn a lot about social media from its (brief) history as well. And that history shows a common social media lifecycle — one that I see Facebook already taking part in.
This isn’t an anti-Facebook post though. They’re just the largest current example of a social media site that seems to be going through this process. So let’s talk about it, where Facebook seems to be, and where some other big social media players are right now.
The Social Media Lifecycle: What it Applies To
I think it’s important to note that this social media lifecycle doesn’t apply to all social media properties equally. Not only will there always be exceptions to the rule, but this is something I’ve mostly observed from social media sites that start out with a niche focus and move into more general appeal. Those that stick to being niche social networks might not all be immune, but they do seem to go through the process much more slowly if at all. So, for example, this observation of a possible social media lifecycle would apply to sites like Myspace, Facebook, and Digg. However, we’ll mention a few that started out more generalized as well including Squidoo and StumbleUpon. [click to continue…]
You’ve certainly seen at least one Old Spice Guy video by now. (And if you haven’t, get out from under your rock.) They have a thriving YouTube Channel and Twitter account. The company made waves with their social media campaign where the Old Spice Guy — actor Isaiah Mustafa — would create personalized response videos to questions received via social media outlets.
Old Spice Guy Commercial
My first thought was “why didn’t anyone think of this before?” But actually, it’s nothing new. Companies have been directly responding to tweets and such for a while now. But Old Spice did something different. They merged advertising and entertainment almost seamlessly, turning ads into both likeable content and real conversations.
Personally, I love the campaign. There aren’t many ads I can honestly say I enjoy, but theirs are up there. They make me laugh. I actually seek out the videos instead of having ads intrusively shoved in my face. And that, folks, is (or should be) the future of advertising. But will it get old? [click to continue…]
Before I launched my online PR firm back in 2004, I worked in the nonprofit sector for a while. I was responsible for things like soliciting donations, helping to plan fundraising events, and hiring and supervising staff who took care of volunteer recruitment. At that time, social media didn’t really play any role in what we did. There was a lot of phone work involved instead.
In many cases, that’s very different today. Just a few short years later and social media is playing a significant role in bringing attention to causes, soliciting donations and more in the nonprofit world.
How are nonprofit organizations using social media today? Let’s explore that by taking a look at some examples.
Fundraising / Microfunding
One of my favorite examples of using social media in fundraising for nonprofits is a project from colleague Danny Brown — 12for12k.org. The 12for12k Challenge unites bloggers and other social media users globally to help raise awareness and funds to support different causes.
Spam. Eww. Who wants it, right? Unfortunately spam isn’t confined to email inboxes. It’s rampant in the world of social media. These days spam comes in all shapes and sizes, from entire blogs that are spam to itty bitty tweet spam. If you’re serious about using social media marketing to promote your business, you can’t afford to be labeled a social media spammer.
That “spammer” label can be a hard thing to shake. The thing is, you might earn the title completely unintentionally. What you consider innocent might be viewed very differently by the people you’re trying to reach through your social media marketing efforts. [click to continue…]
Why Spamming Social Media Won’t Get You Very Far
By Jennifer Mattern on April 5, 2010
Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
Spam. Eww. Who wants it, right? Unfortunately spam isn’t confined to email inboxes. It’s rampant in the world of social media. These days spam comes in all shapes and sizes, from entire blogs that are spam to itty bitty tweet spam. If you’re serious about using social media marketing to promote your business, you can’t afford to be labeled a social media spammer.
That “spammer” label can be a hard thing to shake. The thing is, you might earn the title completely unintentionally. What you consider innocent might be viewed very differently by the people you’re trying to reach through your social media marketing efforts. [click to continue…]
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