Source: Shutterstock As brands and personalities race to establish online communities and host meaningful conversations in Social Media, Facebook continues to pave the roads that connect them. If your customers, prospects, and the peers who influence them are active in Facebook, Facebook Fan Pages are then not a question of if, but when and how they’re implemented and cultivated. Many brands and personalities underestimate the value and reach of social networking, instead opting to drive traffic and activity back to…
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…
Distributed Conversations and Fragmented Attention
There’s an incredible discussion circling the blogosphere aka The 250 aka The Echo Chamber regarding distributed conversations and the potential loss of control of our content. Normally I don’t let myself get caught up in every popular meme cycle, but this is a informative and important conversation and personally I think it’s worth your time. And, it just so happens to be a natural extension to my recent post, “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Conversation Has Left the Building,” which explores…
The Pitch is Dead – R.I.P.
Scroll below to read with a white background. We are gathered here to not mourn the death of “the pitch,” but to celebrate its life and how its misuse and oft irrelevance helped us improve the entire communications industry. R.I.P. Journalists and bloggers have had it and they’re fighting back. Quite honestly, it’s been a long time coming and we’re bound to see more blacklists and PR people called out for their mistakes. Hey, it happens to the best, and…
The Art of Letting Go: Now Is Gone Podcast Series #3
On the heels of the official book release, Geoff Livingston and I continue our podcast series discussing the seven principles of community engagement uncovered in Now is Gone. Message control is the antithesis of social media, which enables people to communicate The video “The Break-Up” serves as the ideal example of this culture clash (just replace the word “Advertising” on his shirt with “Public Relations” and play along Companies will lose their customer relationships if they don’t learn how to…
Participation Is Marketing: Now Is Gone Podcast Series #2
As the official Social Media Release from Bartelby Press hitting the streets today, so does part two of our podcast series discussing the seven principles of community engagement uncovered in the upcoming book, Now is Gone. In the “Participation Is Marketing” podcast we discuss: Most companies make the mistake of assuming that merely publishing blog posts is all they need to do to “participate.” Participation requires a shift from organizational-centric based communications to customer or community-centric communications – Think Customer…
Now is Gone Podcast Series #1 – Audience Versus Community
Only 14 days until the release of Now is Gone and to get things rolling, Geoff Livingston and I are recording a series of weekly podcasts to discuss the seven principles of community engagement uncovered in the book. The book is available for pre-orders at Amazon.com. You can download Podcast #1 here or stream it from the Now is Gone blog. Podcast #1 – Audiences versus Communities – One-way communications to audiences versus two-way conversational marketing within communities – The…
Deleting Users, Audience, and Messages from PR and Social Media
Attention PR and practicing Social Media professionals, step away from using “messages” to target “users” and “audience.” They are no longer filling the theaters, stadiums, and auditoriums to hear from marketers. I’ve been in tech PR since 91 and have been also guilty of using such terminology. Back in the day, users really were users in the tech business and when we were researching who they were, they would ultimately become the audience for our marketing initatives. Not everyone (aka…
