Sometimes not everything goes according to plan. When Tagged.com recently changed their registration process traffic to their site spiked. In this case study I take a look at the spike in relation to the circumstances surrounding it. I answer whether or not the spike was a reaction to events or the spike itself affected Tagged.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced today that the state of Texas had reached an agreement with Tagged, Inc., a social networking site that was accused of tricking users into providing access to their address books. As part of the agreement, Tagged has to pay $250,000, which includes the cost of the state’s investigation.
After Tagged had access to a user’s address book, the social networking site sent messages that appeared to come directly from the user, offering to share photos with the recipient. When a recipient tried to view the pictures, which often didn’t even exist, they were prompted to sign up, giving Tagged access to their address book and continuing the deceptive practice.
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
While most of you were obsessing over the Kanye West meme taking the internet by storm, Twitter quietly rolled out an update to their brand image. They killed off the Spam Owl and replaced him with their happy-go-lucky mascot Twitter bird. This comes right on the heels of an update to their TOS many of you have already received by now.
This most recent change is just an extension of their homepage image revamp that focuses more on search and trending topics now.
One thing we know for sure with Twitter is that most of what they implement is done without fanfare in stages. Just as the TOS has been implemented over the course of the last week, the default avatar isn’t changing all at once. In fact, it’s changing over time into many different flavors: purple, dark blue, baby blue, lime green, dark green, orange, dark red so far.
Even with the staggered rollout, established users with their own custom avatars are already having issues:
We’ve already seen the Fail Whale go the way of the dodo in place of a generic 503-error page. Only time will tell what images will replace the other now iconic characters of Technically Wrong Robot, and Maintenance Caterpillar & Chill Ice Cream Cone. What other image changes and default avatar colors have you spotted?
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
Tr.im has recently announced that they are shutting down due to non-monetization. According to their press release they “cannot find a way to justify continuing to work on it”. While they may have shopped it around and “no one perceived any value in it, or they wanted to operate a shortener under a differently branded domain name.” I have some ideas on what should happen with their service.
Tr.im is the best brand name for a URL shortener out there. You know EXACTLY what it does by the name (it trims it), plus it’s only 5 characters while most others (including bit.ly) are at least 6. In a character sensitive environment where novices may stumble upon your links these two items are very important.
Here’s some thoughts on who should buy Tr.im:
Twitter
As of now Twitter has no personal URL shortening service. They made the move from TinyURL to Bit.ly and can just as easily move to their own in-house shortening service. Why is this important? Twitter has been building out their features, and most recently redesigned their homepage to focus on search. By having an in-house trimming service they can create a more seamless experience for their users. They can also own the statistics and analytics. This will be increasingly important for monetization, gauging the depth of their network, figuring out the velocity of messages spread and their growth and keeping their users on their site longer.
Bit.ly is currently Twitter’s default shortening service. There are other competitors but this factor has strongly bolstered bit.ly’s rise through the ranks. Acquiring all of tr.im’s shortened URLs along with their proprietary name would benefit them greatly. Bit.ly could redirect all tr.ims to bit.ly’s platform, so essentially you will be seeing bit.ly’s analytics coupled with tr.im’s name.
One thing IS for certain though: the recent social network DDoS attack and Tr.im’s announcement of their closure reaffirms the fragility of social media properties. A site can be inaccessible or close down at any time, so don’t hedge your bets on any particular one just yet.
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
Michael Jackson is an icon of our time who will always be remembered as the King of Pop. Pepsi is the King of (Soda)Pop, especially in social media. The combination of these legendary icons resulted in a series of commercials that will go down in branding history as a marriage made in heaven.
Here is a sampling of their work together:
Pepsi continues to be influenced by Michael Jackson even today and is primed to make the most of their heritage:
If Pepsi can create a Jacksons World Tour can back in ’84 they surely can create a Michael Jackson Tribute can. This is an epic moment in history for everyone especially them:
Generation Y.
Millenials.
Me, I’m a part of the Pepsi Generation.
RIP MJ.
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
I’m all for great branding, as you can see in one of my previous posts, Simple Branding. Branding should look, sound and feel good. It should be cool, catchy and let people know quickly what your brand is all about. But, there is another critical branding component that will make or break your brand. I call it The UN-Brand.
