December 8th, 2009
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.
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Tags: ad space, AOL, aren, behemoth, clear alternatives, Connect, database, download, effort, email, Facebook, fan, fan page, focus, gallery, GigaOm, global focus, Gmail, Google, growth, linkedin, Lite, Live, logos, mashable, mind, mobile, mobile one, move, network, one thing, page, place, point, post, question, regional networks, report, service, space, strategy, strength, stretch, thing, time, tool, Touch, twitter, US, way, Windows, Yahoo
Posted in branding, featured, social media | 1 Comment »
September 16th, 2009
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.
Of course this update comes amidst other high profile updates from major players such as Facebook (Facebook Lite, @ mentions, Application Prototypes), Google (Fast Flip, Public Sector, mysterious UFO logo saga) and Bing (image search). With the new TOS including references to advertising and Twitter.com traffic plateauing, could this new brand image update be Twitter solidifying it’s image to monetize soon?
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?
Tags: 503 error, Bing, bing image search, brand, brand image, branding, business, caterpillar, core values, custom avatars, dark blue, default avatar, design, designers, dodo, Facebook, facebook application prototypes, facebook lite, fail whale, fanfare, flavors, functionality, goals, Google, google fast flip, google public sector, google ufo logo, image changes, image search, interaction, interactions, kanye west, mascot, media, monetize, mysterious ufo, network, profile updates, prototypes, social, social media, spam owl, technology, TOS, twitter, Twitter TOS, ufo logo
Posted in business, featured, social media, technology | No Comments »
September 1st, 2009
Social media has swung the pendulum back from traditional media’s focus solely on the brand as king. The peasants are fed up with their tyrranical ruler and demand to be heard. These followers and friends are storming the social media castle of web 2.0. They’re not standing for anything less than full court with the King of the land. What the King has to say depends on how long he’ll stay on his throne.
Today’s landscape is a volatile one at best with the economy in an upheaval, jobs in question, and general unsureness all across the land. People want to feel security from somewhere. This is when they look to what they love and trust: your brand.
The unsettled state of the world coupled with the proliferation of real-time social tools have now given the peasants their pitchforks and torches they need to be heard. The unsureness of your customer’s environment plus new technological tools to communicate directly faster equals the perfect storm.
Your customer today doesn’t just want instant access answers, they DEMAND it. With all of the old ways failing them each and every day, they are increasingly latching on to new ways of communicating, thinking and purchasing. You don’t tell them what to do, they tell you.
History is littered with the corpses of Kings who forgot what makes them Kings: their subjects. Without a kingdom you can not be a king. Likewise, without customers you will not have a product or brand to sell – you’ll just go out of business.
This is why your customer is king. That’s ALWAYS been a given. The only thing that’s changed is that now your customer has access to tools through social media to feel empowered to affect the change they’ve always wanted but have felt discouraged to do so.
Keeping this in consideration, I have a panel on Social Customer Relationship Management (sCRM) in the South by Southwest (SXSW) panelpicker that you can vote on. Brian Solis has been kind enough to collaborate with me in crafting this panel & gathering some of the top minds in this area , including himself.
An in-depth discussion of how social media networks & tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs are important to brand customer relationship management. Who should be heading up these efforts, what rules they need to abide by and what companies are getting it right/wrong will be looked into. In the social Web, a brand’s perception reputation is in the hands of the new influencers – those customers, peers, and prospects who leverage social media to voice their views, opinions, and questions. It’s how you discover and engage in these discussions that determine the brand’s resonance.
- What is Social CRM and how is it different than CRM or CRM 2.0?
- Who owns the conversation? Who is responsible for sCRM if Social Media is cluttering the internal marketing landscape (PR, Marketing, Interactive)?
- How is the infrastructure of CRM adapting to incorporate the “now” or real-time web?
- What are the new roles required for sCRM?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of offshoring vs. nearshoring?
- How does an organization justify the less costly form of inbound-focused customer service to outbound CRM and ORM?
- Is there value in engaging everyone on the social web?
- How can companies change and adapt internally to reduce the negative chatter, thus reducing required responses?
- How should a brand manage a crisis about them in social media?
- How much transparency does a brand need to have in social media in respect to government agency regulations?
Tags: benefit, brand, branding, business, communicating, consumer, consumers, conversation, customer relationship management, Facebook, follower, followers, friends, instant access, interactions, knowledge, life, marketing, networking, pendulum, perfect storm, productivity, proliferation, scrm, selling, social, social media, south by southwest, sxsw, technological tools, twitter, unsettled state, upheaval, Value
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August 14th, 2009
Frustrations have arisen as of late- yet again- with some notable bloggers on Twitter with autoDMs. I used to autoDM that I autofollowed them but since Twitter exploded with spammers I had to stop that. In a compromised network it’s not about the tactics they use but who you allow in your personal network.
