martes, septiembre 15

MediaPost Publications Google Attempt To Flip Parasitic Reputation 09/15/2009

Google is attempting to further streamline online news consumption with Fast Flip -- an "experimental" news hub that lets readers flip through screen shots of Web pages from various publishers like a physical magazine. But, despite the search giant placing ads around the articles and sharing revenue with publishers, the question remains: How with the service affect an already flailing news business.

Google News developer Krishna Bharat says the service at least "tests" his theory "that being able to read articles faster means people will read more of them, driving more ad revenue to publishers."

Regarding the display ad to the right of each page, TheStreet.com calls it "perhaps the best showcase yet of Google's newly integrated DoubleClick ad service."

"On first glance, it looks best suited for mobile viewing," says Econsultancy blog, adding: "Trouble is, the snapshot approach is not so intuitive on a big screen ... So far, it's hard to read text and headlines are given short shrift."

Quite dismissive of the whole effort, The Times' Bits blog writes: "Of course, no one in the news industry believes that Fast Flip, even if it is successful, will do much to solve newspapers' main problem: plunging advertising revenues."

Similarly, The Los Angeles Times portrays the move as largely defensive: "It's also a way for Google to answer the slings and arrows thrown by its critics, including Wall Street Journal Editor Robert Thomson, who called the search company and other news aggregators such as Yahoo 'parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the Internet.'"

Tough crowd. A slightly more open-minded David Carr reasons on The Times' Media Decoder blog: "Perhaps it's time to start taking Google executives at their word when they say they have an economic and civic interest in seeing that newsgathering, regardless of how it is displayed, continues to flourish ... We have no idea what the revenue split on Fast Flip entails, and there is still no telling whether it will result in a meaningful revenue stream for publishers, but it kicks the can down the road in a very practical direction."

sábado, septiembre 12

10 citas de Groucho Marx ideales para una agencia | desdeladoscuro.com

10 citas de Groucho Marx ideales para una agencia

Este verano tuve la oportunidad de leer un reportaje marxista de El Mundo Magazine que, entre otras cosas, extractaba trozos de la biografía de Groucho Marx y los relacionaba con los momentos que vivimos actualmente. Me atrajo particularmente la referencia al crack del 29 y a cómo Marx la explicaba en tono agridulce.
Hace unos días, hablaba de eso con una colega y convinimos en que seguramente, este señor hubiese sido un gran director de cuentas. Hoy en día, algunas de sus célebres citas tendrían plena vigencia en el día a día de una agencia. Aquí van algunas que deberíamos decir en cuanto tuviésemos la oportunidad:

Este señor hubiese sido un gran director de cuentas.

1. Claro que lo entiendo. Incluso un niño de cuatro años podría entenderlo. ¡Que me traigan un niño de cuatro años! (Quién no ha asistido a una decisiva sesión de formación sobre los productos o servicios de un cliente particularmente complicado)
2. Sólo lo barato no resulta caro. (Para cuando los que tienen que pelear los presupuestos)
3. Señorita… envíele un ramo de rosas rojas y escriba “Te quiero” al dorso de la cuenta. (¡Ah! Esos almuerzos con cliente que algunos acaban COBRANDO al propio cliente).
4. ¿Quiere usted casarse conmigo? ¿Es usted rica? Conteste primero a la segunda pregunta. (Para los concursos en los que todos estamos DESEANDO trabajar para esa empresa, basicamente, porque nos paga las nóminas).
5. ¿Pagar la cuenta? Qué costumbre tan absurda. (Ésta es una línea de pensamiento muy extendida en nuestro país/mercado).
6. La política es el arte de buscar problemas, encontrarlos, hacer un diagnóstico falso y aplicar después los remedios equivocados. (Cambien Política por Comunicación ;-D
7. Es mejor permanecer callado y parecer tonto que hablar y despejar las dudas definitivamente. (Imprescindible en reuniones con cliente. Parece que la cita es original de Mark Twain pero para el caso, viene al pelo).
8. El secreto del éxito se encuentra en la sinceridad y la honestidad. Si eres capaz de simular eso, lo tienes hecho. (¡Suspiro!)
9. Puede parecer un idiota y actuar como un idiota, pero no se deje usted engañar, realmente es un idiota.
10. Disculpen si les llamo caballeros, pero todavía no les conozco bien. (¿Quién no lo ha pensado decir alguna vez?)

miércoles, septiembre 9

Twitter User Survey: Demographics and Statistics

Twitter User Survey: Demographics and Statistics | Our Blog | Box UK
Twitter User Survey: Demographics and Statistics

Posted by Dan Zambonini on 8th Sep 2009

During July and August 2009, we gathered data for a random selection of 83,628 twitter users. The following is an analysis of the data.

Note that some graphs present data for "real" users as well as "all" users in the survey. A crude algorithm was used to separate potential "real" users from spam accounts ("real" users were decided to be those that had changed their avatar picture from the default and had 5+ tweets, 5+ friends and 5+ followers). Using this liberal metric, 34,334 users were classed as real - about 40% of our total survey, though this undoubtedly still includes many spam and dead accounts.
Demographics: Sex

Twitter users do not specify their sex on registration. To deduce the sex of each user, we compared their full name (if provided) against US Census Data of first names (which was manually updated to include more recent names for obvious omissions). If a name could be either sex, we chose whichever sex had a higher popularity of that name. This resulted in 66% (55,504) of the users in our survey being assigned a sex.

The distribution was the same for "all" accounts and "real" accounts, with 59% female users compared with 41% male users.

Twitter Users: 59% female, 41% male
Demographics: Age

The age of a twitter user is difficult to ascertain without a direct survey. To estimate the distribution of ages, we searched twitter for phrases such as "I am 23", "Im 23" or "I'm 23" that didn't contain mentions of "today", "tomorrow" or "birthday" (to reduce the skew of people announcing birthdays). The rate of tweets mentioning each age can then be used to plot the distribution.

Twitter average age of users, peaking between 18 and 21 years old

There is clearly still a skew from birthday tweets (every 5/10 years, plus the legally important 18 and 21 ages), and we might imagine that younger users are more keen/enthusiastic/socially likely to be announcing their age.

However, given the large difference, we can assume that the average twitter user age (mode, rather than median) is somewhere between 18 and 21.
Number of Tweets

Not much new to report here: a large number of twitter users have never tweeted or have only tweeted a few times (in our full sample, 22% had never tweeted; 58% had tweeted ten times or less).

Number of tweets per user
Follower and Following Numbers

For the full sample, the number of 'followers' (for each user) peaks at around 2 to 4, then quickly drops off: 53% have 10 or less followers.

The number of people that users follow is more interesting. For "real" users, the distribution is fairly flat, with roughly the same number of people following 10 people as 50 or 100 people (with a slight peak at around 30 friends). Remember that we cut off "real" users at less than 5 friends, so the graph doesn't start until this point.

However, when we look at the "full" sample (all users), a massive spike occurs at 20 friends, suggesting that users who follow exactly 20 people are much more likely to be spam accounts.

Number of followers for twitter users

Similarly, we can look at the ratio of following to follower numbers. Again, the "full" example exhibits spikes that "real" users do not, with spikes at the 10 ratio and 20 ratio (i.e. these users follow 10 or 20 times the number of people that follow them back).

Segregating by sex, we can also see that female users tend to have a very slightly higher average ratio than male users.

Ratio of followers to following for twitter users
Miscellaneous

The graph below shows which day of the week twitter users created their account. Mid-week (Wednesday) tends to be busiest, with the weekend being the least popular time to create an account. Note that the data suggests that "all" users (i.e. including spam) have slightly higher account creation activity at the weekend than just "real" users.

Most twitter accounts are created on Wednesday, least at weekends

Finally, we looked at the description/bio length of each user. The majority (about 65% of all users, 35% of real users) have no description.

The following graph shows the description/bio length for users that have created one. This peaks at around 20 to 40 characters, with a large spike at 160 (maximum) character length - possibly due to users not understanding the limit and typing/pasting a large portion of text into the field.

For twitter users with a bio, most have max of 160 characters, another peak at around 30 characters
Summary

According to our analysis, the 'average' Twitter user is a girl in her late teens, who is following 20 to 50 people, and has roughly the same number of people following her back. Her bio/description is quite short, at about 30 characters.

Studying twitter usage and demographics is important for anyone looking to exploit the ever-growing service, whether for business or personal/social means.

Unfortunately, some organisations and people take advantage of the openness and simplicity of twitter by trying to cheat the system and find 'quick wins' by not participating in the spirit of the platform; instead spam-ing, automating and deceiving.

Thankfully, as shown above, we can use this same twitter analysis to help identify the patterns of likely spammers. We now need the organisation behind Twitter to start integrating tools or algorithms to make better use of this type of pattern detection and prevention, stopping spammers before they can aggravate a significant number of real users.

A simple suggestion would be to adopt a similar 'scoring' system to that used by email spam detectors. For example, if a user is following exactly 20 people, 10 points; if a user hasn't changed their avatar, 2 points; no description, 2 points; account created at the weekend, 1 point; a following/follower ratio of more than 10, 5 points.

Each user could then specify in their profile settings a maximum 'score' that a potential follower user can have (this would default to a large number, such as 100), allowing individuals to set their preference about potential spam followers (and false-positives).

How else might we detect spam accounts? Does this average twitter user feel right to you? Let us know in the comments below.

martes, septiembre 8

What is Pligg?

Pligg is an open source Content Management System (CMS) that you can download and use for free. Pligg CMS provides social networking software that encourages visitors to register on your website so that they can submit content and connect with other users. Our software creates websites where stories are created and voted on by members, not website editors. Use Pligg content management system to start your own social networking community in minutes.

Pligg CMS is based on open source PHP and MySQL technologies that allow it to be installed on most web hosts on a relatively small budget. For support and free downloads please visit the Pligg Forum where you can find help 24 hours a day thanks to our excellent open source development team and community. Pligg CMS is a free software, but you are welcome to Donate to support development.

Pligg CMS News

Design a Template, Win Cash Prizes!
Want to show off your design skills and at the same time win some money? Have I got a contest for you! The Template Design Competition gives theme developers a chance to earn up to $300 for designing a Pligg template. Now’s a great time to try...

Tutorial: Installing Pligg 1.0
I’ve created a new Pligg installation video to help guide new users through setting up Pligg. It’s a great way to see how easy it is to set up Pligg CMS and will hopefully make a few one-click-install users confident enough to attempt a m...

Free Modules

Free Templates

Pligg Modules and Pligg Templates from Pligg Pro

Find support on the Pligg CMS Forum - 24 hours a day!

Pligg has scaled phenomenally well to accommodate
this growth in traffic and contributed to the high end user experience, a key driver for our growth.

Sameer Bhatia, Founder & President
www.ProProfs.com

domingo, septiembre 6

What value do users derive from social networking applications?