The UN-Brand is what evolves from your brand, rather unintentionally. It’s the culture, personality and tenor of your brand. It’s what people are left with after an encounter with your company, its people and your service. It speaks just as loudly as your masthead or logo, even more so. It can make or break your brand.
How you treat your customers, your brand voice, enthusiasm for your product, services and clients, how your employees and customers are valued, and other intangibles make up your UN-Brand. They are the unwritten, unspoken qualities that exude from your brand. It’s what people are saying about you once you walk away or after you’ve performed a service. It’s more than customer service. The UN-Brand develops from within and comes from the core values that your company and Brand actually embrace and embody. It’s the “how” behind the “what” of your brand. It’s the character of your company and how you get the job done that makes up your UN-Brand.
Your UN-Brand will reveal itself on its own. I’ve witnessed this with my own brand. My area of expertise is Strategic Communications and Relationship Building skills, specifically, Social Media, Business Communications, and Interpersonal Interactions. I teach and train people how to communicate effectively, position and promote their brand, attract customers and get great results. If you look at comments from customers and clients who interact with me, you’ll hear words like: dynamic, inspiring, joyful, open-hearted, motivating, insightful, authentic, transparent, and compelling. Not much to do with the what of my brand but a lot about how I get the job done.
Another great example of UN-Branding in action is the SAS Corporation. SAS is the definitive leader in analysis and business software. They are known worldwide for excellence in analytics. They’re also known for some amazing things that have nothing to do with their brand that clearly set them apart from other companies. SAS is known for how well they treat their employees.
I would argue that it is probably one of the biggest reasons that their products are great and they have such wide success without being a publicly traded company. In an article by 60 Minutes called “Working the Good Life“, you find that the company has only 3% turnover, offers employees a 90% discount to the company owned country club, has in-house social workers to help employees with problems and so much more. They’ve developed a culture of creativity, innovation and results through treating people as if they are a valued, trusted resource.
Some of the intangible qualities that make up the UN-Brand
Trust
Transparency
Authenticity
Empathy
Outlook and Attitude
Creativity
Culture
Community Involvement
Charisma
How to develop a great UN-Brand
Ask yourself the following questions to develop a great presence.
How do we want to be perceived by customers, suppliers, vendors and employees?
What are our Core Values?
How do we want employees and customers to feel as a result of a business relationship or employment with our company?
Allow these three questions to be the platform of developing your mission and vision statements for your company and your brand.
The ends do not justify the means. Attention to how we grow is just as important as the growth. I challenge people to consider how they want to be perceived in the marketplace and think of those intangible qualities that go beyond efficiency and numbers. Allow that desired perception to guide your brand as well. While numbers and results are critically important, none of it matters if you, your company or employees have poor interactions, communication and encounters with clients and customers.
Brands and companies are made up of living, breathing people who are interacting with other people to provide a product or service. How your customers feel about the service along with the service itself keeps them coming back. By attention to the how everything gets done, your desired perception and how you want people to, UN-Brand
Recently during NY Internet Week I had the pleasure of having dinner with Brian Solis [@briansolis] (among others) where Nicole Jordan [@nicolejordan] joined us. Nicole began speaking about how she has resorted to calling what she does as ‘integrated communications’. Brian proceeded to say that that’s just another way of saying ‘public relations’. He should know more than anyone else as he wrote ‘Putting The Public Back In Public Relations.’ The question that came out of our conversation is this: Is it time to stop calling it PR and call it anything else?
Public relations, integrated communications, holistic branding- they all speak about conveying your core values in a message for others. When you ask most people what they think of the word PR many will tell you ‘spin’ or press release. As a communications professional you will need to use spin in crisis situations but not all the time. And yes, you will need to send out press releases but these two tactics do not make a public relations professional.
“There is no doubt in my mind that eventually all PR agencies and consultants will follow suit and transform from publicity firms into New Media communications and marketing organizations rich with in house or contracted content producers, digital sociologists, research librarians, community managers, digital architects, connectors, and industry experts/strategists.” ~Brian Solis. It may not be long until all PR professionals are new media agents just as he predicts.