The private Direct Message (or DM) is an extremely valuable tool for having timely sensitive conversations without exchanging emails. The conversation ecosystem breaks down when you allow anyone at all to connect with you. Allowing someone into your life is a privilege that shouldn’t be given out lightly.
Selective selection
My good friend & guest blogger Anaiis Flox once said to me that she’d rather give the keys to her house to someone than give them her website password. In an online world of ambient intimacy and unabashed public living in social media, your network reflects your value & worth. In other words, you are who you tweet.
There’s an old saying that goes, show me your closest 4 friends and I can tell you all about yourself. Of course I’m paraphrasing but the sentiment is still the same. Your personal brand is comprised of how you look, what you say, how you hold yourself, what you do and who you choose to associate with.
Connecting to everyone
Connecting with anyone online regardless of who they are is the offline equivalent to talking to anyone and everyone that comes into your view. With billions of people in this world (many unsavory) we can’t possibly speak to everyone we encounter everywhere. This is why we set up guidelines to who and in what capacity we’ll engage someone. Online is no different.
Today even spammers, multi-level marketers (MLM) and robots have accounts that have tens of thousands of followers. This is due to autofollowing and pump & dump tactics. You may have quantity but do you have quality? Numbers play a factor in how many people you are able to reach but they are not the only factor nor are they the most important factor to your intrinsic value.
Auto-caring
If you’ve connected with thousands upon thousands of people who all want to broadcast to you then who’s really listening to your message? Casting a wide net will net you some fish but are they the right type of fish or even up to your standards?
In Twitter you have no one to blame but yourself for the autoDM. I admit some spammy people get through every now and then on my account but when they do I immediately unfollow them. I’m not so concerned about autoDMs as I am about mentionspam. While I choose who to allow to private message me I have no control over who mentions my @ name.
Mention Spam
For more prominent higher-profile twitterers this can potentially be a huge problem. The more valuable you are to larger amounts of people that follow you the more likely they are to talk to you. Raise your profile and value enough then you are more likely to attract spammers who openly broadcast to you by attaching your Twitter name to their spammy message. A messy situation indeed.
What can you do to combat the spam?
Be selective about who you connect with. Remember it’s the depth of each relationship that will raise your value much farther than the breadth of your entire network alone.
Be proactive when curating your community. If someone is spamming your public stream then do something about it. Block them, let @spam know & ask your network to do the same.
Your network is only as good as you allow it to be. If someone is going against general accepted standards of the network you’ve curated then let them know. Be a part of the solution not the problem.
Tags: autoDM, autofollow, billions, bloggers, communicating, communication, communications, conversation, core values, Direct Message, DM, ecosystem, follower, followers, following, frustrations, good friend, interactions, intimacy, marketing, mlm, networking, personal brand, personal network, privilege, robots, selling, sensitive conversations, sentiment, social media, spam, twitter, valuable tool, Value, website password
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August 10th, 2009
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.
Twitter & Tr.im integration
Twitter & Tr.im integration closeup
Tr.iim graphic courtesy of David Kadavy via his Flickr
Bit.ly
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.
Bit.ly is not short on money, considering they just were funded for $2 Million. Much has been said about Twitter’s rumored acquisition of Bit.ly but until it happens it’s just that, a rumor. Also of note, Bit.ly is building out a full-featured platform that is said to rival Digg’s current service.
TinyURL vs. Bit.ly vs. Tr.im graph
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.
Tags: bit.ly, brand, brand name, branding, business, consumer, consumers, conversation, design, designers, domain name, functionality, interaction, marketing, media, monetization, network, networked, networking, personal url, press release, productivity, proprietary name, seamless experience, selling, sensitive environment, short url, short urls, social media, statistics, technology, tinyurl, tr.im, trim url, trimmed urls, trims, twitter, url shortener, url shorteners, url shortening, Value, velocity
Posted in branding, business, social media | No Comments »
July 12th, 2009
Twitter has gained widespread recognition from media outlets, celebrities and brands among others. There are certain brands that already have a well-known presence on Twitter like @WholeFoods , @JetBlue , and @Starbucks. Now because of the exposure more brands find value in this “social network” but don’t know how to go about utilizing social media tools.
Some have resorted to buying Twitter followers. Some have enlisted Twitterers to get paid for their tweets with Magpie and Adjix. The latest to throw their hat in this ring is Ted Murphy and IZEA with @Spontwts.
