March 12, 2008
SXSW: Rude is Rude, Enough is Enough
Let's pretend you've paid good money to see a major new theatrical production in your city. It's not going well, and after a while, you get bored and antsy. What is your first reaction?
February 6, 2008
Five Easy Ways to Build Sustainable Word-of-Mouth
Joan Stewart recently posted to her WomenCorp site a list of top 10 tips for free publicity. I definitely applaud Joan for creating this list, because the tips are terrific and entirely valid methods of building short-term Word-of-Mouth (WOM). But free publicity (or “some quick buzz” as the client usually calls it) is inherently fleeting. To build long-term sustainable WOM, I would like to add this to the list: focus on the product/service itself.
December 28, 2007
Inviting Outsiders In Helps Companies 'Live Long and Prosper'
Recently, I ran across a post that was rather fascinating. The blog ran an article about how the crew filming a certain outer space adventure movie transformed a local civic board's meeting room into a futuristic center of intergalactic government. Rather than try and kick out all the interested onlookers, they invited them in to watch and participate. Of course, the participants all had to sign NDAs, but all too often, these are not worth the paper they're printed on. It's only a matter of time before the leaks start dribbling out. What's going on here?
November 30, 2007
Get Mad! Target and Drillteam's Ethics Lapse Much Worse than a Faux Pas
Josh Hallett recently asked a good question -- why was Target getting a relative slap on the wrist when another big retailer (Wal-Mart) is still being used as a textbook case for social media ethics lapse? If you read the comments, what you get is, "What Target did wasn't wrong. It was a faux pas." ...Faux pas? That's poppycock!
October 8, 2007
Sputnik, the Internet, and WOW Moments
On October 4, 1957, a small sphere roughly the size of a beach ball hurtled around the Earth. It had been catapulted into orbit from an unnamed town in central Kazakhstan by a team whose identity would be cloaked in secrecy for decades. Quietly broadcasting a simple series of beeps, the message was received loud and clear by the entire world: Sputnik (and the future) had arrived.
September 28, 2007
It's Not About You
Lois Kelly, author of Beyond Buzz and principal of Foghound, recently posted something rather profound on her blog. In a recent meeting, Mike Lundgren, Creative Technology Director for interactive agency VML, made a comment that made me sit up in my chair when I first read it....
September 24, 2007
Social Networks: Go or No-Go for Growth?
Last week, I delivered an overview on the social media universe to a client entitled Social Media University. During the conversation about social networking, one of the executives asked me for my opinion of whether or not they ought to consider starting their own channel or network on one of the Big Two (MySpace and Facebook) or create their own.
September 19, 2007
How to Start Being Successful in Social Media
“This happened once before, when I came to your door,
No reply.”
- The Beatles, “No Reply” from Beatles ‘65
When asked to define social media, here is one way I have done it: “Social media is about effectively using online media to enable and/or create conversation.” Of course, the next question is usually “How do I generate conversation?”
September 11, 2007
Social Media on the Day Everything Changed
All too often, when we talk about social media, undue attention and focus gets placed on the technology. It’s easy to understand why. Technology is sexy and exciting, and it’s fun to write about it with an exclamation point after it (Twitter! Facebook! YouTube!).
September 6, 2007
Mattel Apology Leaves Social Media Toys Unwrapped and Unused
Over on the WOMMA Facebook Group, Shannon Stairhime has started a conversation about the Mattel situation. In the post, Shannon asks for evaluations of Mattel’s performance in building consumer trust. Here’s my take: It was a great apology. WOM success? Not even close.
|
