Simple communication strategies for a complicated world.
April 2nd, 2010

Social Networks Must Talk With Each Other

Social networks don’t talk with each other. They fight with each other. They’re not connecting to each other because they want to. They’re connecting with the bare minimum because they have to. With customers at the center of the product you think social networks would keep them in mind.

Let’s face it: you’re not leaving Twitter for Facebook or Facebook for LinkedIn. We all already did the social network solidification dance from Friendster to Myspace to Facebook. Now social networks each serve a very distinct purpose. In the near future they won’t. That’s exactly what social networks are afraid of and why they won’t talk with each other – solidification and redundancy.

I’m not concerned with that right now. As a consumer I’m concerned about time and efficiency, which I’m not getting. I need social networks to understand that I am @db on Twitter and /damienbasile on Facebook. Mainly what I need is for Facebook to be able to parse users Twitter @names into real linked Facebook names automatically. This is why I use Yakket on Facebook to filter out all Twitter messages with @names in them when sending them to Facebook.

People are sharing across multiple social networks at once nowadays. I can send a message from Foursquare to Twitter to Facebook & Linkedin. That’s just one message. I may be on multiple networks but if I’m optimizing my time to post across them all then these networks need to recognize who I am across every one.

Another way how they’re not speaking with each other: rich multimedia. I often post messages in Facebook that I’ve already shared in Twitter simply because links don’t expand to show an image with a blurb like they do natively in Facebook. Facebook is all about the experience. If I see an update with some words and just a plain link I’m most likely going to ‘next’ it. No, in fact I AM going to ‘next’ it.

Eventually I see one thing happening. The social web will become more of a web. You, your identity and your relationships and how they translate & relate will move to front and center. Social networks will feel more like channels that you can change to see what’s playing on another one. I could be wrong but I already am seeing more and more cross network chatter. It’s only a matter of time before this issue comes to a head.


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


March 26th, 2010

Social Media is Like Porn

I gave a talk at SXSW at Social Media Club Austin entitled how Social Media is Like Porn. I crowdsourced the quotes and attributed everyone who contributed. There was much more to my talk (you had to be there to truly know). Some may have been offended by the visuals included but I say this to them, social media is offensive, it doesn’t cater to everyone and if you aren’t offended then you’re consuming too much of your own dogma. Get offended, get riled up, challenge others. Social media is a discussion and a fight at times. If everything felt good all the time then we’d be drinking the kool-aid. Enough of that, on with the show:


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


March 21st, 2010

How @anywhere became @everywhere

(Originally published on Lunch: How @anywhere became @everywhere.)

Know how you’re really excited to hook up with the smoking hot girl in the corner only to realize that she kisses like a wet fish? That’s exactly how Evan Williams’ interview by Umair Hague went. The session started off with much tension hanging in the air as whispers of Twitter announcing a new product swept through the Austin Convention Center halls. The main keynote room quickly became packed and rooms all over the convention center were being turned into overflow rooms. I happened to get ushered in to the main room and find a seat pretty close up front.

And so the talk begins. Ev starts out by announcing @anywhere, which is Twitter profile rollovers enabled outside of Twitter on the rest of the internet. Exciting! At least it was to most of the attendees there. Our minds started reeling – what are the implications of this? what does the implementation for businesses look like? what are the analytics? can i customize it? what else can it do? Unfortunately none of those questions were answered and neither did they delve into @anywhere any deeper than just announcing it. From there they went to talking about Twitter ad nauseum.

I like Twitter as much as the next person but let’s be honest – your average person who has never heard of how Twitter was used in Haiti or other newsworthy situations will not be attending SXSW. SXSW is for tech-savvy people who want to learn about things on a deeper level. I knew early on that their conversation was not heading back to @anywhere, hence it went @everywhere. Some others knew this too as they started filing out of the main keynote room. At this point this was not the mass exodus everyone experienced. I’m not exactly sure what tipped other people off but I experienced it firsthand. I happened to sit down right opposite of the exit because my friend Lane was charging his phone by the Pepsi Podcast lounge. All of a sudden about 10 minutes later mass amounts of people started filing out of the auditorium. No, the talk wasn’t over – there was still 10 minutes left.

I’m not sure exactly what triggered the mass exodus but my guess is that it’s the old adage ‘nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd’. Here’s the bottom line: when you have a group of savvy internet people in one large room don’t tell them about your service that they’ve been using for a while already. Go into details about the new announcement. Doing so makes them feel special as they are witnessing history. Rehashing history live makes them feel like they’re wasting their time and ultimately they did. That’s why many people walked out. People vote with their feet and if your presentation isn’t up to their standards they will decide very quickly.

