Credit: Geekadam While speaking at the intimate and immensely valuable Zappos Insights event (Zappos Live), I shared thoughts of how the culture of any company or brand is as strong as the individual personification of it. Everything starts and fortifies with you. Your actions and words online are indeed extensions to how people interpret, perceive, and react to the brand your represent. Concurrently, you also represent your personal brand – the digital identity that’s established through the collection of digital…
Real-Time Conversations Gain in Influence, Hasten Social CRM
This is the unabridged version of my latest post on TechCrunch, “Real-Time Conversations Hasten Social CRM“ At the Real-Time Stream Crunchup on Friday in Redwood City, TechCrunch Editor-in-Chief Erick Schonfeld hosted a panel of industry heavyweights who are either building solutions or defining how they’re used in the world of business communications and customer service. The panel included: – Porter Gale, Virgin America – John Ham, Ustream – Eric Marcoullier, Gnip – Ross Mayfield, SocialText – David Sacks, Yammer –…
The Internet is More Biology Than Technology: The Top 10 Ways to Monetize Twitter
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. When it comes to search, the most notable comparison between traditional and real-time discovery is represented in the difference between human memory and consciousness. The experience of searching for relevant information is personified in the context of what you’re doing and not necessarily that of what you’re…
Collecta Turns Internet’s Ocean of Data into a River of Real Time Information
I’m blogging from the Real-Time Stream event in Redwood City, California organized by TechCrunch. I will share more of my thoughts and observations in a series of posts at a later time – there’s just so much too process in “real time.” Let’s just say that the future of search, streams and the concept of the “Now Web” is blindingly bright. One of the presenting companies here is Collecta, a new take on Web search, social aggregation, and real-time aggregation…..
The Decline of Traditional Advertising and the Rise of Social Media
Forrester Research released its five year forecast that estimates interactive marketing spending from 2009 – 2014. Forrester predicts that interactive marketing in the US will near $55 billion and represent 21% of all marketing spend by 2014 and will include search marketing, display advertising, email marketing, social media, and mobile marketing. More significantly however, overall advertising in traditional media will continue to decline in favor of less expensive, more effective interactive tools and services. Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk alerts marketing…
BackType Connects the Conversation Graph
I’m a strong supporter of BackType and the work of Christopher Golda since the debut of the highly valuable comments search engine last September. Listening effectively requires extensive and active monitoring of not only blog posts and Tweets on Twitter, but also blog comments and other active networks that define the Conversation Prism. It’s how identify active communities that necessitate not only responses, but ongoing participation. BackType brings blog post comments into the spotlight. Whether you’re managing an online reputation…
The Top Social Brands of 2008: What’s Your Conversation Index?
Source Vitrue released a report on the Top Social Brands of 2008 based on an index the company launched last year. The top social brands list is a result of Vitrue’s daily analysis of over 2,000 popular brands. Each day, the team analyzes online conversations on a variety of social networking, blogging, microblogging, photo and video sharing sites. Virtue then applies a series of algorithms to measure the frequency of keyword usage, the size of the social media environment, and…
The Poetry of Social Networking to Court Customers and Invest in Relationships
Sean Percival is a published author, developer, blogger, and an overall online marketing and SEO expert. A short while ago, Sean asked if I would write the foreword for his new book, MySpace Marketing. Que, the book’s publisher, has graciously granted me permission to share the foreword with you. While the premise encompasses MySpace, as a social marketer, you could theoretically insert any “social network name” and find that the guiding principles and ideologies are perpetual. Enjoy… — In the…
Summize Listens to Conversations and Sentiment on Twitter
Just a bit ago, I wrote a post covering my favorite tools for monitoring conversations on Twitter. I’d like to add one more to the bunch. Recently launched Summize is similar to TweetScan, but also unique in its capabilities and in turn, changes how we may view Twitter search. At the very minimum, it’s a basic search tool that operates similar to how you would naturally search in Yahoo or Google. Both tools bring Twitter alive and expose the layers…
The Evolution of Press Releases
Thank you to Erick Schonfeld and Michael Arrington for giving me the opportunity share my vision, and experience, on the evolution of the press release on TechCrunch. There’s certainly no shortage of opinions on where we are and where we need to be in order to improve the working relationships between PR and bloggers, journalists, and analysts and the brands we ultimately represent – including our own. There are just better ways to share information, and hopefully, this post helps…
