Posts Tagged ‘media’

Facebook Mass Exodus? Not So Much!

3 comments Written on June 1st, 2010 by
Categories: Marketing, Social Media
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Yesterday was supposed to be the day that Facebook users would delete their accounts in protest of the company’s privacy policy changes over the past several weeks. However according to a post Web Pro News only 34,424 users took the plunge and did just that. I can see a few reasons why this is true.

First most users don’t understand the privacy issue and many don’t care. Social networks are all about connecting and many users want to do just that. By having more open access to their profile they can connect with more users that share common interest and activities. True many savvy users have more restricted access but they are the minority of the Facebook population. Facebook users that are using the social network for business are also eager to be more accessible to generate leads and new business opportunities.

Over the past year Facebook has changed, modified and tweaked its privacy settings. It seems like every time you access the settings it has changed. The frequency that I visit these settings is maybe once a month. My feeling is that most users never revisit their settings once they set up their account and forget about it. Of course this can change if they get too many strange friend requests or suspicious emails from the account.

The other reason many users won’t quit Facebook is the platform itself. Let’s face it how many software platforms have you use that have the breadth and depth of Facebook and are free? Without being a web designer you can have photo albums, video posts, a blog, and links to all your favorite music, movies, restaurants or any other collective “like” page. You can even organize your high school reunion, local sports team fan club or whatever type of group you want to manage with out having to code.

Add onto that the ability to connect with such a large population of friends and other people, Facebook is hard to match. True the new Diaspora Project aims to create the next great social network, but how long with it take them to get 1 million users, much less 400 million users. Are you going to ask your friends to migrate as well? What about your Mom? Facebook has become an easy way for us to share with family members and has replaced the phone calls and extra photos we used to mail and email each other.

I have to admit that I get tired of some of the Facebook minutia of people’s lives. Reconnecting with past friends and co-workers many times has the lifespan of a few days. However for local connections it’s a great way to keep abreast of what’s happening or experience events or other occasions that I may not be able to attend. Even though I’ve said to myself and a few others I want to get rid of my Facebook account just because I don’t want to keep up with it I won’t.

What’s your take on quitting Facebook? Are you upset about the privacy settings or any other facet enough to delete your account? If you did get rid of your account what’s the fallout if any?

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media

Electrical Utility Reporting Demo

No Comments » Written on May 1st, 2010 by
Categories: Portfolio, Video
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Electrical Utility Reporting Solution demo for Zencos, role: writer, editor, voice over and producer.

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Posted in Portfolio, Video

Lunch With The Leaders

11 comments Written on March 16th, 2010 by
Categories: Events, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Strategy
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Approximately six weeks ago the first Raleigh Media Leaders event was held at The Busy Bee.  Over 150 professionals from marketing, advertising, media and technology gathered for an evening of interaction and stimulating conversation.  The event was unique in that there was a grand prize for the evening, a drawing for “Lunch with The Leaders,” a lunch with three area media leaders with three media leaders attendees.

I was fortunate enough to be the host for the lunch held at The Pit BBQ.  The Leaders that volunteer their time for the event were:

Joining our leaders were three very special business people.  Karen Albritton, president of Capstrat was the first winner and a media leader in her own right.  The other winners included Charlotte Goodman-Smith and Christine Fawley of Pleasure Mechanics and Richard Knott, a freelance graphic designer.

Lunch With The Leaders at The Pit

Lunch With The Leaders at The Pit

After introductions we began a great marketing discussion around how to market your business especially when you are new to a market.  Charlotte, Christine and Richard are all new to the Triangle area and own their own businesses.  They face challenges in getting their name out and breaking into marketing and media channels.

One great strategy that Patty recommended was to work with non-profit associations and attend networking events like Media Leaders as well as Ad Club, Triangle AMA and AIGA.  Barrett offered great advice to keep reminding associations of the important contacts they have and how to get introductions.  By offering your services to help the association you can get great network connections.  Patty also suggested that when attending professional association meetings ask people if they hire freelancers.

Patty also told them to make sure you tell your story because, “if you don’t then others will tell it for you.” I could not agree with her more.  Being in control of your message is vital to marketing your business.  Patty reviewed the process that her firm does when meeting with new clients, the first step is to find out everything about them. What is their story? What are their goals? Then, develop a strategy and supporting PR program to deliver.

The discussion then centered around media and PR.  Patty noted that reporters write about trends and if your business has a story relating to a current trend then you may have the ability to get their attention.  Another tool that Andy mentioned was Help A Reporter Out where reporters ask for sources for stories they are currently researching. HARO allows you to find a possible media placement by offering expert advice, thus creating exposure and awareness for your brand.

This lead into a discussion around personal branding and the use of social media.  Andy gave a great tip on whether you should start by blogging.  He stated that sometimes it’s better to find a blog in your subject matter area and offer to write a guest post.  Many times these blogs already have a larger following that what you would be able to build in the near term and will drive more visitors to your web site or online presence. Another tip Patty offered was to enter award competitions and benefit from the publicity generated by the award and related events.