Home > Volume 14, Number 9 - 7 September 2009 > Neale

First Monday

What value do users derive from social networking applications? by Larry Neale and Rebekah Russell-Bennett

Abstract
Why do users of social networking sites recommend some applications to their friends while rejecting others? What value do they obtain from applications? This exploratory study investigates the value users derive from ‘cool’ Facebook applications, and explores the features that either encourage or discourage users to recommend applications to their friends. Our qualitative data reveal consumers derive a combination of functional value along with either social or emotional value from the applications. Female Facebook users indicate self–expression as important motivators, while males tend to use Facebook applications to socially compete. Three broad categories emerged for application features; symmetrical features can both encourage or discourage recommendation, polar features where different levels of the same feature encourage or discourage, and uni–directional features only encourage or discourage but not both. Recommending or not recommending an application tends to be the result of a combination of features and context, rather than one feature in isolation.
Contents

Introduction
Customer value
Cool
Method
Sample
Results
Features that encourage or discourage recommendations
Managerial implications
Conclusion

Introduction

Social networking sites (SNS), and the number of people using them, have grown considerably in the new millennium (Huberman, et al., 2009). This desire to stay connected is what social scientists call “ambient awareness” (Goldsborough, 2008), and research investigating the behaviour of users on SNS like Facebook and MySpace is now emerging.

However to date, there is no empirical evidence to indicate why some social networking features, such as applications, are passed on and why others are rejected. Applications are small programs allowing users to interact with SNS features and other users. Examples of these applications in Facebook are ‘Scrabble’, ‘Mousehunt’ and ‘Superpoke’. Large companies, such as Nike, Coca–Cola and Microsoft, spend considerable sums of money to develop applications, with only modest results (Morrissey, 2008). Sufficient time has passed since social networking reached critical mass to now analyse the success and failure of applications (Richmond, 2008).

The challenge for researchers and practitioners alike is that SNS like Facebook and MySpace are unique in terms of their combination of communication features, and therefore research requires exploratory techniques. SNS share some of the characteristics from myriad forms and tools of communication such as e–mail, television, Web sites, mobile phones, radio, newspapers, mail, blogs, billboards, magazines, search engines, SMS, phone books and viral marketing campaigns.

Another issue for researchers is while SNS are by definition social instruments, used to connect people with other people (Subrahmanyam, et al., 2008), this connection can be at varying levels of interaction. For example, some people may use social networks in an individual, non–social manner. Users do not have to invite others, they may choose to disable specific social features, and they may download only individual applications requiring no human interaction.

Faced with cluttered traditional media, and increasing difficulty reaching Generation Y consumers, advertisers are looking towards social networks to solve their problems. Aligning with them, SNS are looking at ways to generate revenue, and corporations are searching for the best ways to commercialise these networks. However in 2007, U.S. advertisers spent barely three percent of interactive advertising dollars on social media — US$600 million out of US$18 billion, but this is expected to grow quickly. One reason for this low figure may be that advertising on social networking sites is expensive, as much as US$50,000 per day which excludes most sponsors (Vascellaro and Steel, 2008).

Applications can be used as an alternative to advertising on social networks. Applications are relatively cheap to develop, and are distributed virtually cost–free, making them attractive substitutes. Furthermore, popular applications can attract tens of millions of views and uses per month. The goal for application developers is to get SNS members to pass them on to their friends, operating on similar principles to viral marketing campaigns. For an application to be downloaded and spread it needs to offer value to the user.

What form does this value take? Industry commentators indicate social value is a key success criterion with applications that assist social communication being popular (Richmond, 2008). In particular applications that are ‘cool’ are likely to be passed on due to the social cache attached to being privy to these applications or the entertainment factor. This exploratory study addresses two research questions:
RQ1: what value do users derive from cool Facebook applications?
RQ2: what features of an application encourage or discourage users to recommend applications to their friends?

++++++++++
Customer value

The traditional view of value as a cost–benefit analysis stems from the economic origins of marketing and emphasises the point of exchange. Typically the sale is the place where customers receive value. However, this view has been challenged in recent years with marketers adopting an experiential view of value which goes beyond the economic usefulness of a transaction (Holbrook, 2006; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001).

Value is relevant to social networking where the exchange between customer and organisation is not currency, but time and information — where the value is natural in the customer–to–customer interaction and not the customer–organisation interaction. This is consistent with Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004), who identify value is not created by the organisation and ‘delivered’ to the customer, rather value occurs both inside and outside the organisation with customers’ participation in the creation of value.

As Facebook is an experiential product, we adapt the experiential value concepts of Holbrook (2004; 1994) and Sheth, et al. (1991) to categorize four types of value generated by Facebook applications; emotional, functional, social and altruistic (humane). Emotional value is the pleasure, fantasy or fun gained by using an application, or by avoiding negative emotions. Functional value is measured by performance and technical features. Social value is generated by the connections with other people enabled by using the application. Finally, altruistic (humane) value is the value obtained by helping others or society.

++++++++++
Cool

While value has been widely studied, there is little academic research investigating ‘cool’. Elusive yet identifiable, cool means different things to different people. Emerging as a means for African–American slaves to “cope with the indignity of slavery”, they hid their true emotions with a ‘cool’ pose (Meacham, 2002). Cool has evolved to be adopted by Caucasians in the U.S. and throughout the Western world as a characteristic of youth. Being cool is important to youth, and it drives billions of dollars of consumer purchases globally every year. Product adoption and diffusion among youth often relies on the cool factor for teens to recommend the product to their friends. Given the reliance of SNS applications on recommendation, it is likely that cool applications will diffuse more rapidly than uncool applications. Thus identifying the factors that make an application cool, or not, are an important part of understanding why some applications are more popular than others.

Dutch researcher Carl Rohde describes cool in product terms as “inspiring and attractive … providing empowerment” to the user. Cool products help people “to bring out the best of their capacities and abilities.” (Parvaz, 2003) This empowerment links the concept of cool with the value created by social networking applications. Facebook users want to possess and share cool applications that enhance their standing within their network of friends. From a commercial view, organisations are struggling to understand how to develop a cool application and identify the features that will encourage people to recommend cool applications to friends.

++++++++++
Method

To address the two research questions of this study ‘what value do users derive from cool applications?’ and ‘what features of an application encourage or discourage users to recommend applications to their friends?’ this study employed exploratory research using open–ended questions in an anonymous online survey. A convenience snowball sampling method was used where university students, who are high users of Facebook, were initially approached to participate and asked to forward the URL link to the survey to their friends. The responses to three open–ended questions were analysed and coded by two coders. Wherever the coders disagreed, the items were revisited and discussed until the coders reached consensus.

Reponses to the first question — “what makes [the coolest application you have seen] cool?” — were coded using Holbrook’s (1994) and Sheth, et al.’s (1991) value types — functional, emotional, social and altruistic. Some responses were allocated to two or more value types. For example, the response “It’s funny, and you can challenge others” was coded as generating both emotional and social value to the user.

The second and third questions, “What would [encourage/discourage] you from recommending an application to a friend?” were coded using an emergent scheme as no prior scale for social networking exists. Again, two coders analysed the responses and designated them into one of three emergent categories:

1. A feature which can encourage and discourage users from recommending;
2. A feature where different levels of the feature can encourage or discourage users from recommending; and,
3. A feature that is uni–directional and only encourages or discourages but not both.

++++++++++
Sample

Altogether there were 305 usable responses. Cases with missing data were not deleted because exploratory research does not demand complete data. Sample characteristics revealed the average age of respondents as 22.5 years, two–thirds of the sample was female and four out of five are current university students. Respondents in the sample have been using Facebook for a mean of just over a year, and had 186 ‘friends’ on average listed on their page. Three–fifths of the sample accessed their Facebook page daily, and 30 percent accessed it multiple times a day. Almost 90 percent accessed Facebook at least once per week. On average the sample spent 4.5 hours per week on Facebook with a range from zero to 70 hours.

Only 28 percent of users allowed open access to their Facebook pages. Four out of five women set their page to allow invitation–only access while three out of five men used the same setting.

The vast majority (94.4 percent) access Facebook from home, and 28.5 percent also use Facebook while at work. Regarding Facebook applications, respondents listed many applications with no single application being mentioned more than six times. The most mentioned application was ‘Scrabble’ followed by ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Superpoke.’ Ninety–five percent of the sample had rejected an invitation from a friend to add an application to their page and 57 percent had sent invitations to others, with females (62 percent) inviting more than males (47 percent).

++++++++++
Results

To address the first research question: ‘what value is created by a ‘cool’ application?’ researchers extracted the features or benefits of applications from the open–ended responses. There were a variety of features mentioned, however the following themes emerged; the ability of the application to facilitate self–expression of interests, values or personality, the ability to facilitate competition/comparison with others and novelty/rarity. Gender appeared to be relevant with women tending to indicate self–expression as important and men selecting competition.

The responses were then classified using the four value types. Analysis revealed multiple forms of value were present for each person and each application, with no evidence of any explanation being a single type of value. Altruistic was least evident and functional value appears to occur with either social or emotional value i.e., “it allows me to add pictures (functional) to share with others (social) or to make me laugh (emotional)”. Examples of responses indicating each value type are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Examples of value in applications.
Emotional Social Altruistic Functional
“it is fun and interesting”
“love the show”
“Has sentimental value and cute pictures”
“It’s hilarious, you get to send ‘insults’ to your friends using very Australian slang and they in turn send insults to you”“it’s very cute, make me feel like a child again” “it’s just fun to compare people and see what other people think about you. even if its not really that accurate”
“Great to see photos other people have taken at social events etc.”
“Makes you feel a part of the whole movie phenomenon and creates a talking point”
“It’s Scrabble!”
“I can play scrabble with my friends who are travelling all over the world” “using it helps WWF”
“it saves land from civilisation destroying it”
“I like plants and the environmental message” “Because it allows you to list your social club/bar scenes, receive updates on your favourite bar/club scene”
“Easy to post things to it”
“The amount of work that has gone into the back end of the application”
“it allows music to be played on my page”
Example applications
Superpoke,
The Bloody Offensive Aussie Insult Generator Compare people,
Which sex and the city character are you?
Scrabulous Green Patch,
Fluff Friends The Bar Book,
Funwall,
mobwars

The following list summarises the features that makes an application cool:

* Applications that allow self–categorisation, i.e., ‘which movie star are you?’ This application helped develop social or personal online identity.
* Applications that change daily or regularly.
* Applications with high levels of interactivity rather than being passive, i.e., bowling.
* Cool seems to relate to high numbers of people recommending the application, contradicting the ‘unique’ aspect of cool — if too many people have it, then it’s not cool.
* For some people the level of creativity makes it cool (i.e., designing badges).
* Pets are popular and the virtual ones are well liked (i.e., no mess to clean up).
* Applications that are linked to popular TV shows to help users identify with the characters.
* Exclusivity and rarity — accessing uncommon items or information.
* Ability to waste time when time is available — users are overt in acknowledging they use applications as a time–waster. But this is different to ‘a waste of time’ however, which is interpreted as the application being unworthy of allocating any time.

++++++++++
Features that encourage or discourage recommendations

To answer the second question ‘what features of an application would encourage or discourage users recommending an application to a friend?’ the features were coded using an emergent scheme as no previous scheme exists. Some features can both encourage or discourage recommendation, depending on the user. For example, some users like to recommend applications because it reveals a great deal of their personality to their friends. The same feature prevents other people from recommending — they believe it exposes them too much. This addresses the voyeurism and exhibitionism motivations for using Facebook as discussed by Bumgarner (2007). Table 2 lists these symmetrical features.