Social media has changed the discipline of communications forever. Instead of corporations talking at you, they’re now attempting to talk with you. Social media is now used professionally by many different corporations successfully- Dell, Whole Foods, Ford, Pepsi, among others. Some have had social media backlash against them (Motrin) while others use social media as a shiny new toy (Skittles). In order for social media tactics to ring true you must weave them in at the base level to reflect your core values.
This is how social media has returned public relations to its roots.
The stigma of the word ‘PR’ may be so great that we may need to stop focusing on what we are called and focus on what we do. What do we stand for? How is that being reflected in what we do? What can we offer others? This is the key.
Gone are the days where you can use a channel of communications to say ‘look at me’. If you can’t use those same channels to say ‘look, it’s me, i’m here for you’ then you’re toast. People get right away when someone isn’t being genuine. We have too much stimulus and not enough time in today’s world. For you to stand out from the crowd you must be true to what you stand for and only want to help those who align with you.
It doesn’t matter what you call it- PR, public relations, integrated communications, holistic branding. What matters is that you make sure your client’s communications are synced across every single platform (design, branding, marketing, advertising, social media, etc).
The hucksters and the spin-doctors have ruined the good name of PR by taking the focus off of the public and putting it on themselves. It’s not about me me me or you you you. It’s about us us us.
Doing business at all costs is no longer viable. Doing business at the best costs is the new modus operandi. Regardless of what you call the discipline the ones who will get ahead will be those who can align their values with their customers. And that’s the truth.
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
Follow Friday is a plague on Twitter and social media. It’s a Trojan Horse. It’s a seemingly harmless interaction wrapped in niceties. Even giving in to it one bit is fueling the fire even more. You’re a part of the problem if you’re not a part of the solution. Here’s why those who participate in follow friday don’t get social media and never will.
Social media isn’t about sharing at all costs. It’s about sharing at the best cost. It’s about pull NOT push.
Let’s relate follow friday into offline terms. You’re at a party (I know, because social media is one big party) and someone walks in saying that everyone there MUST know Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane. Now that’s not exactly social is it? The person literally just disrupted the party to tell everyone who they SHOULD know. It doesn’t matter if you know the disrupter or not. What matters is that the disrupter decided that their opinion was worth more than yours. They didn’t think of you first.
Social media is about pull. Social media is about personalization. Social media is about those two things plus connections. Take out pull and personalization and you just have the old way of doing things- a connection based on me telling you what to do. When you act without thinking of others first you come up with a bunch of unintended consequences.
To those of you who are moving Follow Friday off of Twitter to other areas I have one word of advice to you: don’t. You are the worst type of person, the enabler. SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T ABOUT YOU. Social media is about everyone else. Start thinking of them first, not yourself. Blanket recommendations are akin to stereotypes- you’re covering a large landscape and inadvertently encompassing those who shouldn’t be involved in the first place.
The only way to break the cycle of me me ME is to think about you you YOU. If you care about the person you are promoting enough then TRULY care about them. Shouting to the world why they’re great is a step in the right direction but it doesn’t go far enough or stay true to social media. Personalize it.
Others and I have resorted to avoiding Twitter altogether on Fridays. The noise is so loud it drowns out the actual useful signal. I schedule blog posts around Friday now. If I’m writing about someone else they tell me to post it any day BUT Friday. This is the law of unintended consequences. It won’t be long until Friday is a day without any substance- the social media equivalent to junk food. It tastes good but you get sick of too much of it.
Remember, this is a party. What’s more meaningful- Having someone you may or may not know well proceed to tell the whole party exactly why Zoe is amazing OR having someone you know well introduce you two to each other because they feel the both of you would be a great fit? See the difference?
Social networking is a whole different ball game. Wait, no it isn’t. If you wouldn’t dream of doing what you do online in an offline setting then don’t do it. If you still think it’s okay to shout how awesome people are at other people (no matter how in-depth you get) then maybe you shouldn’t be in social media. Social media is about them not you. It’s not your time to shine it’s their time to shine. Be useful and thoughtful in all your interactions by micro-personalizing them.
