Tag Archives: social media
Taste The Rainbow of API Timeouts!
We have traditional media stunts, so why not “social” media stunts? We saw an example of this today from Skittles – the chewy candy – where they essentially replaced their www.skittles.com website with a Twitter search for “skittles”. Great idea. Now that it’s been done, I’m not expecting to see much more of it. Not least of all because of the complaints about the drain on Twitter’s API. Most of the time on the page I saw: Connection Interrupted The document contains no data. The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection. Please try again. But who cares, as publicity stunts go, this one was a huge success. Hell, …
The Real Value of Twitter: Three Predictions for 2012
People who enjoy micro-blogging on Twitter include a group I’ve already pretty clearly identified. Computer Geeks Marketing Types Egomaniacs Social Butterflies (I’d include myself in all 4 to varying degrees.) There’s a few others along the same lines. Others will reluctantly sign on, because they feel they need to – for business or what not. But there are a whole lot of other people in the world who will not use “Twitter” as we know it. Not EVER. Prediction #1 is that the actual percentage of broadband-capable, English-speaking people who actually “use” Twitter will probably land somewhere between 5% and 10% by 2012. (More may sign up, but many will …
Social Networking – MySpace
Q: What does MySpace have going for it? A: It is well established, as the first-to-market social network. It has hundreds of thousands of users. It is owned by News Corporation, which (in “normal” economic times) gives it pretty deep pockets. Q: What does MySpace have going against it? A: Almost everything else. I am one of those 30-somethings turned off by MySpace because of its early reputation. Nonetheless, I finally joined – mostly just to educate myself about it. These are my immediate thoughts. It’s (still) ugly. It’s crowded. I could not find any useful applications that integrate other social networking tools into your profile (i.e. Twitter). It’s easy …
Social Media for Business – LinkedIn Wins!
It seems some prettier graphics were done recently to graphically show a demographic study on social media from July 29, 2008. While these stats are a little dated, they strongly reinforce what I was saying last week about LinkedIn. Every businessperson should have a LinkedIn account! I dug a little deeper into the numbers, and discovered: Most notably, 10.3% of LinkedIn users are under 25. This compare to 65.5% of MySpace users and 66.3% of FaceBook users. Consider that most successful businesspeople (aggregate) are over 24. While there are more men then women on LinkedIn (57.9%), this is also true of business (yes, this is changing, but if LinkedIn was …
"The Globe and Mail Test"
In politics I have developed messaging plans, formulated targetted advertising, conducted web campaigns, been responsible for media relations, and managed local campaigns of all kinds. In my business I consult with companies on their branding and advertising strategies regularly. There is one rule which should be common sense in this day and age. It states: “If you’d be embarassed to see what you’ve said on the front cover of the newspaper the next morning, THEN DON’T SAY IT.” In Canada, we affectionately call this “The Globe and Mail Test.” For years, I’ve been telling clients the same thing applies (even more so) to e-mail. Now that social media is exploding, …
Social Network Usage Stats
I was “tweeted” a fantastic article about social network stats released by compete.com. There were a few non-surprises in it, however. First thing, FaceBook has now surpassed MySpace in the U.S. as the number one social network. This should surprise nobody. MySpace had such a terrible reputation that most adults avoided it (I know I did). Now that adults have jumped onto social networks, they have jumped on to FaceBook. I think it’s fair to say we’ve reached “critical mass” there, and FaceBook has won the “generic social network” battle (at least for now). Non-surprise number two is that Twitter jumped from 22nd to 3rd. Twitter has caught on with …
More Live.com Grief
So I went to delete my old Live.com account. After struggling to find the option, I finally found it, and closed the account … almost. It came up with an error message reading: One or more paid services or a Microsoft Points account is linked to your account. To close this account, make sure each service is canceled and your Microsoft Points account is closed. Get help with this. “Get help with this” was linked to a dead link. I came across alot of dead links and broken functions on Live.com, like the link to where to close the account in the FAQ. I checked “Microsoft Points”, and I did …
Live.com / Microsoft Social Networking
We all know that Microsoft wants desperately to get into the game on Social Networking (I suspect that, one day, they will buy FaceBook or LinkedIn – maybe both). Anyway, they have been doing similar stuff for a long, long time. I have been using “Messenger” since at least 2000 (“MSN Messenger” came out in 1999, and they renamed it to “Live Messenger” in 2005). So I had a look at what they had done so far, out of curiousity, to compare to FaceBook and such. They did have a pretty cool thing called “Spaces”, which I used to use. Most of it can be replicated in FaceBook, though, and …
Social Networking Primer – Update
I’m meeting later today with an old friend of mine, Catherine Novak, who is a communications expert with a particular interest in Social Networking. Then tomorrow, I am meeting with another old friend, Michael Allison, who is also a communications expert, and has a thing or two to say about social networking. I thought it would be fun to catch up with old friends, but also to meet with these guys who will undoubtedly have a completely different take on social networking than your average Search Engine Optimization/Internet Geek crowd (my usual circles), and see if I can’t tie these two worlds together concisely. Check back for updates on this, …
Social Networking Primer – LinkedIn
I actually joined LinkedIn before FaceBook, in early 2007. I figured as a “professional”, I needed to join the “professional” social network, and leave FaceBook to the teenagers. I am now of the opinion that BOTH can be useful, personally and professionally. My focus this week, however, is LinkedIn. As a long-time lingerer on LinkedIn, I was intrigued by some of the features that are now available, and started toying with them a little bit. My Profile First thing I did was update my LinkedIn profile. Some of the information was dated, some was poorly written, and some was just wrong. Tip #1: When selecting your website(s), use the “Other” …