Andy also spoke about becoming an industry expert and getting quoted in newspapers, magazines and website articles.  He noted that small articles can sometimes lead to larger ones so many times he offers his opinion to bridal or travel publications since someone is reading that publication that may work at Inc. or Fortune magazine and then contact him for another story.  Barrett states that research is important to stories so play a part in it and offer your expertise to reporters.

Lunch with The Leaders did not disappoint to say the least.  Not only did Patty, Andy and Barrett offer great advice to Charlotte, Christine, Richard and Karen but everyone had the opportunity to make another business connection.  I feel that our leaders learned about our event winners as well, asking about how they started their businesses, their backgrounds and what brought them to the area.  The BBQ was not bad either! Thanks to The Pit (@ThePittBBQ) for sponsoring the lunch and providing a great atmosphere.

Again my thanks to the other Media Leaders team members for creating the event that lead to this lunch: Phil Buckley (@1918), Morgan Siem (@morgansiem @mediatwo_social), Dan London (@danlondon) and Sarah Burris (@sarkatbur).   What’s in store for the next Media Leaders event on April 6?  Register now to attend!

I’ve included information about our Lunch with The Leader winners as well if you would like to learn more about them.  And thanks again to our Leaders, Patty Brigulio, Barrett Joyner and Andy Beal.

Our Lunch With The Leaders attendees:

Christine Fawley
Charlotte Goodman-Smith
@learnpleasure
www.pleasuremechanics.com

Karen Albritton
@kalbritton
www.capstrat.com

Richard Knott
www.RichdDesign.com

For more photos from the event, view the Flickr set.

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Posted in Events, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Strategy

Ignite Raleigh Top 10

29 comments Written on March 4th, 2010 by
Categories: Events, Social Media
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Last night was the second Ignite Raleigh held at the Lincoln Theatre in downtown Raleigh. Ignite is a unique event in that it is an idea exchange where presenters have 5 minutes and 20 slides to communicate their message. I thought last night was better than last year’s event in many ways and have compiled my top 10 list from the event.

10. New faces: I think it was great that all the presenters were new and there were no repeat presenters from the first Ignite. Fresh ideas, new perspectives and personalities really made the event fun. Also I met several new people last night and made some real life connections of people that I’ve had many virtual conversations. I also was able to meet family members and friends of friends, thanks for the introductions.

9. MC: Zach Ward (@zachward) did a great job last night. He came up with jokes on the fly and wearing the red tights and tutus and getting in the Phonebooth was hysterical. Zack was even better than last year and he did a great job last year too!

8. Social responsibility: Several presentations had a real message for all of us. From energy conservation to health and fitness to social responsibility on a global scale, several presenters opened people’s eyes and ears to how they have an impact.

7. Sponsors: Was glad to see Bandwidth.com (@bandwidth) and Phonebooth.com (@phonebooth) sponsoring the event. A local company like this being involved in the community really demonstrates a new commitment beyond the traditional approach. The other sponsors are also great to be a part of the event.

6. Education: I learned a lot last night. From George Smart’s (@georgesmartTMH) great presentation Mayberry Modernism – Why the Triangle is America’s Hotspot for Way Cool Houses to Jess Commins’ (@renewabelle), presentation on How to save $100+ with a DIY energy audit there was some great information and learning.

5. Fun: Anytime you get 700+ people together you have to make them laugh. I think the presenters did that very well and several even laughed at themselves when making jokes or waiting on slides.

4. Sex sells: I was very interested to see Charlotte Goodman-Smith & Christine Fawley (@LearnPleasure), 20 Little-Known Facts about Sex & Pleasure presentation and have to admit it was well done. Also Natasha Crawford (@natashacrawford), coming out and saying forget about your single friends, they’re hos was awesome!

3. Pride: I know several of the presenters well and was really proud of the job they did. It’s not easy getting up on a stage and presenting in front of a large audience. Much less if you have a time limit and have to be spot on. The two presenters I’ve known the longest did a great job: Chris Moody (@cnmoody), Everyone Needs a Dumb Guy and Janet Kennedy (@jkennedy93), 5 Bucks is Change you both were great.

2. Community: I’ve lived in Raleigh most of my life and have a huge amount of pride in this community. I have gotten grief over the years when travelling or working in other parts of the country when saying I’m from Raleigh, North Carolina. I do my best to educate others that hey we are not dumb hicks acting like southern stereotypes that have been perpetuated in the media for many years. Last night showed the spirit, talent and creativity of our community. Thanks to Jay Cuthrell (@qthrul), his Redneck Guide to Silicon Valley reminded us how to laugh at ourselves and shows how stereotypes can go both ways!

1. The ladies rocked it! From Lisa Creech Bledsoe (@glowbird) giving her 13 Reasons Women Should Take Up Boxing to Charlotte Moore (@cavaticat), Nerd Girls Unite! Fact: Women Don’t Have to Be Lame, the ladies really showed up and took the stage last night!

