If you’re online today – or on Twitter or Facebook – you’ve likely seen the acronym SOPA. You may have also noticed that several website including Google, Wikipedia and Yahoo have altered their sites to protest SOPA. Check out the blacked out Google logo above. What’s going on? SOPA stands for the Stop Online Privacy [...]
Read more5 Tips for a Social Media Crisis
You can take this to the bank: If you are a brand then you’ll experience a social media crisis. It’s inevitable. Look at it this way. No brand in existence – not even the most popular and best-loved brands in the world – has ever avoided a negative phone call, a snarky email, a compliant [...]
Read more2012 Will be the Year of Social Catch-Up
Social media moves like the Flash. Zip! Bang! Boom! It’s fast – really fast. Stop paying attention for a couple of days and you feel like you’ve missed an entire movement. There’s always innovation – new technology, cool sharing tools, new ways to monitor and manage. Heck, there are new platforms and applications seemingly dropping [...]
Read moreWhy Wikipedia Should Shoulder Blame for Violations
Because they do a lousy job of explaining themselves. I’ll get to that momentarily. But first why is Wikipedia hands off for PR people? The reason is simple: Because Wikipedia isn’t an owned, earned or paid channel. For those of us who don’t work in marketing or communications, those distinctions are how the industry identifies [...]
Read moreThe Wrath of Everyone & How to Avoid It
If you’re a brand (or a celebrity) and you make a mistake on a social network then expect the following: Righteous fury directed right at you in a sudden firestorm Personal insults and questions about your intelligence, character and integrity Lectures from social media “experts” (usually in the form of condescending blog posts) providing you [...]
Read moreThe Content Explosion
Corporate communications used to be straightforward: Publish a press release Talk to the media about it That lead to news articles that could outline a company’s products and services for potential customers. But that model was altered by the web when companies could then provide details and additional information on their websites and then [...]
Read moreThe Murky Rules of Facebook Contests
The rules for running a brand contest or a promotion on Facebook are quite clear. Facebook spells them out succinctly in its Promotion Guidelines – if, of course, you can find them. What is murky, however, is whether there are consequences for violating these guidelines. I know of only of one brand (SAS Airlines) called [...]
Read moreWhy Outsourcing Social Media is Critical for Brands
I often meet with brands from all over the country – mostly big, global brands, but also mid-sized and smaller companies. Here are the two biggest challenges they have with social and digital communications: 1.) Knowledge. When you work at a single company it is difficult to get expertise on areas where you aren’t actively [...]
Read moreThe Only Guarantee in Social Media? Mistakes
And, of course, “social media gurus” calling out anyone and everyone who does happen to make a mistake (because we all know that social media gurus never ever make mistakes). You haven’t worked in social media for very long if you haven’t bumbled by doing at least one of following: Tweeting something inappropriate (oh, if [...]
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Is Extreme Economics Infecting Social Media?
In her fascinating book “The Watchman’s Rattle,” Rebecca Costa talks about a super meme known as “extreme economics.” For those unfamiliar with the concept of memes (rhythms with “seems”) they are units of cultural transmission or imitation and like real genes they compete for survival, some winning and others dying out. They also evolve with [...]
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January 18, 2012


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