@Spontwts is a program where you can signup to allow advertisers to pitch you offers for you to tweet. I learned about this from a tweet from @tedmurphy which said that a celebrity made $2,500 from a single sponsored tweet.
Danny Brown wrote up an article about this. He’s “neither here nor there on the topic as long as it’s handled properly.” I tend to agree with him. Promoting something is generally neutral. How it’s done is what sets it apart.
People generally are adverse to this because of Magpie. Magpie promoted itself in an invasive manner, Any message that doesn’t take your target audience into account can run afoul of them. No one wants to see a blatantly promotional ad for a service that has nothing to do with your or their interests. That’s where Magpie went wrong. This is where Spontwts can benefit.
People want relevance. As long as the advertisers you choose align with what you already consume and subscribe to there should be no problem. I personally promote Mountain Dew on Twitter (@mtn_dew) whenever it’s naturally possible. That’s the key: NATURALLY possible.
I enjoy Mountain Dew in my life & I share my experiences with the brand on Twitter often. I can guarantee you that some of my followers do NOT share my passion for Mountain Dew, yet they accpt it /enjoy it/ engage with me on it. Why? Because I have PASSION for it. Regardless of what it is, they see that I’m genuine about it and THAT is why it works.
Spontwts is about how you use it. If a user accepts any and all offers from advertisers the service becomes a firehose. ANYTHING is a nuisance when used that way. It’s all about timing, relevancy and precision.
The brands you subscribe to and promote become part of your brand. The more value you provide through sharing & helping the more people are willing to ‘buy’ what you are ‘selling’. Tip the balance too much one way, you become an annoying shill.
Curating their users, advertisers, and tweet frequency/volume will ultimately make or break their service. Some on Twitter go for quantity, others, quality. Only a select few go for quantity of quality.
A couple of items of note:
- Sponsored Tweets only allows you to choose one category from a select sample: Business/Finance, Entertainment, Family, Food, General, Health, Marketing, Technology, Travel.
- You can further specify what types of offers you want to receive by tagging your profile with up to 10 keywords.
- Notification by e-mail or DM but not both.
- Either you or the advertiser can write the tweet (not sure if you can change their writing after the fact).
- There is a pre-set ‘Charge per tweet’ and ‘Charge per click’ that you can change, yet no formula is given to give you scope to gauge it on.
- A ‘Content rating’ area is also available for you to rate your tweets (Everyone, Mature, Adults-only), although if you’re like me, tweets can be all over the board.
One clarification provided by IZEA:
Sponsored Tweets will not auto inject ads into your stream. Each tweet must be approved by you before it gets released. Our goal is to provide you with quality ads that you are comfortable with.
Some final thoughts:
Sponsored Tweets add #spon onto the end as to distinguish that it’s a sponsored tweet. IZEA is also working out some technical issues like sponsored tweet DMs being truncated, thus cutting off vital information from advertisers.
Overall I believe that Ted Murphy and IZEA is onto something here. When you are allowed to preselect your content for your intended audience the ultimate onus falls on you as the selector. This is what sets apart a quality Twitter account from a spammy one and every shade of grey in between.
As I have used Twitterfeed to inject some of the best content I have preselected from the web, so will I try out Sponsored Tweets to see if the advertisers and quality are up to my followers’ standards. I have faith in the community that I have built to tell me if it works for them or not, and I in turn will process that information and act on it.
Trust is gained over time and destroyed in a moment. Be careful with it. It is best to use a scalpel not a machete when dealing with trust concerns and your brand.
Tags: advertisers, benefit, brand, branding, business, celeb, celebrities, consumer, consumers, core values, danny brown, experiment, feelings, follower, followers, frien, friends, functionality, goals, instances, interactions, invasive manner, jetblue, magpie, marketing, media outlets, media tools, mountain dew, network, networking, presence, relevance, selling, social media, starbucks, target audience, technology, ted murphy, tweet, tweets, twitter, Value
Posted in branding, featured, life, social media | 1 Comment »
July 1st, 2009
© dbking
(Originally posted at Lisa Hickey’s The Hurricane Inside My Brain)
Gain 7 billionity followers! Make 80 trillionity by doing this!
We’re all concerned about being liked and being comfortable with money. These are two common insecurities that people prey on, especially much more so now in social media than ever. Thinking that way is the old wide fish-net push way of marketing. Here’s how Twitter can be maximized so you can get the most out of it, personally AND professionally.
Man in the mirror
Who do you want to surround yourself with in your life? How do you want to be viewed by others? These are questions that should be on your mind constantly, offline AND online.