February 13th, 2010

Your Business is Business – Stop Socialwashing

Social media is an amazing medium that has allowed businesses of all kinds to connect with customers in a direct targeted real way. While it’s great it’s not a panacea. Social media isn’t a band-aid.

Social media is only as helpful as you are. What do I mean by this? As an addition that amplifies your original business efforts and customer service it is amazing. Once it starts taking center stage over your original efforts that’s when you run into problems. That’s socialwashing.

The icing on a cake may taste amazing but if the actual cake part is horrendous no one is going to eat it regardless of how tasty the icing is. If your business operations are shoddy and your customer service is flagging there’s only so much social media can do. There’s also only a certain amount of time you have to fool people that everything is alright with your sleight of hand magic tricks.

The danger comes into play when your original supporters – your evangelists – abandon you because you become too obssessed with social media and lose sight of your most important customers needs. It’s a sad day when you as the customer realizes that you must part ways with what has come to be a good friend.

A good friend isn’t someone who ignores their friend’s basic needs and is only cares about fun. That’s a fairweather friend. That’s exactly what socialwashing is.

December 8th, 2009

Facebook promotes email connect because of slow growth?

Is Facebook promoting Google’s Gmail Connect service as a way to get more users onto Facebook? Or is Google taking out ad space to promote their connect tool? More than likely it’s an internal Facebook effort as the logos of Yahoo, AOL, Windows Live and Gmail are all represented in the ad. So why now?

As Mashable and GigaOm both report Facebook’s growth is slowing. As they both point out Facebook has refocused their strategy by eliminating regional networks in place of a global focus and added new products such as Facebook Lite and Facebook Touch Mobile. One thing is for sure – the users Facebook already has aren’t going anywhere, as there are no clear alternatives to the social network behemoth (at least in the US).
The question on my mind is this – will Facebook start creating ads to start pulling in your Twitter and LinkedIn friends to your Facebook network? They’ve created a fan page post to Twitter tool so it’s not that far of a stretch, especially concerning the strength of their network. Only time will tell but this is a move that Facebook would clearly benefit from if they implemented it.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from db’s digital branding database


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


November 10th, 2009

Motorola Droid + Foursquare = Social Media Branding

A strong brand pays attention to details. A smart brand connects with the connectors in memorable ways that may not be readily quantifiable. A savvy brand knows that there are many factors involved in making something a hit or miss. Motorola is all of these and more when it comes to Droid.

On Android day, Cake Group put together an amazing event for Motorola’s Droid release. Their efforts went beyond the day of with connecting with various influencers beforehand to seed articles after the fact.

The branding brilliance comes into play with the attention to details. Customized shortened urls were created just for the event:

Press Release for Droid: http://bit.ly/MotoDroid
Link to Droid specs/product info: http://bit.ly/MotorolaDroid
Pictures from last night: http://bit.ly/MotoLaunchParty

The invitation was elegant, simple and overall top-notch:

What really set them apart was Motorola’s use of Foursquare in a relevant and timely way:

Motorola Foursquare

If that wasn’t enough, the piece that pulled it all together was the fact that the launch party took place in Morimoto, the famous Japanese restaurant. MoriMOTO, MOTOrola - very slight but very intentional and very effective.

With Motorola the attention is in the details. At every turn there was a robot, or droid, to reinforce that we were there in fact for the DROID launch. By the end of the party none of the robot droids were left, as they were almost as coveted as the DROID itself. Another small detail was the DROID branded photo-booth downstairs, which came with props like a giant inflatable 90′s-era cellphone and a raygun, as well as an alien backdrop.

Attention to details doesn’t stop after the party: I have it on good authority that Cake Group also added tips to every Verizon store on DROID day (11-6-9) to clue people in to the new Motorola DROID. While Foursquare may not be completely mainstream yet one thing is for sure – the people that ARE using advanced social networking services are the ones who are buying these new mobiile computing “phones”. With the proliferation of these advanced communication devices it’s only a matter of time before everyone is using one. Until then we have companies like Motorola and Cake Group who are using branding purposefully to guide us along the way.


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


November 3rd, 2009

Social media networking basics for professionals

Via http://www.intersectionconsulting.com/

 

What do you want out of social media? If you’re looking for fun then it doesn’t really matter where you begin. If you are looking to utilize it to network professionally in some capacity then there is a very specific place to start with it.