Table 2: Symmetrical — the same feature both encourages and discourages.
Encourages Discourages
Time — time–wasting can be a legitimate use of applications Time — waste of time indicates a pointless activity
Notification — like to know what friends are using and doing Notification — too many messages
Competition — knowing where you stand relative to friends Competition — don’t want to know or think it’s too judgmental
Sharing — application forces sharing to enable it to work “if the application requires me to refer a number of people to use it” Sharing — applications that require it to be sent to friends can be viewed as spamming
Personality — some like to use applications to express their personality Personality — others believes it reveals too much

Some features were categorised as polar, meaning that different levels of the same feature either encouraged or discouraged. Interactivity with the application is a good example. Some applications allow or require the user to interact with the application regularly. Highly interactive applications encouraged recommendation, whereas lowly interactive applications discouraged. Table 3 provides the polar features of applications along with respondent quotes.

Table 3: Polar — different levels of features that encourage or discourage.
Encourages Discourages
Social influence — positive WOM if others are saying good things about the application Social influence negative WOM if others are saying bad things
Social — “highly interactive that you could enjoy with your friends” Individual — wouldn’t send it to a friend if it was an “application that I do on my own”
Novelty — application is new or has “quirkyness” Novelty saturation — might once have been quirky but either everyone has it or too much imitation
Positive emotions — stem from using the application such as fun, enjoyment, excitement Negative emotions — from using the application such as annoyance, anger, boredom
Other–focused — “I send on if I know my friends would like it” Self–focused — “I don’t like getting applications so don’t send them on”
Knowledge — application expands knowledge of a given topic Knowledge — applications that are not brain stimulating are not referred to friends
High interactivity — specifically with a given application, not necessarily with other individuals Low interactivity — with the application
Usability — application that are easy to use are shared Usability — Complex, hard to navigate applications that take too long, require maintenance, large, unreliable, or “if it jams up e–mail accounts and Facebook pages” are not referred

Some features had a uni–directional effect — they either encouraged or discouraged but not both. Cause–related applications, such as supporting cancer research, encouraged recommendation but did not appear as a reason not to recommend. Applications that required users to spend real money discouraged recommendation, but free applications did not appear as a reason to encourage. Table 4 lists the uni–directional features of Facebook applications.

Table 4: Uni–directional effects.
Encouraged Discouraged
Cause–related — f the application “needs to be supported — such as the cancer foundation” Commerciality applications seen as blatant advertising are not referred
Gift — if the application is a ‘gift’ substitute such as a virtual birthday cake Intrusive — if users believe their “privacy is being breached”
Utilitarian — if it allows functionality outside Facebook such as “synchronization with my mobile phone” Source credibility — “anything that looks dodgy” is not recommended to friends
Rewards — some applications give rewards/points for usage Mental effort — applications that “ask too many questions before hand”
Reminders — applications that remind us of important events (such as friends’ birthdays) or provides information such as weather, traffic, fuel prices Immorality — some applications encourage immoral or offensive outcomes
Costs — if there are real monetary costs involved
One–timers — applications that are only useful once and don’t need to be repeated
No relevance — for Facebook users
Immature — if the application is seen as too childish or outside the users’ age group
Rating — some applications receive a low rating from users

Other dimensions revealed in the analysis included context, risk, and combinations. For context, users describe situations where their recommendation might change. For example, if a user has a lot of free time on their hands, they might actively search for an application to recommend. If they are time–poor, the same application is not recommended. Risk was also raised by some respondents. For example, poker–playing applications were fun, partly because there was no financial risk involved in playing. Some applications can lower social risk by allowing users to ask others out on a date, without fear of a face–to–face rejection. Finally, recommending or not recommending tends to be the result of a combination of features, rather than one feature in isolation.

++++++++++
Managerial implications

There are number of considerations for marketing and business managers seeking to identify opportunities in SNS applications. When developing applications developers need to:

* Encourage users to participate in the creation or development of the applications so that value occurs in pre–use phase and commitment and interest is gained;
* Ensure that source credibility is achieved. Applications that are not from a credible source are likely to be overlooked or deleted. Overtly commercial applications annoy users; and,
* Develop functionality that makes a given application easy to use, non–intrusive and technically efficient.

++++++++++
Conclusion

Facebook is a social site — its purpose is to facilitate contact with other individuals. Therefore it is not surprising that social value is of primary importance to users. Users in turn need functionality to operate applications, so we also expect functional value. Hence, the combination of different types of value that is an interesting result emerging from this research. A ‘cool’ application appears to create functional and social value, or functional and emotional value. Functionality is a critical aspect of value. However functionality is not enough. It must be combined with either social or emotional value to create sufficient ‘coolness’ for a given user to recommend a certain application to a friend and achieve adoption desired by a given application’s developer. However, there is no global solution to developing an application that will be widely encouraged and used. Finding symmetrical features, where the same feature that encourages some to recommend may also discourage others, indicates the need for a careful understanding of an application’s target audience. End of article

About the authors

Larry Neale is is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and serves as academic lead for the Asia Pacific in the Google Online Marketing Challenge (www.google.com/onlinechallenge). Larry is a keen sports fan and life observer, and has parlayed his passions into research streams including consumer ethics, sports marketing, electronic marketing, service recovery and social networking. Larry’s research activities frequently take him to Asia and the United States as an instructor, presenter and facilitator. Readers can view Larry’s published articles at http://tinyurl.com/neale-eprints.
E–mail: l [dot] neale [at] qut [dot] edu [dot] au

Rebekah Russell–Bennett is Associate Professor of Marketing at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. She holds a PhD in brand loyalty for the services sector and has published in international journals such as Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Product and Brand Management and Journal of Services Marketing.
E–mail: rebekah [dot] bennett [at] qut [dot] edu [dot] au

References

Brett A. Bumgarner, 2007. “You have been poked: Exploring the uses and gratifications of Facebook among emerging adults,” First Monday, volume 12, number 11, at http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2026/1897, accessed 21 August 2009.

Reid Goldsborough, 2008. “Rise of social networking underscores generational digital divide,” Community College Week, volume 21, number 3 (22 September), p. 15, and at http://www.ccweek.com/news/articlefiles/615–CCW092208–Pgs–15–24.pdf, accessed 21 August 2009.

Morris B. Holbrook, 2006. “Consumption experience, customer value, and subjective personal introspection: An illustrative photographic essay,” Journal of Business Research, volume 59, number 6, pp. 714–725.

Morris B. Holbrook, 1994. “The nature of customer value: An axiology of services in the consumption experience,” In: Roland T. Rust and Richard L. Oliver (editors). Service quality: New directions in theory and practice. London: Sage, pp. 21–71.

Bernardo A. Huberman, Daniel M. Romero, and Fang Wu, 2009. “Social networks that matter: Twitter under the microscope,” First Monday, volume 14, number 1, at http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2317/2063, accessed 21 August 2009.

Steve Meacham, 2002. “The secret of cool” (5 December), at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/04/1038950092024.html, accessed 22 January 2009.

Brian Morrissey, 2008. “Apps: The newest brand graveyard,” Adweek, volume 49, number 36 (8 December), p. 6.

D. Parvaz, 2003. “They’re on a quest for what’s cool — Here and everywhere,” Seattle Post–Intelligencer (20 November), at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/149002_coolhunt.html, accessed 22 January 2009.

C.K. Prahalad and Venkatram Ramaswamy, 2004. “Co–creation experiences: The next practice in value creation,” Journal of Interactive Marketing, volume 18, number 3, pp. 5–14.

Riva Richmond, 2008. “Some Facebook applications thrive, others flop; Popular programs are useful, entertain and let friends mingle,” Wall Street Journal (10 June), at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121305687614859325.html, accessed 21 August 2009.

Jagdish N. Sheth, Bruce I. Newman, and Barbara L. Gross, 1991. “Why we buy what we buy: A theory of consumption values,” Journal of Business Research, volume 22, number 2, pp. 159–170.

Kaveri Subrahmanyam, Stephanie M. Reich, Natalia Waechter, and Guadalupe Espinoza, 2008. “Online and offline social networks: Use of social networking sites by emerging adults,” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, volume 29, number 6, pp. 420–433.

Jillian C. Sweeney and Geoffrey N. Soutar, 2001. “Consumer perceived value: The development of a multiple item scale,” Journal of Retailing, volume 77, number 2, pp. 203–220.

Jessica E. Vascellaro and Emily Steel, 2008. “Application companies join the ad chase: Firms to compete with social sites that host them,” Wall Street Journal (5 June), p. B6.

sábado, agosto 29

Auto ReTweeting: Removing “Social” from Social Media

Auto ReTweeting: Removing “Social” from Social Media | ploked.com

Those of you using Twitter are no doubt familiar with the numerous applications that can added to your Twitter account. In fact, the applications are too numerous to mention without adding an explanation as to their purpose. One of the nicest features that Twitter incorporates is retweeting (RT), or forwarding tweets that you find valuable to your followers. For instance, when the Iran riots took place, a Twitter user in Iran would send out a tweet to his or her followers, updating them on what was happening within the country. These followers then retweeted the information to their followers, and so on. Look at it like it’s a giant game of tag.

Twitter is used to share links, or websites, with other users. Link sharing lies at the heart of Twitter and is one of the most-used Twitter functions; it enables users, to transmit relevant content quickly. However, according to Mashable, some people just don’t retweet, or simply do no have the time (that’s hard to fathom).

But, to those experiencing problems of this nature can thank their lucky stars for YoTwits!

YoTwits is a service that enables users to add feeds to their Twitter stream. The automatic retweeting function, based on a user name or keyword, would resend all tweets received with the user name or keyword in the text. Automatically. Perhaps you follow Perez Hilton. You could set up YoTwits to automatically retweet every message recevied with his name on it. Likewise, setting up “bit.ly” as a keyword would retweet every message that you received with “bit.ly” in the text.

Although it looks good on paper, there’s a huge problem with the service: it removes “social” from social media. Why even join Twitter if you have a service retweet everything that’s sent to you. There is only one reason that YoTwits exists and that is to provide spammers and scammers with a tool to send more messages more often.

My advice? “Just Say NO to YoTwits.”

El video del fin de semana: Laura de Charlie Parker

No hay videos de Charlie Parker interpretando Laura pero prefiero la música a la imagen

En Sopotify

martes, agosto 25

5 Social Media Tips and Tricks That Work

5 Social Media Tips and Tricks That Work : Performancing

5 Social Media Tips and Tricks That Work

Dee Barizo 8.24.09 Social Media

Since social media is such a powerful tool for increasing the traffic to your blog, I’ve tried many different social media tips. Here are five of the best tips that have worked for my sites and our clients’ sites.

1. Befriend power users.

Power users are the users that exert the most influence on social media sites. These users regularly submit content that gets popular and they have many people that follow them.

Check out the popular content in your niche and see who is submitting them. You’ll often find a select group of people who submit the bulk of the popular content.

Vote for their stuff, send them interesting links, link to their site if they have one, guest post on their blog, interview them. Basically, do whatever you can to help them and get on their radar without being overbearing or obnoxious.

Once you’re developed a relationship with them, you can send them your best stuff and ask them to submit it if they like it.

2. Create more comprehensive content.

One of the things I started realizing is that much of the content that does well in social media is pretty comprehensive. The content was longer than your average post and it covered a subject with depth.

Therefore, I started creating longer posts filled with a lot of value and I’ve done better on social media sites as a result. Now each of your blog posts doesn’t have to be 1,500 words, but it’s a good idea to regularly publish longer, in-depth posts that stand out from the crowd of your typical 2oo-5oo word posts.

