For decades, companies were very good at pushing messages into markets and talking at people rather than with them. Now companies are embracing the idea of two-way interaction. Monitoring conversations is becoming standard procedure as small and enterprise businesses alike make substantial investments in tools such as Radian6, Sprial16 and Brandtology. And, not only are companies monitoring conversations, they’re adopting social media management systems (SMMS) such as Seesmic and CoTweet to operationalize conversations and platforms such as Objective Marketer, PeopleBrowsr…
The Pivot Conference: Your Questions Answered, Part 2
As the host and editorial director for this year’s Pivot Conference, I asked early registrants what was on their mind. I received a fair amount of questions and wanted to share the answers with you here in case you’re thinking about similar topics. Here’s part 2 of 3. You can read part 1 here. What 3 things are mandatory when building and sustaining a community? The first thing is to realize that consumers most likely do not want to build…
The Pivot Conference: Your Questions Answered, Part 1
The Pivot Conference is designed for brands and their agencies and will take place October 17th and 18th in New York. This year’s theme focuses on an important shift in marketing as brands respond to “The Rise of the Social Consumer.” As the host and editorial director for the event, I asked early registrants what it was that they wanted to know as they prepare for the event this Fall. I took some time to answer their questions and will…
Cisco’s Foray into Brand Journalism
This guest post is by John Earhardt, Director of Social Media Communications at Cisco on the important of brand journalism. You can follow him on Twitter @urnhart. Why My Mom Invented Social Media As Brian Solis stated in a recent blog entry, “social media has never been about the technology as much as it has been governed by social science.” There you have it! Brian Solis has just confirmed that my mom invented social media. No, my mom’s last name…
The Hashtag Economy
Hashtags are to the social web what emoticons were to Web 1.0 and TXTing. While both are forms of expression and sentiment, there is one subtle, but vital difference. Hashtags are not only part of online culture, they are defining a new era of communication on the Web and IRL (in real life). With over 140 million Tweets flying across Twitter every day, hashtags surface a method to the madness – the ability to group conversations into an organized timeline….
A Social Democracy: The White House learns to listen
We are now entering an era of sociopolitical influence, a framework for governments that influences and is influenced by its constituencies through real life interaction and now, new media. Some may say that this isn’t anything new. Certain governments over the years embraced the aspects of digital community in Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. Many also believe that President Obama is the first “Social Media” President. I, however, am a far more pragmatic optimist. While many governments and also President…
A Conversation about 2011 – 2012 Trends in Social Media
While attending LeWeb in Paris, I caught up with the 99Faces crew to discuss trends in social media for 2011 and 2012. Among the many topics we touch, we spent a fair amount of time exploring the evolving influence of social media on… – Mainstream lifestyle and culture – The rise of curation – Elevating the importance of transparency and engagement between businesses and customers – Businesses dynamics and the need to open the doors between silos – Politics and…
The End of the Destination Web and the Revival of the Information Economy
In recent weeks journalism and the future of all media have once again gone under the knife. Experts on either side of new media debated whether or not Twitter’s CNN moment truly was indicative of the future of journalism. Twitter’s role in the spread of online dialogue speculating the death of Osama Bin Laden was studied at great depths to better understand when and where news actually surfaces, how it’s validated, and how news travels across the Web and in…
6 Ways Social Media Helps Your Presentation Resonate
Guest post by Nancy Duarte, founder of Duarte, author of Resonate and Slide:ology. Follow her on Twitter and read her blog. Social media has forced presentations to become an interactive conversation. Presenters who embrace audience participation are connecting their audiences to their ideas in a more meaningful way. Using social media as a connection tool goes beyond just looking at the twitter feed to assess if you were boring or not. There are six ways to utilize social media while…
The Rules of Social Media Engagement
A study published in 2010 surfaced a startling statistic, “75 percent of employers say their business has no formal policy instructing employees on the appropriate use of social networking sites on the job.” The report, “Employer Perspectives on Social Networking,” compiled data from 34,000 businesses in 35 countries. Does your organization have a formal policy regarding employee use of social media? Perhaps better asked, does your organization offer training, guidelines, and insights to help employees excel in new media on…