Of course social media can and should be used as a reflection of your offline life, so more than likely you will have a good mixture of both pleasure and professional. That being said, here’s a great place to start if you’re looking to grow your professional network:

Sign up to Facebook, Twitter and Linked-in. Add relevant profile/bio info on all of them. Use your universal avatar on all of them. Since these are my three main social networks I generally change my avatar on all three to show an updated recent acceptable photo. All of my other networks have the same exact photo of me that isn’t the most recent one.

The most important thing to add to social networks is a clear, close photo that people can relate to. This isn’t the time to be creative or artistic. You can do that in other photos that are not your avatar. This is the photo that draws them in. Any other photos show your personality.

If you function online professionally you must have a professional link. Whether it be your website, blog or even JUST your Linked-in or visual cv  link, you MUST have a link that allows the viewer to find more information about you.

Once you’ve put all your information in your social network bios I would double check it for grammar, cadence and keywords. Keywords are important- ESPECIALLY on Twitter- because this is how people find you in searches on these sites. For example, if you’re in construction management you would put those two words plus any major relevant words in your bio. In your Twitter bio you only have 160 words to tell people who you are so it’s EXTREMELY important to get to the point and just list the major things you do with the specific keywords.

On Twitter it’s also important to talk about these topics often but not in a robotic manner. Be aware of your conversations and how you are saying something. There are people out there monitoring keywords in search.twitter.com for real-time mention of them so they can connect with like minds. There are also people who automatically add anyone who mentions certain keywords. There are many tools to monitor keywords mentioned in real time but I would start with a simple search.twitter.com  search to add people who are talking about what you’re interested in.

Join groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and become active in them. Once you meet new people in Twitter add them on Facebook and LinkedIn to further extend your relationships. Also, be sure to build your local connections (or connections where you travel often to) because nothing is more important than extending online relationships offline. Also, besides just extending online relationships offline, extend offline relationships online. Find out people’s social network information and add them right away if you can.

This is a beginning. You’ll learn more as you go. Just remember that your social networks are only as valuable as the time and effort you put into them. Every network changes as your relationships blossom. Cultivate them and soon enough you’ll begin to prosper.


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


October 26th, 2009

iTunes app store gets suggestions… just not the right ones

A necessary and brilliant move, Apple has added suggestions to their receipt to give a valid call to action. The only problem is the suggestions are based on what others who bought my selections also bought. While this is helpful in giving more suggestions I’d actually like suggestions based on what I bought that’s relevant to me.

Semantic technology may still be in it’s infancy but relevancy can be given based on many other factors. I personally don’t need an app to view my pet pictures on my Mac remotely (Clarus), a separate app to read a blog (Pali Research), and I certainly don’t need to track my neuroses (SymTrend). If Apple knew me they’d know that I don’t have a pet, am reading my blogs via my6sense now and have overcome neuroses long ago.

Tagging is a very simple technology that is successfully implemented by many brands. Foursquare has taken descriptive tagging to another level by crowd sourcing this task and rewarding for levels of input. If the ‘Give Work’ app was properly tagged it would’ve been able to suggest other apps that are similar in the social good, social change categories and crowd sourcing categories. I would even accept most recently added app suggestions, most popular in category, or even what other users in my area downloaded [which they can do because they have my address].

Suggestions are a step forward but these aren’t enough for me. For now I’ll keep archiving my iTunes receipts so I can search through my download history, as Apple doesn’t allow you to do that easily. If apps like my6sense can learn my preferences then surely a large company with vast resources like Apple can figure out how to do the same.

Posted via email from db’s digital branding database


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


October 23rd, 2009

Facebook’s New Touchscreen Interface vs. Mobile Interface

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Facebook

Facebook recently released a touchscreen optimized interface for phones such as the iPhone and android models. It’s interesting that even though Facebook is one of the most downloaded social networking iPhone apps that Facebook is still continuing to optimize the mobile web on many different fronts.

Considering they just launched their newly redesigned homepage in a more streamlined newsfeed focused way it makes me wonder if this addition is within their overall brand vision for their user interface and user experience.

One thing I DO like about the new Touch interface is the Phone section (Also notice the new notifications red icon in the upper left corner). It focuses on who you can call, as opposed to the mobile interface which focuses on all your friends and pointing out who has their phone number listed with a phone icon.

What do you think about the differences? Not enough? Too much? What other changes should be made?

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from db’s digital branding database


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


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