The noise won’t stop
When you follow people on Twitter that don’t mean anything to your network (i.e. the other people you’ve connected with) what you end up with is a group of tweets that are disconnected. The conversation is almost schizophrenic. No one knows each other. Your stream is rushing past you like class 5 rapids.
Hey now you’re a ROCKSTAR get your game on go play
Maybe you CAN keep up with 80 thousand followers with your magical desktop sorting application, but I doubt it. The way you’re keeping up with them is not really getting to know them. Most likely what you’re doing is scanning for information, retweeting interesting information, replying to some random interesting tweets & monitoring your @ mentions and DMs for people talking to you.
Social media is about community. I dare you to tell me how the above situation represents community. What it feels more like is a old switchboard telephone operator. Maybe this works for you. Congratulations. This doesn’t work for me anymore.
I’m popularrrr
Recently I had conversations with Connie Reece (@ConnieReece) and Lucretia Pruitt (@GeekMommy) about how there is no way any of us can properly keep up with such a huge group of people on Twitter. Connie recently resorted to making her Twitter profile private to slow down the follow/unfollow game that Twitter numbers gamers play. I have taken a slightly different approach.
Instead of just unfollowing people en masse I am unfollowing on a case by case basis according to pre-set guidelines I judge a twitter account to be suitable for connecting with. In laymens terms, if you suck you’re gone. I am also mostly following just those I’ve met offline first through my other social media friends. One RARE exception to that stipulation is if you follow me then engage me actively and I find your stream valuable. This is rare because most people don’t take the time to interact when they first add. This is the ‘hello my name is’ on Twitter.
Put me in coach I’m ready to play
Why am I telling you this? Not to showcase my follow numbers or ratio- because that alone doesn’t matter. Not to boast about unfollowing people because i’m so elite- because THAT is just ridiculous. No, it’s to show you insight into how you can get more out of your network.
Ever since I have started down this path I have seen more and more of my followers chatting with each other. Why? Most likely it could be because I go out to events that many of the same people frequent and we meet new people when they come to town thus growing our comm-unity. See that? Comm-unity, communication unity.
What’s the benefit of this? For one thing you get to see more than just broadcasted information from your friends. You get to see a whole other side of them when they speak to other people you know. This is when their personality truly comes out.
We all live in a yellow submarine
Twitter is for friends not fiends. I don’t want to be sold to, broadcasted at or have random irrelevant noise in my stream. My day and mind are noisy enough. I come online to be bolstered by community and friends when I can’t do so in my offline world. I also come online to further STRENGTHEN my offline relationships, as well as you should.
If you’re at this point, congratulations! Now you can take the next step by further tightening your network by going to your friends’ twitter pages and see who they are speaking to often that you aren’t following. Notice any repeating names. Follow them and introduce yourself by saying that you noticed they speak with X Y & Z and what you value about them. Talking about your common ground of friends does SO MUCH more for everyone- you, the person AND X Y & Z- than just saying that you’re looking forward to getting to know them. That’s trite and soulless.
I wanna hold your haaaaaaaaaand
Look at that. You’ve come to the end of the story. You can now start buying what your FRIENDS are selling. It’s much more fulfilling being able to help someone out that you care about then a random person you’re connected with. When you invest time and energy into someone you form a relationship. When this happens you create a ‘Trust Fund’ where both you and the other person either add or subtract trust from this mutual fund you have set up. Your Trust Fund grows so much more richer when you do business with those you trust greatly.
One last word, before I go..
Numbers DON’T matter, not because anti-numbers people say so. Numbers don’t matter because if there isn’t value and meaning behind them all they do is give a lovely facade of power that fools any fool. Any wise man knows that it’s the density not the breadth alone that counts. Water of the same volume spread out over a flat surface doesn’t have the same impact as water contained in a compact space. That being said, it’s not just quality, it’s also quantity of quality, so grow your real-ationships exponentially.
Cultivate your connections. Connect to people that mean something to you. Make those people mean much more to you. Introduce them into your circle to tighten relations more. Every person in my created @ChatPack and @MemeGirls groups do important things- or at least we think so. And that’s all that matters- that we do important things separately, connect and make great things together.
Perpetuate this ideal indefinitely. Your 20% will do and be your 80%. Nurture and grow your core group.
These are the people that will carry you to great heights.
Tags: benefit, brand, branding, business, communicating, communication, communications, conversation, core values, feelings, follower, friends, goals, interaction, interactions, knowledge, life, marketing, network, networking, selling, social, social media, twitter
Posted in featured, life, social media | 1 Comment »