3. Add images and video to your best content.

Another thing that has worked out well has been adding multimedia to content. This is another thing I noticed about viral content. Much of this content is highlighted by images and video.

It only takes a little bit of time to go to sxc.hu or flickr.com and find relevant images that will improve your content.

And I think video is the next big thing in blogging. I know many people have made the same prediction that it seems cliche but it’s definitely true. More and more people are making web video a part of their routine. Many of us are already chronic TV watchers so it will only take time before we get used to watching videos on the web.

Therefore, if you have any video skills, use them! Also, the cost and learning barrier for producing videos has come down with discount equipment, software, and training courses. I’m actually trying an experiment of shifting one of my blogs to mostly video instead of text and seeing how that works.

4. Try niche social media sites.

Most bloggers just focus on the big general subject sites like Digg and StumbleUpon but there is a lot of opportunity in niche social media sites. Here’s a great list of these type of sites. These sites won’t send as much as traffic as the big general subject sites, but the quality of their traffic is often much higher. You’ll get a higher percentage of repeat visitors, a lower bounce rate, and more time spent on your site because of the more targeted traffic.

Also, it’s easier to network with the power users because of the smaller user base.

5. Use social media widgets at the end of each post.

Widgets are a great way to encourage your visitors to submit your content to social media sites. Visitors may like a post but without the prompting of a submission button, they won’t think to submit your content.

We added a StumbleUpon button on one blog and we’ve seen a big increase in submissions and traffic from StumbleUpon.

lunes, agosto 24

Did you know you’re naked? Your Online Reputation is showing

Did you know you’re naked? Your Online Reputation is showing
Your Online Reputation must be a multi-faceted positive picture of YOU
People can check out your Online Reputation (your O.R.) by reviewing your Social Media profiles in Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other places on the Web. They’ll also check your Web site, your blog and they’ll “Google” your name to see what information shows up. I call this process “downloading” Social Media. Doing the “down lo” on you means that I quickly “know” or have a perception of your character by the digital footprint you’re tracking around the Web. <br><br>I do one one more thing: I check my “gut” (my inner sense or intuition) about you before I make that final decision to connect with you and possibly do business. THAT’S what’s going when you “Social Network”.
Did you know you’re naked? People can check out your Online Reputation (your O.R.) by reviewing your Social Media profiles in Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other places on the Web. They’ll also check your Web site, your blog and they’ll “Google” your name to see what information shows up. I call this process “downloading” your net worth (a la “InterNET”). Doing the “down lo” on you means that I quickly “know” or have a perception of your character by the digital footprints you’re tracking around the Web. Based on these digital footprints, I’m going to decide whether or not I can trust you. You do it yourself, don’t you? You at least Google the name of the person before you decide to commit in some way, whether it be to collaborate or recommend or hire the person you “Googled.”
Your Online Reputation must be a multi-faceted POSITIVE picture of YOU
Like a diamond, your online reputation is multi-faceted. Each facet contributes to your overall sparkle. Be sure every connection to you on the Web is something you could show your mother and make sure she’d be proud of what she saw.
Here’s what happens when I do the “Down Lo” on you
I check my “gut” (my inner sense or intuition) about you before I make that final decision to connect with you and possibly do business with you or refer business to you.
If I discovered you in Twitter, I soak in your brand that you’ve, hopefully, extended onto your Twitter profile: I look at your avatar to see if it’s a professional or amatuer photo; I read your bio to see if it has keywords that speak to me and what I want and like; I read your tweets to see if you talk about things that have value and to see if you balance the “fluff” with the demonstrations of expertise and supportiveness. (But I do like “fluff” because I can connect with you when you tell me things like “Having breakfast with my mom on her birthday. Today she’s 70 years old. I hope I’m as wise as she is when I’m her age.”
Then I click on your one link that’s allowed in your Twitter profile and if I land on an out-of-date website or a blog that has no posts or very little information, that tells me you don’t really know that people are judging you by this or worse, you might not care about what people see. That’s a big mistake. People are judging you by your Twitter link so be sure it’s something worthy of a visit, whether it be your blog (filled with helpful posts) or LinkedIn profile or up-to-date and updated website.
If I’m trying to decide whether or not to employ you, I’ll check your LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have one, then that’s a red flag for me because you’re missing out on big opportunity to show off your “living” resume. When properly maintained, your LinkedIn profile is alive with your work, your endorsements, your productivity, your education, your expert answers to posted questions and many other things that show what a team player you are and how knowledgeable you are. Your LI profile should be continually updated. In LinkedIn you are two degrees of seperation away from a top industry guru, CEO, founder, celebrity, or other BIG mover and shaker. That’s who shows up in LinkedIn. Make your LI sparkle!
If I’m really curious, I’ll Google you, too. Hopefully, I’ll see press releases, good reviews, good testimonials, articles you’ve written, Twitter tweets, Facebook mentions, your LinkedIn link and so on. I’m not the only one doing the down lo on you so be sure you get a Google Alert set up so you always know what someone has clicked on when they’ve found a link to you in Google.
By the way, I’m probably not checking past page 2 of your Google listings and many people only check what’s above the “fold” on their computer screen. It’s important to keep that first page of listings totally positive and impressive.
What can you do to control your Online Reputation?
Simple: hire a professional SEO expert to help you manage your online reputation. You should have enough positive links about you so that if anything negative gets linked to you, people can clearly see the good outweighs the bad or perhaps that one negative thing was simply a fluke or a nutcase. With enough positive listings, anything bad gets pushed down below the fold or onto the next page–unless it’s someone out to get you and in that case, I can recommend a good attorney who’s in my Twitter community.

jueves, agosto 20

Social Media Best Practices

Social Media Best Practices — Social Media Optimization

Social Media Best Practices

July 31, 2009

I was intrigued when I saw an email from eMarketer this week titled Social Media Best Practices. eMarketer had an article about a survey last year of social media marketers by MarketingSherpa. The survey looked at the effectiveness of social media marketing. The results are interesting.

Helps branding but not sales

smo1

Large majorities of the respondents rated social media marketing effective at influencing brand reputation, increasing awareness and improving search rankings and site traffic.

Social media was considered less effective, but still good, for internal communications and driving online sales. This last point is something that we are seeing over and over. The number of companies or web sites that have been able to use social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to generate any kind of online sales are few and far between
Marketers thought the best specific social media tactics are user reviews, relationships with bloggers and discussion groups. But they also found those tactics difficult to measure—only around 10% of respondents thought they were “very accurately measured.”

No Social Media Policy

smo2

I thought it was interesting that 75% of small businesses and 48% of large businesses had no written social media policy, meaning that social media is more of ad hoc than a important part of the overall marketing strategy of the company.

“A lot of the time, brands will put up a corporate blog or Facebook profile and think that’s social media marketing,” Lou Cuming of social media marketing agency DEI Worldwide told eMarketer. “It’s getting consumers into those environments and engaging with them online that becomes more difficult and requires more resources,” he said. “You really have to continue to nurture the conversation, otherwise it just dries up—it’s like having a one-way conversation, and if people aren’t listening, it does damage to the brand.”

No Reputation Management

smo3

With so many companies not having any policies around social media it is not a surprise then to see that around one-quarter of all businesses do not monitor the social media conversation at all. Nearly one-half of large businesses kept an eye on discussions without responding publicly while less than a quarter of all firms attempted to contact the writer of a negative comment. Amazingly only 4% of large businesses actually post a public rebuttal to negative comments, instead letting those comments sit and influence customer opinion!

lunes, agosto 17

SOCIAL MEDIA TRABAJOS

Puestos de trabajo en Social Media | gabycastellanos.com

Social Media Strategist: El es responsable de definir una estrategia global que puede incluir formacion, blogs corporativos o no corporativos, aplicaciones y posibilidades de las communities (FB, Twitter, Youtube, etc) con relacion a la marca. Si existen franquicias, ellos deben estar presentes en su estrategia. Este perfil es la base ejecutiva de los Social Media.

Community Manager: Es el responsable de manejar una comunidad ( blog / comunidad, una cuenta de twitter, FB Fan Page, etc). Tambien pueden ser responsables de la gestion social como plataforma de escucha y filtrado, y luego la asignación de conversaciones con otros en la unidad de negocio (SMS (no mensajes cortos), por ejemplo). A veces incluso pueden organizar eventos en persona (o Townhalls) para obtener retroalimentacion de la comunidad. Ellos son el rostro de la marca. Las conversaciones son su responsabilidad. Tambien puede encontrarse en esta area el Strategic Community, pero si lo es pasaria al reglon anterior, sin controla la estrategia en totalidad, sino es un Community Manager.

Social Media Manager: Puede ser un SMS ya que puede definir la estrategia, y ejecutarla. Son los amos de las campañas de marketing y probablemente, de la gestion de la misma. Tambien pueden estar a cargo de la compra de medios en Social Media como Facebook, Digg, etc. Y sin duda, deberian trabajar estrechamente con los Community Managers para aprovechar / integrar los elementos de conversacion en cada campaña.

Social Media PR: En muchas empresas, PR es una herramienta indispensable en Social Media. Por lo general, usan el blog y twitter. Tambien tienen relaciones exteriores con los bloggers y medios, y pueden gestionar el manejo de los Influencers.

Social Media Metrics: Es quien se encargara de la definicion de objetivos (dentro y fuera de Social Media, porque Social Media NO es solo Internet) y la presentacion de informes de los resultados. Entendera el Buzz y comprendera el Marketing para poder saber como valorar resultados y explicarlos al cliente.

Social Media Analyst: es quien controla el que pasa y donde sucede. Sabe donde nacen las conversaciones. Es capaz de analizar varias communities a la vez y decir donde y cuando conversar. Junto con el SMM hacen un equipo de escandalo, porque saben el como, el donde , el por que y los resultados.

Social Media Legal: Por lo general deberia ser un abogado, pero un abogado experto en las posibilidades de Social Media (complicado no?). Debe conocer los terminos legales de todas las communities y entender como afectan a las marcas. Es un puesto dificil de encontrar, pero si existe, nosotros tenemos uno :)

Social Media Security: Esta posicion es vital y que suelen trabajar estrechamente con SML. Ellos estan interesados no solo en proteger la privacidad de los activos de la empresa, sino tambien garantizar que las empresas cumplan con las leyes de privacidad en Internet.

Social Media Seo: Especilista en fomentar el correcto posicionamiento de buscadores en Social Media. Aunque este seria sin duda un puesto que deberia estar como complemento en cualquiera de los anteriores, porque es una base de SM, para empresas inteligentes deberian tenerlo aparte. Reequiere esfuerzo y dedicacion, como cualquiera de los anteriores.

viernes, junio 26

De paseo por las redes sociales

La publicidad ya no es lo que era. Estamos redefiniendo todo el entramado del marketing por culpa de esas malditas redes sociales. Algunos hablarán de evolución, otros de ruptura, el caso es que el marketing no puede actuar como lo hacía antes, y que la necesidad de cambio le viene de fuera.

Ya no es fruto de su propia evolución natural e intelectual ni del propio mercado, ahora nace de la propia sociedad, del comportamiento no de los mercados, si no de los individuos. Sí, ya sé que se dirá que eso ha sido siempre así, que el mercado es reflejo de la sociedad, pero el cambio cuantitativo es tan intenso que afecta al cambio cualitativo. El marketing empieza a integrarse cada vez más en la sociología y la antropología.

