Over the past few years I have been a vocal and vigorous supporter of the Social Media Release (SMR) for one simple reason – it represented a new and promising opportunity to renew the dialog around improving the foundation for the communication of news, information, and events that left most immune to its overdue potential. It wasn’t a new tool to package the useless and hollow marketing “speak” that is prevalent in so many releases today. It was and is…
Media 2.0 Workgroup Announces Best Practices
As one of the founding members of the Media 2.0 Workgroup, I contribute to the greater collective of intellectual activity dedicated to advancing media and communication. Fellow members, Chris Saad and Stowe Boyd have been discussing the ethics and best practices around social media and social tools specifically with Eric Blantz and Khris Loux with specific regard to JS-Kit. Independently, I have also discussed and supported a more people-focused approach to connecting with courtesy of those companies that continually force…
Top Trends and Apps: How Do People Use Twitter?
My friends over at HubSpot released the latest market data that reveals which tools and services people are flocking to when communicating on Twitter. According to the research, most people interact on Twitter using Twitter.com from their browser of choice – almost half of all users in fact. Note to hubspot, would love to see that data broken out by browser. Second, and it’s a distant second, people are interacting on Twitter using downloaded or web-based desktop apps, which provide…
Facebook and the Future of User Generated Governance
Shot at Web 2.0 Summit 2008 Facebook is learning to listen. In the middle of February 2009, the company was yet again a “Beacon” for bad PR as it introduced an updated Terms of Service (Tos) for its entire community of users. We the people responded with defiance and vigor and the company retracted its new language, reverted to the previous ToS, and listened to the valuable feedback that poured in from the community. By all accounts, this was the…
The Ties that Bind Us – Visualizing Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks
Credit Bernardo A. Huberman, Daniel M. Romero and Fang Wu of the Social Computing Laboratory at HP Labs conducted an in-depth study of the relationships that power Twitter. The team recently released its report, “Social networks that matter: Twitter under the microscope.” The abstract: Scholars, advertisers and political activists see massive online social networks as a representation of social interactions that can be used to study the propagation of ideas, social bond dynamics and viral marketing, among others. But the…
Yelp Gets a Bad Review: Embracing a Crisis to Shape Perception
Source This post highlights the nuances associated with crisis communications and not the merit of either case. In the era of socialized media, brands and businesses are now vulnerable to a new era of influencers – their customers. But what happens when the community that championed consumer experiences is accused of exploiting them to extort advertising dollars from the businesses affected by the reviews? User generated reviews aren’t necessarily a brand new concept, epinions, Amazon, among any others have provided…
Facebook and the Reality of Your Online Content
Shot at SXSWi 2008 A few news outlets reached out to me for comment regarding the uproar sparked by the recent change to Facebook’s Terms of Service (ToS). It inspired a public response as I am not only someone who spends a significant amount of time in the online social field studying digital anthropology and new marketing, I’m also a willing participant in and contributor to the Facebook economy. So, why is everyone upset? When you read the new ToS,…
Twibs Connects Customers to Businesses on Twitter
Twitter continues to inspire creativity and innovation among third-party developers. The latest useful solution is Twibs, a directory of businesses using Twitter to communicate with consumers, peers, and tastemakers. Twitter is a conversation platform and it continues to fundamentally transform how people communicate with each other. Along with other socialized channels of online interaction, Twitter has also re-ignited the long-forgotten art of listening to and communicating with customers. What started with forums and online reviews, then evolved to include blog…
Make Tweet Love – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
be tweet Twitter is an incredible medium for listening, learning, and sharing. And, for those in the media and communications industries, it’s also a rapid and immersive education in meaningful, two-way micro messaging that helps both parties walk away with a new form of value. While there are no shortage of posts that offer tips and tricks to help you boost your Twitter followers, it is by no means a popularity contest. The surmounting ploys, friending races, theatrics, and contests…
The 2009 Semmys Honor The Conversation Prism
Every year The Semmys nominates the best posts in marketing. Last year, the Social Media Manifesto was recognized and this year, The Conversation Prism was spotlighted. Thank you! When Jesse Thomas of JESS3 and I started to lay the foundation for the Conversation Prism, we realized that it was a much larger task then simply categorizing social networks and placing them within a visually-rich graphic or chart. My goal was to observe, analyze, dissect, and present the dynamics of conversations,…
