We're in an extraordinary moment in journalism. "Who needs newspapers when you have Twitter?" many are saying. Others predict that all media as we know it today will become social and that journalists will become storytellers reporting in "interactive" ways. Granted "interactive" reporting hasn't caught on yet, but most people today do expect interaction on social networks. That’s the “social” part of social media. Apparently, the Washington Post, however, … [Read more...]
Will Social Media Kill Traditional Public Relations?
October 2, 2010 by
Social media will replace traditional media as the main tool for public relations practioners within two years, according to a new survey by StevensGouldPincus, merger and management consultants to the communications industry. Today, communications consulting firms devote 30 percent of their total percentage of work to social media as opposed to traditional media. Next year, the percentage will increase to an average of 42 percent. "If this trend persists, … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Crowd Accelerated Innovation
October 1, 2010 by
My October 2009 video clip of the month features TED's Chris Anderson giving a fascinating talk on a new phenomenon he calls "Crowd Accelerated Innovation." Web video is driving the global phenomenon, a self-fueling cycle of innovation and learning that he says could be as significant as the invention of the printing press. By watching his video, Anderson says, "you're part of the crowd that may be about to launch the biggest learning cycle in human history, a cycle … [Read more...]
Social Media: Democracy’s Ruin or a Better Planet?
September 23, 2010 by
With summer over and more time to read in the rainy fall days ahead, I decided to finally buy The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change, a book by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine that I've been meaning to read since it came out in June. So I drove to the nearest Borders, but it didn’t have the book. Then I drove to Barnes & Nobles. It wasn’t there either. Then I remembered the words of Jacques Ellul in Propaganda: The Formation of … [Read more...]
McDonald’s Foursquare Success: $1,000 Pays Off Big
September 17, 2010 by
Mashable posted a fascinating article today about how McDonald's spent a modest $1,000 on a pilot Foursquare campaign resulting in 33 percent more foot traffic in one day, more than 50 news articles, and 600,000 people opting to follow and fan the brand on social media sites. McDonald's Foursquare Day on April 16 used 100 randomly awarded $5 and $10 gift cards to lure Foursquare users into McDonald's restaurants to check in. Foursquare is a mobile … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Conan’s YouTube Choice
September 2, 2010 by
My September 2010 video clip of the month features Conan O’Brien revealing the name of his new TBS series using a Sharpie and some white paper in a YouTube video. I picked the video because it shows how social media is changing the way major announcements are made. For most of the last century, major public statements were made through press releases and press conferences for the media. Today, press releases aren’t just for journalists anymore, and they are … [Read more...]
Newspapers & News Sites ‘Like’ New Tweet Button
August 14, 2010 by
Newspapers and news sites played an important role in Tuesday's launch of Twitter's new new “Tweet” button. More than 30 large websites secretly changed their designs overnight to begin using the new button on its launch day. Among those sporting the “Tweet” button Tuesday morning were: Arizona Republic/azcentral.com CBS Interactive CNN.com Detroit Free Press HuffingtonPost.com SFGate.com Sky News The Cincinnati Enquirer The Des Moines … [Read more...]
30 Tweet Gems from Emergency Social Data Summit
August 13, 2010 by
You might remember one of the good news stories to come out of January's Haiti earthquake. A Canadian woman trapped in rubble sent a text message to Canadian foreign ministry officials thousands of kilometers away. The message was relayed back to Canadian authorities in Haiti who were able to find and rescue her. With people increasingly using text messages, Facebook, Twitter, and other new media tools to seek help in a disaster, the American Red Cross sponsored … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: ‘Guy Walks Across America’
August 2, 2010 by
My August 2010 video clip of the month is "Guy Walks Across America," a viral video on YouTube illustrating how social media is changing advertising. The video, funded by Levi's jeans (which is featured prominently at the end of the clip), has racked up more than a million viewers since its debut on YouTube July 20. It features actor/model Michael Johnson wearing Levi's jeans and a plain T-shirt on a 14-day cross country trip past American landmarks both major … [Read more...]
A Match Made in Twitter? Discovering Who to Follow
July 31, 2010 by
Twitter is rolling out a great new feature called "Who to Follow" that offers users personalized recommendations for people to follow on the microblogging service. If you're one of the Twitter users selected early for the roll out (like me!), you'll find the new feature on the top right of your homepage at Twitter.com (when you're logged into an account). Twitter introduced the new "Who to Follow" feature in a blog post yesterday: The algorithms in this feature, … [Read more...]
Facebook Stories & Statistics: A Huge Impact
July 17, 2010 by
I am still in awe of the latest Facebook statistics: More than 141 million unique visitors in the United States in June 2010. More than 500 million users worldwide. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest country in the world. 50 percent of mobile Internet traffic in the United Kingdom is on Facebook. Facebook tops Google for weekly U.S. Internet traffic. If those statistics and my July 2010 video clip of the month, Social Media … [Read more...]
‘Special Sauce’ for Online Contest Success
July 15, 2010 by
The special recipe networked nonprofits use to win online contests was revealed in a video the Case Foundation posted on its website last week. The video features Beth Kanter and Allison Fine, authors of The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Changet, with research on the successful social media strategies of contest winners. It also features Scott Beale from the Atlas Service Corps, a nonprofit which has won five online competitions and … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Social Media Revolution 2
July 2, 2010 by
My July 2010 video clip of the month is a recently updated video by Erik Qualman, author of the Socialnomics – Social Media Blog, demonstrating social media’s explosive growth in recent years. The video is a follow-up piece to his original social media revolution video from last summer. While some of the information is similar to last year’s version, Qualman has updated the data and included new figures for the first time. A few of the highlights include: If … [Read more...]
What Bad Web 2.0 Customer Service Looks Like
June 30, 2010 by
After my Verizon e-mail went down for several hours yesterday, I checked the Web 2.0 "newspaper": Twitter. I quickly discovered many tweets and even a few blog posts, such as Verizon Email Outage: Twitter and Central for Webmail, about the outage, which appeared to be national in scope. To my surprise, however, @Verizon, the official Verizon corporate Twitter account, and @VerizonSupport, the official Verizon customer service Twitter account, weren't … [Read more...]
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