Los hoteles y demás empresas turísticas se enfrentan a un primer problema de autoconocimiento cuando pretenden entrar en las redes sociales. Porque en los medios tradicionales, en el mercado de masas estaba clara la posición de cada uno: la empresa en lo alto de la colina, dominando el mensaje y la marca, lanzando contenidos corporativos teñidos de guiños al cliente, que se concentraba en el valle, sufriendo las inundaciones publicitarias. Pero ahora los dos están en el llano, y los clientes ya no son clientes, son usuarios, porque son ellos los que se ponen la etiqueta y se la quitan. Además hacen grupos, tribus en las que la entrada tiene reservado el derecho de admisión. Las empresas han de rediseñar su imagen y, más aún, su personalidad si quiere entrar en las redes con una cierta garantía de éxito.

Pero ese éxito no depende sólo de una propia redefinición ontológica, si no que parte también de una serie de preguntas que Javier Gosende reduce a dos: ¿Tiene mi marca, producto o servicio salida en las redes sociales? ¿Tengo tiempo para crear contenidos en las redes sociales? Análisis cualitativo y análisis cuantitativo.

No todos necesitan las redes sociales. Es falso que la web 2.0 y lo que ello conlleva sea la solución a todos los problemas. Como regla general las empresas enfocadas al mercado final son las más indicadas para estar presentes en este tipo de entornos. Por supuesto las empresas turísticas forman parte de este tipo de empresas. El acceso directo al cliente final permite aprovechar todas las sinergias que produce su presencia, la del cliente, en la red. Elementos como la reputación online, el posicionamiento en buscadores o la referenciación suponen un valor si se saben gestionar, o un peligro evidente si esa gestión no es la correcta.

Pero la presencia en redes sociales no es una acción puntual, es una carrera de fondo cuyo éxito depende no sólo del impulso con el que entremos, sino de la consistencia que demostremos a la hora de mantener nuestra presencia. Para ello hay que diferenciar y conceptualizar claramente la red en la que nos movemos, no todas son iguales ni todas tienen el mismo público. No es lo mismo “pasear” por Facebook que por Tuenti. No voy a hacer lo mismo en Twitter que en Linkedin. Por tanto, tan importante es conocer la red como saber para qué la quiero y el mercado al que nos dirigimos. No todos los segmentos se mueven en todas las redes, ni todas nos permiten “hablar” del mismo modo con todos los segmentos. Los contenidos que generemos tendrán que tener en cuenta estos factores, aparte de sostenerse en el tiempo.

En un interesante artículo, Tiscar Lara hace una serie de reflexiones sobre las redes sociales y los medios de comunicación que se pueden extender perfectamente a las empresas. Ya no basta con atraer a un visitante a nuestra red o, ampliando el enfoque, a nuestra web o blog, debemos conseguir que se integre en él, que participe y se identifique. Sólo así vamos a ser capaces de sacar el máximo partido a esas herramientas. Recordemos que para el visitante mucho de lo que ofrecemos y que nosotros podemos considerar un valor diferencial es commodity, debemos identificarla y actuar a partir de ahí.

Como dice Tiscar Lara refiriéndose a los medios de comunicación, hay una serie de elementos sobre los que ha de incidir una empresa para favorecer la visita de potenciales clientes ya sea a nuestra Web o a nuestro grupo de la red social de turno: Conectividad, servicio, participación abierta y de calidad, orientación y dinamización y gestión del conocimiento.

La conectividad implica un acercamiento al target, de modo que el propio cliente tenga cierto sentimiento de pertenencia. El servicio supone comprender para qué creamos el grupo o la página. De nada nos va a servir ganar premios de diseño si esas páginas son difícilmente navegables o de una usabilidad escasa. La participación abierta y de calidad nos va a hacer mostrar nuestros procedimientos, nuestro hacer, y va a permitir también que el cliente forme parte del proceso. Debemos además tener una orientación, unos objetivos claros que sean realistas con nuestras posibilidades y con las exigencias del cliente. Por último es muy interesante poder acceder a los beneficios que estas herramientas aportan, entre los que está la posibilidad de desarrollar ideas nacidas de los propios clientes.

La presencia en las redes sociales y en los medios sociales en general no es un paseo tranquilo, sino que es caminar por terrenos escarpados y muy empinados. Lo bueno de este caminar es que al final del cerro hay una hermosa imagen del pueblo, y merece la pena luchar por verla.

Juan Sobejano (juan.sobejano@hosteltur.com)

AP se preocupa por su reputación online

233grados.com: AP se preocupa por su reputación online

AP se preocupa por su reputación online

Associated Press ha enviado un instructivo a sus 4.000 empleados sobre cómo actuar en las redes y plataformas sociales para no infringir la política de imparcialidad y equidad que tiene la agencia de noticias. Entre otros puntos, la empresa recomienda a su plantilla evitar afiliaciones políticas en sus perfiles digitales y no revelar noticias ni dar opiniones en Twitter. El consejo más polémico, no obstante, es que el que se refiere a Facebook, ya que AP pide a sus trabajadores que controlen lo que otros publican en sus perfiles y muros.

La agencia también recoge en el documento una preocupación planteada por los sindicatos tras el caso de un empleado que fue amonestado por un comentario que puso en Facebook. Se trata de la prohibición para los superiores de añadir como contactos a sus subordinados, a fin de evitar estas filtraciones y sanciones derivadas de ellas.

El sindicato News Media Guild, representante de unos 1.000 periodistas de AP, estima que la nueva política de la agencia sobre comportamiento y reputación online es tal vez la más restrictiva de las que están instrumentando los pocos medios que han avanzado en este asunto.

Como antecedentes se cuentan el pedido del Wall Street Journal a sus periodistas de que no añadan como amigos en las redes sociales a sus fuentes confidenciales o el llamamiento del New York Times a su redacción a mostrar sentido común en el uso de estas plataformas.

* Vía Wired

miércoles, junio 24

Tweet success: It's easy to lose interest in Twitter

Tweet success: It's easy to lose interest in Twitter, but stick with it | Philly | 06/23/2009

1. IT'S A REAL-TIME OPINION AGGREGATOR

Some people use Twitter solely for following breaking stories and reading reaction posted by users as news unfolds, Parry said. Posts on Twitter can be searched immediately after posting; a search engine takes longer to find information.

Get started by taking a look at the "trending topics" links on the right rail. Here you will find the most popular topics being discussed on Twitter at that moment; it's a place where there was nearly instant feedback after Sonia Sotomayor was announced as a Supreme Court nominee and quick reaction to the latest iPhone announcement.

Customized searches, however, help users listen in on developments in a particular field of interest. Conduct a Twitter search on, say, mortgages, and recent tweets with mentions of mortgages will appear, from the first-time buyer who writes about applying to the lender trying to drum up business or commiserating with colleagues about rising rates-all of which may be useful to someone trying to get a read on the housing market at a particular moment in time.

"In the listen mode, there's a lot of chatter on Twitter about every conceivable topic in the world," said Michael Young, senior vice president of Access Communications, a public-relations firm. Downloadable software can help people sort the information more easily. "Following" particular users will funnel their comments to your home page.

2. IT'S A NETWORKING TOOL

Get others to follow you, and you're building a network that connects you to people ranging from the executive you'd like to work for some day to the blogger who often has useful graphs that help you understand trends in your field.

Those with the most followers often are people who tweet regularly and post useful information. In addition to searching topics, find people to follow using directories like We Follow and Twellow.

The true power of Twitter as a networking tool lies in the loose connections users have with other users, and the ease with which you can expand that network-something that can help someone cast a wide net of people to contact in a job search, for example. Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, Twitter users often follow and are followed by people who they don't interact with in person, said Denise McVey, president of Boonton, N.J.-based S3, a publicity firm that works with companies on social networking.

Plus, job recruiters are beginning to lurk on Twitter, an important reason to post items and comments that favorably build your professional reputation, as well as connect with influential people. Jobs also are being posted there and can be tracked down using keyword searches; these listings are preferable because they're presumably fresh.

"If a company has tweeted about a job a minute ago, then they probably mean it's there-it's an open and available job," said Dan Finnigan, CEO of Jobvite, a recruiting application for social networking sites.

3. IT'S A WAY TO CONNECT WITH PEOPLE OFFLINE

Given the ability to use Twitter on a mobile phone, it can also be a place to connect with people in the real world, sometimes called "tweetups."

At a convention, for example, there might be several of your professional Twitter contacts in the same building; by tweeting that you are onsite, someone in your network who is also in attendance might be up for a cup of coffee or to exchange notes on a seminar. You can also find tweetups in your area by using Twitter's search function.

Track down a stream of feedback about an event or a topic by using hashtags, which helps group comments into topics. On Monday, real estate professionals attending the RE Barcamp event in Chicago included #rebcchi in their posts. Information about an event isn't restricted to conventions or concerts, however; the hashtag #sandiegofire, for example, grouped Twitter updates about wildfires in San Diego, offering a useful service for those in the area.

4. IT'S A CUSTOMER-SERVICE CHANNEL

Instead of writing a strongly worded letter to a customer-service department, politely complain on Twitter. Chances are, the company is listening.

Comcast reportedly uses Twitter, searching for references to the company to learn about service issues. Eight O'Clock Coffee listens and tweets as well; customers sometimes even ask where they can find a certain variety, said McVey, whose firm works with the coffee brand's social networking presence.

If you're a small business, it might not hurt to give Twitter a try too.

McVey said that even a small boutique owner might broadcast on Twitter when a new shipment comes in or when a sale is launching. The information would help customers and "give them that inner circle feeling" of being kept in the loop about the store.

5. IT'S A PLACE TO TRACK DOWN SAVINGS AND VALUE

Dell, for one, posts deals on refurbished computers, and there are others who also post deals. Searching the names of stores before you shop can turn up discounts you might not have known about otherwise, said Kim Danger, family savings expert for Coupons.com and founder of MommySavers.com.

When your network is large enough, it's possible to tweet a question to your followers and get feedback. Out of town? Ask your network for restaurant recommendations or entertainment suggestions. People in your network may respond with ideas.

martes, junio 23

Estrategia Digital » ¿Por qué entrar en Web 2.0/Social Media?

Cesar Calderón, de NetoRatón 2.0 ha publicado una serie de razones por las que se recomienda que las administraciones públicas den el paso definitivo a Web 2.0, desde el punto de vista funcional de dicho concepto (elemento social, participativo y de comunidad):

Recomiendo leerlo y aprovecho para añadir varias notas sobre participación ciudadana y transparencia que habrían abusado del campo destinado a comentarios en dicho post:
¿Participación y Transparencia como ventajas?

Efectivamente, ganaremos en participación. La ciudadanía pasa de ser uno mero espectador a tener voz y voto en todas y cada una de las iniciativas de la administración.

Asimilemos bien: ¡Voz y Voto Non-Stop!

Y, sin duda, como consecuencia de dicha alteración básica de la relación administración-ciudadanía (donde la unidireccionalidad deja paso a la bidireccionalidad), la administración se ve mucho más expuesta al ciudadano.

