In the wake of Japan's earthquake and tsunami disaster, a handful of pranksters elected to play on fears and launch hoax tweets, fooling thousands if not millions. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the Pokemon, become a Trending Topic yesterday on Twitter after Twitter user @xCyrusAndLovato tweeted "The creator of Pokemon died today in the #tsunami, #Japan. RIP: Satoshi Tajiri. #prayforjapan." It turned out to be one of many online rumors, some more harmless than … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Andy Carvin & News Curation
March 1, 2011 by
My March 2011 video clip of the month is a PBS News Hour interview of Andy Carvin, (@acarvin), National Public Radio's social media guru, on how he used Twitter to curate social media to turn himself into a "real time wire service" for the protests in Egypt and Tunisia. I chose the video because Carvin’s work curating the news provides a hint of what news and information management can look like in an increasingly networked world. From a cubicle in Washington, … [Read more...]
Egypt and the Rise of the Social Media ‘Swarm’
February 11, 2011 by
Last May I wrote that "we are on the verge of a massive shift in the way we communicate and inspire action." As I watch jubilant Egyptians in the video below celebrating the resignation of their 82-year-old former president, I think I can safely say that paradigm shift has arrived. The leaderless Revolution 2.0 in Egypt, and earlier in Tunisia, illustrate how powerfully social media can be used to galvanize real action in the real world. Social media contributed … [Read more...]
Using Social Media for Emergency Response
February 5, 2011 by
You've got to check out this fascinating video of Craig Fugate, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), explaining why his agency plans to engage the public more in disaster response via mobile phones and social media. "A government-centric abroad to solving disaster problems will fail in a catastrophic disaster," he says. "It is a brittle system that does not have the resiliency that we have when we can incorporate the rest of the team: … [Read more...]
HOW TO: Top 10 Social Media Tips for Online Success
February 5, 2011 by
Today’s reality is that your organization needs to be on social media. You can no longer rely on issuing press releases and keeping your website up to date to get your message out. You must proactively lead conversations and participate in stories using Internet- and mobile-based social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. To successfully start and maintain your social media presence, however, you need to know what works and what doesn’t. … [Read more...]
5 Reasons Why You Won’t Find Me Posting on Quora
January 25, 2011 by
The last few weeks I've been seeing all these articles about how Quora will be the next Twitter or Facebook and is the biggest blogging innovation in 10 years. Quora is a crowdsourced answer site that is a cross between LinkedIn's Q&A feature, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, and Wikipedia. With everyone so excited about it, I signed up and checked it out. After a week of use, however, I've concluded Quora is a lot of hype. I only see myself monitoring a few … [Read more...]
The Social Media Revolution Nobody Watched
January 14, 2011 by
"Huh?" I thought to myself as a Twitter retweet from @Galrahn flashed across my screen: "I just watched a government fall on Twitter while #CNN interviewed the Jeopardy host about a robot contestant." Then I saw another retweet from @pareen reading: "I am relying on someone live-tweeting al-Jazeera to keep up with Tunisia news. MSNBC reports that Martha Stewart's dog split her lip open." "Wow," I thought, "what is going on?" So I checked the Washington Post's web … [Read more...]
Panhandler’s Viral Hit Is ‘Dragonfly Effect,’ Not a Fluke
January 8, 2011 by
If you think the YouTube-catapulted rise of Ted Williams—the now-famous homeless man with the "golden voice"—is a fluke, you should read The Dragonfly Effect, by author-couple Andy Smith and Jennifer Aaker. The book is a must read for anybody interested in using social media to drive social change. It's full of big strategies, small tips, and real-life success stories proving you don’t need money or power to inspire seismic change in a Web 2.0 world. All you need … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Christmas Flash Mob
December 1, 2010 by
My December 2010 video clip of the month is a flash mob surprising dinners in a mall food court with a breathtaking rendition of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." Regardless of your religious preference, you've got to love the great performance and the reaction of the people around them. I picked the video because it's a wonderful holiday example of how two relatively small organizations in Welland—a town of about 50,000 in Canada near Niagara Falls—hit a home run … [Read more...]
From Wax & WordStar to Paper.li Daily ‘Newspapers’
November 28, 2010 by
Back when I was editor-in-chief of my university's student newspaper in the 1980s, it seemed we were on the cutting edge. We'd recently obtained some PCs, WordStar word-processing software, and a laser printer, so we could print out articles reporters typed themselves in columns ready for layout. It was so much easier than retyping and coding all the copy with an old phototypesetting machine. Even with the new technology, however, laying out the newspaper still … [Read more...]
Cookie Monster, Social Influence & Crowdsourcing
November 27, 2010 by
Tweets about watching a Cookie Monster audition video to help him land a gig hosting SNL started showing up in my Twitter stream this week. While I typically tweet about things like old and new media, public relations, and Montessori, I couldn't resist retweeting the plea. Yes, you read that right. A Montessori mom who doesn't let her 3-year-old watch television, including Sesame Street, was one of the people who helped Cookie Monster's video reach 1 million views … [Read more...]
Tweeted & Deleted: Dodd’s ‘Technical Mistake’
November 22, 2010 by
Twitter followers of retiring Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) got a surprising tweet from him last Thursday morning. “U love torturing me w this shit.” was tweeted from the Senator's Twitter account @SenChrisDodd. Then came the tweet “From Dodd Staff – Apologies to Dodd’s followers, last tweet was not from Chris Dodd.” The first tweet has quickly deleted but not before some of his followers took screenshots and sent out comical tweets about it. Later in the day, … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: KFC Pinkwashing Parody
November 1, 2010 by
My November 2010 video clip of the month is an oldie but goodie. It's a parody of last spring's “Buckets for the Cure” fundraising partnership between KFC and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The low-tech, cheaply produced parody video, by Greg and Lou, a New York City comedy duo, received 10,795 hits on YouTube as of Nov. 1, 2010. This is more than both of KFC's high-tech and presumably expensive-to-produce "Buckets for the Cure" campaign videos: KFC Employees Do the … [Read more...]
Replacing Silos with Hives: Creating a Social Culture
October 24, 2010 by
This week I ran across a Geoff Livingston post with a brilliant bee metaphor explaining how organizations need to create a social culture to exploit social media's full potential (readers of my blog know I love social media bee metaphors): "The basic nest architecture for all honey bees is similar: 'Honey is stored in the upper part of the comb; beneath it are rows of pollen-storage cells, worker-brood cells, and drone-brood cells, in that order. The peanut-shaped … [Read more...]
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