THINK how your actions will affect another person before you do them. When you think of the other person first then it leaves little room for misinterpretation. Don’t be ‘that guy’ at the party and ruin it for everyone. Be the AMAZING party host that introduces two guests to one another. I GUARANTEE people will be talking about YOU before long.
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
Start by asking yourself 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, either for yourself or your corporate brand, then there is a very specific place to start with it.
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 personal and professional. That being said, here’s a great place to start if you’re looking to grow your professional network: Read the rest of this entry »
There’s a scene in The Wizard of Oz I can’t get out of my head. The flying monkeys have attacked; the Scarecrow has been torn apart. What’s left of the Scarecrow laments: “First they took my legs off and they threw them over there! Then they took my chest out and they threw it over there!”And the Tin Woodsman looks down and replies: “Well, that’s you all over!”
The world is a changing place. Tools may come and go but you'll always have your toolbox.
What you do with it is up to you.
Damien Basile
Who:
Damien is a communications strategy consultant and entrepreneur. He currently is working on a stealth startup so don't ask him what it is. He won't tell you.
While most of you were obsessing over the Kanye West meme taking the internet by storm, Twitter quietly rolled out an update to their brand image. They killed off the 
The UN-Brand
I’m all for great branding, as you can see in one of my previous posts, Simple Branding. Branding should look, sound and feel good. It should be cool, catchy and let people know quickly what your brand is all about. But, there is another critical branding component that will make or break your brand. I call it The UN-Brand.
The UN-Brand is what evolves from your brand, rather unintentionally. It’s the culture, personality and tenor of your brand. It’s what people are left with after an encounter with your company, its people and your service. It speaks just as loudly as your masthead or logo, even more so. It can make or break your brand.
How you treat your customers, your brand voice, enthusiasm for your product, services and clients, how your employees and customers are valued, and other intangibles make up your UN-Brand. They are the unwritten, unspoken qualities that exude from your brand. It’s what people are saying about you once you walk away or after you’ve performed a service. It’s more than customer service. The UN-Brand develops from within and comes from the core values that your company and Brand actually embrace and embody. It’s the “how” behind the “what” of your brand. It’s the character of your company and how you get the job done that makes up your UN-Brand.
Your UN-Brand will reveal itself on its own. I’ve witnessed this with my own brand. My area of expertise is Strategic Communications and Relationship Building skills, specifically, Social Media, Business Communications, and Interpersonal Interactions. I teach and train people how to communicate effectively, position and promote their brand, attract customers and get great results. If you look at comments from customers and clients who interact with me, you’ll hear words like: dynamic, inspiring, joyful, open-hearted, motivating, insightful, authentic, transparent, and compelling. Not much to do with the what of my brand but a lot about how I get the job done.
Another great example of UN-Branding in action is the SAS Corporation. SAS is the definitive leader in analysis and business software. They are known worldwide for excellence in analytics. They’re also known for some amazing things that have nothing to do with their brand that clearly set them apart from other companies. SAS is known for how well they treat their employees.
I would argue that it is probably one of the biggest reasons that their products are great and they have such wide success without being a publicly traded company. In an article by 60 Minutes called “Working the Good Life“, you find that the company has only 3% turnover, offers employees a 90% discount to the company owned country club, has in-house social workers to help employees with problems and so much more. They’ve developed a culture of creativity, innovation and results through treating people as if they are a valued, trusted resource.
Some of the intangible qualities that make up the UN-Brand
How to develop a great UN-Brand
Ask yourself the following questions to develop a great presence.
Allow these three questions to be the platform of developing your mission and vision statements for your company and your brand.
The ends do not justify the means. Attention to how we grow is just as important as the growth. I challenge people to consider how they want to be perceived in the marketplace and think of those intangible qualities that go beyond efficiency and numbers. Allow that desired perception to guide your brand as well. While numbers and results are critically important, none of it matters if you, your company or employees have poor interactions, communication and encounters with clients and customers.
Brands and companies are made up of living, breathing people who are interacting with other people to provide a product or service. How your customers feel about the service along with the service itself keeps them coming back. By attention to the how everything gets done, your desired perception and how you want people to, UN-Brand
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