Pero más importante aún:

El ciudadano se convierte en crítico directo de la administración ante el común de sus conciudadanos, diluyendo la capacidad de influencia de los medios tradicionales como intermediarios necesarios y alterando las reglas del juego de las relaciones públicas (RRPP) a nivel institucional.

En este sentido, la administración pública habrá ganado en transparencia. Pero sus responsables habrán sacrificado un cierto grado de control.

Ahora pongámonos a evaluar las ventajas de ambas, participación y transparencia, para corporaciones locales y organismos autonómicos, forales, ministeriales o institucionales.
El Yin

Será fácil percibir la ventaja de contar con miles de ciudadanos a la hora de evaluar disyuntivas importantes, garantizando el aprobado de la decisión tomada de manera previa a su ejecución.

También resulta sencillo encontrar las ventajas en contar con acceso inmediato a un dinámico repositorio de ideas de las que echar mano en cualquier momento. Al fin y al cabo, el ciudadano estará siempre dispuesto a aportar su granito de arena para el bien común.
¡El Yang!

Pero los Medios Sociales y la “web 2.0″ son conversacionales por naturaleza y sólo funcionan cuando la relación entre las dos partes (organismo iniciador del entorno y ciudadano participante) se sitúan una frente a la otra en igualdad de condiciones. Y es aquí donde entra la capacidad de la ciudadanía para escrutinizar a la administración.

Y es en la evaluación de este particular aspecto donde pienso que se va a dirimir el nivel de “socialización” (y, en consecuencia, de éxito) que cada administración pública adoptará para sí.

Porque habrá quienes vean la ventaja en la participación, pero no en el escrutinio o la falta de control.

La razón: En la medida en que la administración cuelga del poder político (en sí mismo sustentado sobre el voto), ésta se debe a la opinión pública. Una opinión pública que tiene más caldo de cultivo en los medios sociales (con el efecto viral de comunidades y compartición) que en los medios tradicionales.

Pero difícilmente podremos limitar participación o transparencia una vez que la bola de nieve 2.0 haya comenzado a rodar.

Me ha gustado este post de BL Ochman (”What Kills a Social Media Campaign”)en el que expone tremendos fracasos de empresas como Ford, Microsoft o Wal-Mart en sus particulares incursiones en Medios Sociales/Web 2.0. Cada uno de estos fracasos tenía la misma razón de base: Exceso de control por parte de la empresa.
Democracia 2.0

Y aquí está la clave: Si contamos con el ciudadano para todo lo que hacemos, deberemos responder ante él a todos los niveles. Y las implicaciones son enormes: Estamos hablando de dar otra vuelta de tuerca a la democratización de nuestros sistemas de gobierno, algo que lleva muchos años vaticinándose, para mejor o peor suerte.

No conozco a muchos conciudadanos que no celebrarían por todo alto el toparse con un organismo público con iniciativa y espíritu emprendedor, que aunara un verdadero propósito de hacernos la vida más fácil y una predisposición a rendir cuentas a quienes financiamos su actividad con nuestros impuestos.

Pero también me consta que ciertos organismos públicos deben su capacidad de maniobra a una menor exposición al ojo público. Cae de cajón que son precisamente estos organismos los que no tienen nada que ganar de una “socialización” de sus actividades (piénsese en el CESID, por acudir a extremos).
Pro Social

Hay ciertas cosas que deberían formar parte de la cultura política que alimenta nuestras instituciones: Cuando una persona ostenta un puesto en una administración pública, la ciudadanía debería presidir la pirámide en el particular organigrama de su despacho. Esta ciudadanía tiene poco peso a título individual, pero su razonamiento conjunto debería de determinar las acciones de la propia administración.

La web 2.0 y los medios sociales representan una revolución social que está a punto de traer a la administración pública los mismos cambios que ya ha experimentado la empresa privada: El ciudadano escoge, contribuye, evalúa y juzga.

Para aquellos niveles de las diversas administraciones en los que la ciudadanía se percibe en forma de votos, el votante tendrá palabra en sus iniciativas, pero también será juez de primera línea de su ejecución.

Como señalaba antes, la relación administración-prensa-ciudadanía dejará paso a una relación directa administración-ciudadanía, en la que la segunda dará un salto de gigante al relegar a la prensa a constituir un elemento más de información de tercera parte. De este modo, las labores de relaciones públicas verán diluídas sus vías de canalización de mensajes, pero ganarán al mismo tiempo en eficiencia, puesto que la administración dejará de estar sometida a la arbitrariedad de medios de prensa o audiovisuales cuya subsistencia se debe a la publicidad.
¿Jugamos?

En definitiva, si representas a un organismo público a cualquier nivel y estás dispuesto a:

* Contar con el ciudadano para identificar problemas presentes y futuros
* Contar con el ciudadano para evaluar posibles soluciones a problemas presentes

Sin darte miedo:

* Permitir al ciudadano el escrutinio de tus procesos de ejecución de las soluciones identificadas
* Facilitar al ciudadano información constante acerca de la evolución real de cada iniciativa
* Escuchar el veredicto del ciudadano sobre soluciones ya implantadas
* Cambiar las reglas del juego, para bien de la ciudadanía y para mal del status quo

Habrás logrado dar un paso de gigante hacia la Administración Electrónica, pero muchísimo más importante:

* Habrás logrado crear un organismo infinitamente más eficiente
* Habrás solucionado problemas desde dentro
* Habrás mostrado todas las opciones a quien juzgará el éxito o el fracaso
* Dependerás menos de los medios (prensa, televisión, radio)
* Te asegurarás el voto de la propia ciudadanía que de modo individual y a través de sus múltiples relaciones ha seguido de cerca tu valiente incursión en una nueva era de transparencia, apertura, conversación y eficiencia

Participación y Transparencia garantizan el éxito de una incursión en medios sociales. Ambos son positivos. Para todas las partes implicadas.

The 6 Types Of Annoying Social Media Promoters

Let's Get Social
The 6 Types Of Annoying Social Media Promoters

Jun 23, 2009 at 7:01am ET by Greg Finn

You could be the next “Will It Blend” but if nobody knows about you, then it doesn’t matter how creative and awesomely original you are. One of the most important factors in social media is the promotion of your content, and this often leads to annoyance. There are many annoying social media habits, but perhaps the most annoying come from the promotion of social media. Avoid the following social promotion pitfalls to become a less annoying (and more effective) user:

The Impersonal Users. If asking for a favor, make it personal. Social media is supposed to be all about relationships, yet so many people are lazy and make things impersonal. Great, I’m glad you found my IM name in my social profile, but my full name isn’t ‘Can you Digg this for me,’ so find some manners and use them. This is the same for all social mediums. Instead of direct messaging “friends” and telling them to share something in 140 characters, take the time to chat with them on IM, talk about the story in mind, and inquire if they would be interested in passing information along to their friends. The more time and genuine effort that you out into something, the better it will come out - I guarantee it.

The Crazed Cross Promoters. Did you just send your Digg account page via StumbleUpon? Did you send me a message on Mixx that included a link to Propeller? These types of actions can really annoy users and garner you more negative votes than positive votes. People join StumbleUpon because they want to find quality new stories, not see your Twitter name. By all means, use social badges on your site to spread love, but if you are trying to use one social medium to force users into a social media marathon, you are trying too hard.

The One Way Streeters. These people are the most obvious annoyances on social networks, as you simply have to look at the number of times that they have asked you for a vote in comparison to the number of times you have sent something to them. If this is a one way street, you have found yourself a “one way streeter.” Guess what? If you IM multiple Reddit stories to friends who aren’t asking for anything from you, there is a good chance that they are avoiding them all together or downvoting you. Try to keep an even ratio of stories with your friends, as it is the courteous thing to do. Nobody likes that guy who always needs something in real life - and they don’t on social networks either.

The Always An Emergency Users. These users embody the little boy from “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” to the fullest. If every tweet is followed with PLS RETWEET and every message sent is of high importance, it all loses meaning. If I wrote this entire post in bold, no words would stand out. The same is true with social media; if you say that something is important, it better well be or when there is really a wolf nobody will be listening.

The Convenient Users. Even worse than the one way streeters, these users only show up when they need something, but you couldn’t even find them if you needed something. These users pop on to Instant Messenger to drop you a link and then vanish in under a nanosecond. You may catch them DMing you on Twitter and then not using the service or even checking messages for weeks. If you have something that you want to share that badly, at least stick around and hear what your “friends” have to say about it, let alone being visible or active when they have something for you.

The Total Spammers. These users may be the most annoying for the sole reason that they know how annoying they are, and yet they don’t care…at all. You can find them IM-ing you tens of links to stories to vote on, or showing up in your inbox after they figured out your email name and added you to their promotion list or worse yet - hacking your account to share their content. Social media users report spam, and these users are just helping to dig themselves into their own graves.

At the end of the day, social media is truly about being social - so try to translate your manners online and you will stay off this list (and boost your success!)

Nine Twitter Tips for Business

Twitter is so red-hot right now that it's united Shaq and Oprah. It's also so good at attracting buzzwords that I can't decide whether to call it a microblogging service or a social-networking Web site. But it doesn't really matter what you call it, or whether you prefer to follow Ashton Kutcher or Britney Spears. What matters is that users are taking to Twitter in massive numbers. And your business should be there, too.

Does this mean that plumbers need to start posting messages about what they had for breakfast in order to drum up sink-repair orders from desperate Internet hipsters? No, but you can and should use Twitter to connect with your customers, clients, and fans in a way that you couldn't do before. Here are some tips on how to use Twitter effectively--and a few cautions, as well.

1. Don't automate it

If you've got a blog that's connected to your business, you can use a service such as TwitterFeed to directly channel your new blog posts into Twitter posts. Sounds nifty, doesn't it? Well, don't do it. Your business's primary Twitter feed ought to be hand-fed. If you publish a flood of impersonal links, your Twitter account will just seem like a faceless promotion machine. And that's not any way to engage people on Twitter. Link to the very best stuff on your blog, as well as relevant stuff you see elsewhere on the web, and also post items that don't contain links at all. (Don't forget to use a URL-shortening service such as tinyurl, is.gd, or xrl.us for your links.)

2. Be conversational

Your business's Twitter account should talk like a person--even if it's a collective "person" representing your company or brand. Think of your Twitter account as a character in a little Internet play--it's a walking, talking personification of your entire company. If you feel like it, take it to the limit: Use the first-person ("They're putting my stuff on sale again!"), invent a personality. Or just use the royal "we" and "our"--"Our editors have the latest on so-and-so." But be chatty.

Some companies prefer to disclose members of their team when they're tweeting from the company account. That's a valid approach, too. For example, the clever group-tweeting service CoTweet (currently in beta) can automatically append your initials to the tweets you make while representing your company. (Macworld is testing out this service to see if it makes it easier for a group of our editors to jointly operate our various Twitter accounts.)

3. Follow people who are relevant

From your Twitter account, follow everyone on your staff who uses Twitter. Follow colleagues in related companies and in your industry. Follow relevant brands and journalists and pundits in your market, even those who compete with you. It's polite to follow people. And by following people you are creating an ecosystem--people will see who you are following and consider those as suggestions for users they should follow as well.

4. Make sure your people are on Twitter, and refer to them

Individuals tweet different things than companies. It's okay for your company's employees to talk about making waffles or going out for drinks, as well as what they're working on. Not everyone will embrace Twitter, but many of them will--and even the most personal stuff that leaks on to Twitter can help make stronger personal connections with colleagues and audience members alike.

This being said, you need to be aware of who your employees are--and make them aware that everything they write on Twitter (unless they're using a "protected account" that limits access) is public. If there's someone who works for your company whose Tweets are a bit risque, you should consider whether or not you want to refer to them from your company's account. An alternative is to ask employees to create two Twitter accounts--one for work matters and one for their personal lives--and keep them separate.

Once your people are on Twitter, they'll be able to mention what they're working on--and reference the brand via Twitterspeak. For example: "Just wrote a cool story for @macworld about the iPod shuffle." That will drive followers to your company's Twitter account.

Likewise, your brand's account can drive followers to your people. For example: "Our very own @vacuumguy thinks the new Dyson is awesome: tinyurl.com/example"

5. Answer your mentions

People will refer to your company's account as if it were a person. You should reply to tweets that mention you, when relevant. This will give your account more personality and will make those people feel engaged directly with the brand. For example, a person might ask you a question directly: "@macworld Hi. Do you know when Apple will enable SMS message forwarding on the iPhone? Thanks." "@janevans35 Apple's not saying, but we hope it's with the next major software release!"

6. Search for your name

Beyond mentions, which are specific references to your Twitter account, there are probably people using Twitter to talk about your business. Use Twitter's powerful search features to find those references, either from the Twitter Web site, a Mac-based Twitter client program such TweetDeck or Tweetie that supports saved searches, or even via your RSS reader by subscribing to the RSS feed linked to from every Twitter search results page. There are a lot of companies offering great customer service and support on Twitter by watching what people say about them. When I groused on Twitter about my bad luck finding a JetBlue flight from Oakland to Boston, within a half an hour I had received a reply from the JetBlue Twitter account with an explanation.

7. Consider creating sub-accounts for sections of your business or customer base

If you're part of a big enough company, consider creating smaller, more targeted accounts. Starting a new section of your site devoted only to fans of the banjo? It might be worth starting a new @joesmusicbanjo account, then Tweeting about it from your company's main account: "Banjo lovers rejoice! Welcome our new friend, @joesmusicbanjo to the party!"

8. Use Twitter to ask your customers questions...and get good answers

Twitter is a great way to get answers to questions. Trying to figure out what your customers want to see or are interested in? Use Twitter to ask them. Sure, it's not a scientific survey, but it can give you an immediate snapshot of the zeitgeist. This can be both instructive and productive. About five minutes before I went into a product briefing with Apple, I used Twitter to ask readers what they wanted to know. I ended up with dozens of great questions, and used them as the framework for the article I wrote after the briefing was over.

9. Be a good Twitter citizen

Can you persuade your Twitter followers to promote you to their followers? Sure, but be mindful: He who has the most followers doesn't necessarily win. If you get people to promote you to their friends in order to win a prize or enter a sweepstakes, you may end up creating a harmful backlash. I've seen it happen myself: Recently, a software-deals site offered a free program to anyone who would tweet about its bundle to his or her friends. The people who tweeted were rewarded, but many of their friends felt like they were receiving spam. Even though the people who tweeted were complicit in the act, it was the company that induced the tweeting that received the bulk of the criticism. The etiquette of Twitter is still evolving--be wary.

Even if you're not the type of person who uses Facebook or Twitter yourself, there's no denying that these new forms of connection and communication are powerful and becoming increasingly important. That's why your business should be on Twitter now.

domingo, junio 21

Social Media Marketing: Who's Full of Hot Air? Who's The Real Deal?

By B.L. Ochman
These days, everyone and her dog is a social media marketer, or so they tell us. But who’s really an expert? And who’s full of hot air? How do you tell the experts from the snake oil salesmen?

Let’s define terms:
o Social Media Marketing is helping companies to add tools including blogs, wikis, widgets, audio and video broadcasting, social networks, user-generated content, and peer to peer ratings to their communication mix.

o The purpose of social media marketing is to engage enthusiasts and existing customers in an interactive community in order to drive more traffic and sales. This creates a highly involved audience who recognize and interact with the brand clearly.

Who’s qualified to create social media strategy:
o People with clients who actually pay them to create social media campaigns.
o People whose ROI-driven campaigns actually produce traffic and sales.
o People who create campaigns that are more than a clueless ad agency’s flash in the pan, gimmick, soon forgotten stunt or just plain dim.

While there is no shortage of consultants who blog, talk, present at conferences, and preach about social media marketing, only a handful in the world have actually created successful campaigns for actual clients.

Who’s the real deal in corporate social media marekting?

NOTE - certainly there are others, but the folowing are quite extraordinary examples. Other successful case studies are welcome.

o Hugh Macleod at gapingvoid has done a spectacular job of marketing Stormhoek wine entirely through blogs and social networking.

o Crispin Porter, who created phenomenal, viral Subservient Chicken for Burger King, but who never did anything as successful, clever or interesting since.

The site has garnered about 14 million unique visitors and 396 million hits to date. It went viral in a matter of hours, simply being emailed to a few friends, who sent it to a few friends, etc. etc. Adweek has a case study here

o ITToolbox, who’ve grown their social network for IT professionals into multi-million business with more than $8 million in ad sales.
o Brains on Fire, who created the Fiskateers for Fiskars, who make crafting tools. Branded mentions of Fiskars products are up more than 400% on a per-week basis since the program began. The program, which now has more than 1,200 members has successfully de-commoditized Fiskars tools and made crafters value them beyond price.

o B.L. Ochman (hey, this is no place for modesty.) I've created the first Up Your Budget Treasure Hunt for Budget Car Rental in 2005, the first ever blog-based viral marketing campaign, promoted entirely through bloggers and blog advertising - with no traditional marketing whatsoever.

The results: one million unique visits to the site, 2,000 registered treasure hunters, and over 10 million page views in only four weeks. The clue videos were downloaded a total 43,000 times. There were 19.9 million blog advertising impressions at an average cost of 33 cents (Compared to $1.62 per click on AOL Instant Messenger).

Since then, campaigns BL Ochman & Company have created for clients include
o Ethics Crisis, where visitors can anonymously confess the most unethical thing they ever did in business and be rated by other readers;
o Clutter Control Freak Blog for stacksandstacks.com, which achieved 1,500 daily uniques within a month of launch;
o Wife in the Fast Lane, a contest for Simon & Schuster author Karen Quinn;
o a blog advertising campaign for American Greetings that achieved clickthru rates as high as 5.7%
o and a soon-to-be-launched how-to blog for a Fortune 1000 fiber maker.

o Oddcast, who’ve produced the wonderful Monk-e-mail for careerbuilder.com, and who recycles their technology into a variety of effective interactive campaigns for a variety of clients.

Are there more? Sure, there are a handful of others. But the list of social media marketers with actual tracks records is short.

So be sure to beware of social media snake oil salespersons.

Before you hire a social media guru, be sure they show you successful campaigns they’ve completed.

I absolutely guarantee you that most self-proclaimed social media experts can’t do that.

Bonus links:
- Chris Brogan – Snake Oil in Social Media

- Social Media and communities: how not to approach it.

- Social Gestures Beget Social Objects

five quick and easy tips to gain online buzz (and links).

Leveraging Social Media Buzz for SEO Success - ClickZ

five quick and easy tips to gain online buzz (and links).

Make Sharing Easy

Include "AddThis" or "Share This" or other social media button links to your Web site content, so people can share content quickly and easily throughout their various networks.

Add an RSS feed to your site so people can opt-in to get content pushed out to them versus having to come back to your site all the time to find out what's new.

Keep It Fresh

No one will share a site that was built in 2007 and hasn't been updated since. Keep your content fresh, give people something new to talk about, and people will keep giving you "link love."

Search engines like fresh content, and so do social network users.

Submit, Don't Spam

You can submit your own content, but make sure to always follow the rules. Make sure your submission is done manually versus through mass auto-submitter software. Tag your content appropriately, following the suggested structure and user guidelines. Above all else, avoid anything sneaky -- people will sniff you out.

Be an Active Participant

If you want people to take your submissions seriously, you need to build a reputation in these networks. Just like on eBay where sellers build a rep, and buyers make decisions based on this rep, you need to become a "household" name on the network. Complete your profile and make a name for yourself so that people trust what you have to say.

Don't just submit your own stuff. Share other sites and useful resources. You'll appear more credible and less biased. And don't just submit -- vote, comment, and share other's content as well.

Become a Power User

Don't make an appearance every once in a while. Be a constant presence on these sites. The amount of time and energy you invest will directly correlate with what you get back.

Build your list of friends or followers as big as you can. The bigger your network, the more chance someone will hear what you have to say and share it.

And the best way to build a large network is by -- you guessed it -- sharing amazing content!

Leveraging Social Media Buzz for SEO Success

Leveraging Social Media Buzz for SEO Success - ClickZ

Leveraging Social Media Buzz for SEO Success

At Search Engine Strategies Toronto, the big buzz was generating buzz and gaining a social media presence -- ultimately, how to get people talking about your brand online.

Lots of discussion centered on the importance of buzz and how to build it, but more insight is always needed about how to leverage buzz for your SEO (define) efforts. How do you build buzz, use it to build link authority, and ultimately improve your search engine rankings?

Let's explore how buzz and SEO are related.

We'll start with the basics: the importance of external links for search rankings.

If Google sees a link to your site as a sort of "vote" for your site, and the Web site with the most votes gets to the top of the search engine results, then all other things equal, the more links you have, the better, right?

Well, not exactly. Remember, the authority and relevance of your links are equally as important, if not more so, than the number of them. So all other things equal, the more authoritative, relevant links you have, the better your chances of being visible in the search engines for your keywords.

But to get authoritative relevant links -- and lots of them -- you need buzz. You need to get people excited enough about your brand, product, Web site, or content to want to share it, actively, with others. And when it comes to online, what better way to generate buzz (and links!) than through the plethora of social networks and user-generated content sites?

When someone submits, shares, or promotes your content on one of these sites, they typically include a keyword-rich link to your content. As this content gets shared over and over, your site generates more inbound links. Therefore, your link authority increases over time, along with (hopefully) your organic search engine rankings.

And there you have it -- the relationship between buzz, links, and SEO.

Now that you understand the potential benefit, it's time to get out there and do it:

* Get "dug" (on Digg)

* Get "upvoted" (on Reddit)

* Get "propelled" to the first page (on Propeller)

* Get bookmarked (on Delicious or Furl)

* Be "tweeted" and "retweeted" (on Twitter)

* Be blogged about (on any number of blogs)

* Be "stumbled upon" (on StumbleUpon)

* Gain "fans" (on Facebook)

How do you do all that? Create amazing content.

Amazing content, designed with your target audience in mind, such as tools, video, stories, articles, tips, and guides, will naturally win you recognition on social networks, because you'll be offering something of value that people will want to spread the word about.

But if you build amazing content that is super relevant to your target, and you still lack pick-up on social media sites, you might need to help things along.

Here are five quick and easy tips to gain online buzz (and links).

Make Sharing Easy

Include "AddThis" or "Share This" or other social media button links to your Web site content, so people can share content quickly and easily throughout their various networks.

Add an RSS feed to your site so people can opt-in to get content pushed out to them versus having to come back to your site all the time to find out what's new.

Keep It Fresh

No one will share a site that was built in 2007 and hasn't been updated since. Keep your content fresh, give people something new to talk about, and people will keep giving you "link love."

Search engines like fresh content, and so do social network users.

Submit, Don't Spam

You can submit your own content, but make sure to always follow the rules. Make sure your submission is done manually versus through mass auto-submitter software. Tag your content appropriately, following the suggested structure and user guidelines. Above all else, avoid anything sneaky -- people will sniff you out.

Be an Active Participant

If you want people to take your submissions seriously, you need to build a reputation in these networks. Just like on eBay where sellers build a rep, and buyers make decisions based on this rep, you need to become a "household" name on the network. Complete your profile and make a name for yourself so that people trust what you have to say.

Don't just submit your own stuff. Share other sites and useful resources. You'll appear more credible and less biased. And don't just submit -- vote, comment, and share other's content as well.

Become a Power User

Don't make an appearance every once in a while. Be a constant presence on these sites. The amount of time and energy you invest will directly correlate with what you get back.

Build your list of friends or followers as big as you can. The bigger your network, the more chance someone will hear what you have to say and share it.

And the best way to build a large network is by -- you guessed it -- sharing amazing content!

By employing these tips, hopefully you'll be well on your way to gaining increased inbound links to your Web site, which in turn, stands to improve your search engine ranking potential.

Join us for a one-day Online Marketing Summit in a city near you from May 5 to July 1, 2009. Choose from one of 16 events designed to help interactive marketers do their jobs more effectively. All sessions are new this year and cover such topics as social media, e-mail marketing, search, and integrated marketing.

Advice for brand owners before running a social media marketing campaign

resources | Agency2 : Social Media Marketing, Social Media Monitoring

Advice for brand owners before running a social media marketing campaign

Social Media has definitely become the thing to discuss online and everywhere else . . . whether it’s Twitter or Social Networking there seems to be a number of people writing ‘knowledgeably’ and from an ‘expert’s’ point of view about the rise in the use of all these online channels.

The problem for a marketer, or a digital agency looking to learn more about it, is that there are so many people out there who now claim to be expert in Social Media that it’s difficult to know who really is qualified and who is ‘bluffing’. Social media is more than a ‘bolt on’ for a PR agency and it is more than just another medium for a digital agency . . . it takes time to learn how to harness it for real client benefit.

I want to offer some advice in terms of what you should look out for before setting out on a social media campaign:

1. Firstly I would suggest that any marketer who is considering following the social media route, do some proper research into which area of social media they think they’d like their brand to feature in, perhaps based on where they’ve noticed their target demographic being vocal.
2. Secondly, in extreme cases, a brand can risk losing credibility if mistakes are made in terms of social media choices. Understanding the legal and ethical frame work of social media marketing alongside experience will avert a campaign backfiring, or proving to be a wasted investment.
3. Thirdly, and I suppose I would naturally say this, but If you come directly to a Social Media specialist agency then you are going for a ‘low risk’ option. For example, we at agency:2 have been around since 2007 and have a number of tried and tested methods of implementing our clients’ strategies. These are borne out of experience and we would be able to demonstrate through real case studies and testimonials how our clients have benefited from working with us – any other specialist should have the same kind of confidence in their past working knowledge of how social media works.
4. Also, because we’ve had time to test our methods, we have also had time to build up a number of tools, methodologies and processes to track our social media effectiveness - there won’t be many social media ‘experts’ who have just joined the party who can demonstrate this level of experience or prove ROI.
5. Finally, don’t believe the hype – social media is not as new and untested as it may at times appear. It has been around for a while and, as such, it is possible to enter into a social media campaign with confidence in it as a viable alternative to or complement to traditional digital marketing methods. Your ‘expert’ or ‘specialist’ should be able to show you how social media can work in tandem with another digital avenues and give you guidance for example on how CTR’s compare, eg social media vs banners or social media vs e-mail marketing. This information is key for budget and ROI marketing planning.

In summary, social media can provide marketers with limitless opportunities to develop their product offerings, develop relationships and ultimately boost their sales. It is, however, important to take a little bit of extra time before getting started on ensuring that you’re working with the right partner.

Teens Don’t Twitter

I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Teens Don’t Twitter - Cringely on technology

Teens Don’t Twitter

pinkprincessRodney, an artist/poet/landscaper who also happens to be my wife’s old boyfriend, got his mobile phone bill the other day and was shocked to see that Echo, his 16 year-old daughter, had the month before sent or received more than 14,000 SMS text messages from her mobile phone. Yes, Echo has unlimited texting, but among her friends this behavior isn’t unusual and it says a lot about how media habits — good and bad — are changing in our culture.

If a typical month has 30 days that’s 720 hours, a third of which we’ll guess Echo spends asleep, giving her 480 hours of texting time per month. Fourteen thousand texts (the number was actually higher, but we’ll round it down for simplicity) divided into 480 hours is about 29 texts per hour or about one every two minutes. Since texting is usually a binary activity (the texter sends a text for every text they receive) we can guess that Echo writes about 7,000 text messages per month, with writing probably taking twice as much time as reading. Half an hour at the mall with a stopwatch told me the average teenage SMS message takes about 20 seconds to type (if you can call it typing) suggesting that Echo is spending about a quarter of her waking time on texting.

According to both Neilsen and the Pew Internet Life Project, Echo is an outlier, a user of texting at prodigious levels beyond her peers. A Neilsen study from the second quarter of 2008, for example, says that mobile phone users age 13-17 send or receive an average of 1742 texts per month, which would only require 7.25 hours by my reckoning. So Echo is an outlier, but on the other hand her data is fresher and texting IS rising at a rapid pace.

So who cares? Advertisers care. Kids who are texting aren’t attending to TV ads while they are doing it, nor are they reading magazines or newspapers (what are those?). So advertising is coming quickly to SMS.

TV executives care. Remember those words “standard text messaging rates apply” at the end of every American Idol episode? Well for reality television, texting means revenue. Idol averages 30 million voters per week of which a quarter are using SMS that reportedly yields a nickel per vote to the TV producers. Seven and a half million messages per week and 12 weeks of voting yields another $4.5 million per season for Simon and the gang.

Educators care because texting competes with other activities like paying attention at school and doing homework. Keeping kids from texting in school is almost impossible.

To really understand the Echo phenomenon, though, you have to appreciate that she’s a very pretty girl living in a semi-rural area where kids like to complain that there isn’t anything to do. So they gossip. If teens twittered, which studies show they don’t, Echo would be a twitterer because her peers are interested in her life. And THAT’s what really makes her an outlier, because Echo is an opinion leader and a trend-setter and SMS — generally a one-to-one technology — isn’t well-suited for that. So the poor girl has to work really hard to keep all her friends informed, using an antiquated interpersonal communication technology as an ad hoc social network.

What’s most interesting to me about this phenomenon is the part about teens not twittering. All the studies show that’s true but don’t seem to look for causality. They miss the simple point that twittering is public behavior (one-way at that!) and texting is private and bi-directional. An adult or a teen celebrity might twitter but most regular kids see what they are communicating as too private to share with anyone other than the person for whom it is intended, much less any old creep who chooses to subscribe. And divas like Echo, who might happily embrace a more public channel, are trapped by the tools of their audience.

Girls age 13-17 are interested in relationships (who likes who) and boys age 13-17, who would normally be interested more in things, also happen to be generally obsessed with girls age 13-17, effectively dragging boys into the sway of SMS, too, sustaining an industry.

There’s clearly a new product opportunity in here, somewhere.

Andy Hertzfeld tells how Steve Jobs used to argue for a faster-booting Macintosh citing the man-years and lives it would save. But that’s nothing compared to the impact some twitter-like hybrid SMS product would have for a girl like Echo. It could change her life. Maybe even free up enough time for her to get into Duke.

And as the central node in an Idol-like SMS network, her popularity might even cover some of that Duke tuition, too.

Listen to this post in Bob's sexy, sexy voice

jueves, junio 18

20 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters

20 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters | Sales Podcast and Social Media Training Blog by Shane Gibson - Canada - USA - South Africa

20 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters

Daily I post social media tips on Twitter, I thought I would post the most recent 20 for you. Have any to share? Post them in comments below.
20 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters:

1. Spend at least as much time listening as you do broadcasting.
2. It’s called “social media” for a reason. Be prepared to interact consistently.
3. You can’t win the game focusing on the scoreboard. Focus on the game of engagement and the traffic will come.
4. Losing followers is okay, measure the engagement level of who is still here to see how you are doing.
5. Have a goal, measure results, measurement provides feedback and improvement.
6. The internet has always been about helping people connect to people (@nickusborne)
7. Pay it forward. Help, teach. guide and be patient with people new to the scene.
8. Study people who are credible with the type of clients you want to attract. Model their strategy.
9. Marketers aren’t always synonymous with community builders, traffic and followers isn’t always equal to credibility.
10. If you’re an old school e-mail marketer or pitch artist, there’s some habits you will need to unlearn.
11. Before you start your campaign define your market and their pains.
12. Everyone and every company gets off message once in a while. Refocus and learn from it.
13. Leaders of large “Tribes” need to have thick skin and a tolerance for noise.
14. Continually tweak and update your Linkedin profile, your network will be notified.
15. Social media is changing so quickly that if you stop too long to smell the roses you’ll be out of touch.
16. Try a new platform each month, video blogging, FaceBook, tumblr etc. Curiosity can lead to great discoveries.
17. You can’t make a robot network for you at a party, why do you think they can do it for you on the web?
18. Some un-follows are strategic. People want to know if you’re really listening.
19. You can’t please everyone. But know who you are trying to connect with. Get in sync with your audience.
20. http://www.ping.fm updates FaceBook, Brightkite, Twitter, tumblr and Linkedin statuses all at once

Twitter tricks and tips for SEO

June 17th, 2009

Goto comments Leave a comment

Twitter tips & tricks for SEO Just this a few days ago Scott Crowley from SEO.com mentioned a technique that I used in my most recent blog post, Will Bing.com change the face of search? The tactic that Scott referred to was how I targeted certain individuals who I knew would take interest in that particular post using a direct message with a link on Twitter.

There are several different Twitter techniques that can be successful…if used properly. I’ve compiled a few of them below for all to see.

Twitter Tip #1:

Be a good Twitter citizen. Don’t spam people with dumb links to things they probably don’t care about anyway.

Ok…now that we’ve gotten that one out of the way…now we can learn. LOL

Twitter Tip #2:

Connect with people on Twitter that share the same interests as you. A lot of times you may get requests from Twitter Spammers, or as some call them, Twammers…..BLOCK THEM….hopefully eventually they may disappear.

Twitter Tip #3:

Be courteous enough to retweet (or “RT”) other people’s blogs, websites, press releases. This will help your posts out in the long run as well and you will begin to see other tweets about your information as well.

Twitter Tip #4:

Add a retweet button to your blog. This will allow an easy avenue for those reading your blog posts to tweet your post easier than copying and pasting your url…which is always too long, so they end up having to shorten the url, which is just too much work.

Useful Plugins: Wordpress, Blogger

Twitter Tip #5:

Remember that Twitter is a Social Media site, where you are supposed to be meeting and networking with similar individuals…not just posting links without interaction. This is where your Twitterank drops…and people just stop liking you. The more you are liked…the more will follow.

BlogLOST 42 y 195