Thanks to Our Hashtag (@ourhashtag) for once again putting on the premier event and doing a great job organizing sponsors, volunteers, speakers and all the elements that go into the event. If you’ve ever done event planning, trust me it’s tough. As much as you prepare there are always unforeseen challenges leading up to and during the event. Congratulations to Wayne (@waynesutton), Jeff (@jeffreylcohen), and Ryan (@theRab) for all your hard work!

Also thanks to all the presenters for taking their time to prepare, practice and courage to get on stage and speak.

Click here for my Flickr gallery. Thanks to everyone who posed!

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Posted in Events, Social Media

Deep Fried Mashup and Branded Communities at SMC Triangle

2 comments Written on November 18th, 2009 by
Categories: Events, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Strategy
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Last week the Triangle Social Media Club had two guest speakers, Karlie Justus (@karliej) and Jason Peck (@jasonpeck). I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both the speakers and interacting with them on Twitter over the past several months. I was glad to see Karlie speak about the NC State Fair since I had been trying to catch up with her to find out how effective social media was in promoting the State Fair. I have written two blog posts about the NC State Fair and Deep Fried Tweetup in the past few weeks so was interested to see how the campaign went for the NC Department of Agriculture (NCDA) that manages the Fair.

The goals of the social media campaign were to reach new audiences as well as reach media in a new way. The campaign started in July of 2008 and ran for a full 16 months. The team began with a new web site design and created a blog that communicated interesting facts about the Fair as well as announcing entertainment acts and other announcements. Other social media sites that were created included Facebook group, MySpace page, Twitter account, Flickr photos and YouTube channel. Some of the more interesting stats were:

  • 70,000 unique blog views with 27,000 unique visitors in October
  • Facebook page had 5,000 friends, 420 fans and over 1,400 photos tagged
  • Twitter account had over 2,331 followers with 1,828 updates and 422 direct messages. Many of the direct messages were from local media that supplemented the PR plan.
  • YouTube channel hosted 37 videos and had 58,000 unique views with 55 subscribers.
  • MySpace page had 928 friends with 8,000 blog views and 99,000 page views.

Other social media tactics included having a Deep Fried Ambassador contest among local bloggers, inviting bloggers to the press conference and hosting the Deep Fried Tweetup on the Thursday night of the Fair. The Tweetup attracted over 150 attendees and further extended the Deep Fried brand. One interesting note was that Thursday traffic spiked with 2000 unique visits to the blog and average of 60 tweets per hour. The event was also streamed and attracted 43 views.

 Overall the NCDA team achieved success by incorporating social networks to further establish relationships with fair attendees, media representatives and other audiences. Also social networks facilitated customer service by responding to questions from the general public and directing them to specific information on the web. Karlie also pointed out that it was a team effort and that her coworkers contributed to the effort (Jen Nixon (@jennix5), Natalie Alford (@joynatalie), Brian Long (@brian_long66), Andrea Ashby (@aasbhy) and Paul Marshall Jones (@pmarshalljones). Great work by this group!

Whew, that’s a whole blog post, but wait there’s more! Jason Peck had a tough act to follow but did a fantastic job speaking about branded communities. Jason’s company eWayDirect takes features of social networks and brings them into a single platform. The goal is to bring people together while having full control of the look and fell, content, ads and metrics. I have a dream and that is what eWayDirect offers…a single platform with control, basically a branded community.

Some of the great advantages to their approach include:
  • Protection: no random Facebook ads, your community is spared from junk and spam
  • Exclusivity: you may not want everyone, just certain people that are your customers and prospects
  • Research: polls, metrics and other tools to gather information from your community.
  • Business metrics: the ability to determine revenue per member. Mmmm, ROI is that something everyone keeps talking about regarding social media?
One of the biggest advantages is the ability to aggregate existing content into a single location. My job requires me to try and automate all the outbound communication including social media. I have been able to use tools like RSS and other data exports to cross reference all the sites. But in order to aggregate all the RSS feeds and sites content I would have to create another site, basically a portal. Hence one more site to design, configure and maintain.
Jason gave a few examples of how his customers have employed their technology. One great example was ELF (Eyes, Lips and Face) beauty network. Their goal was to identify brand advocates and deepen relationships as well as acquire new customers. The campaign started with a personal invitation to the network and also has a desktop announcement feature that I want to find out more about.
ELF had some great results three months into the campaign including:
  • 4,500 new members
  • 56,000 visits
  • 5,000 unique visits, increase of 75%
  • 9% of members opted to received the desktop notifications and reminders
  • Average revenue per member increased 270% more than non-members
Again social media ROI can be achieved with the right strategy, platform and planning. Jason closed his presentation with some great lessons learned:
  •  Have a purpose for your community, give people a reason to join
  • Make people feel welcome, it’s important
  • Establish measurable goals ahead of time will drive you towards them during execution
  • Make sure the community does not exist in a silo
Many thanks to Jeremy (@jeremysaid) and Brian (@unravelthetwine) of Twine Interactive for hosting the event and Our Hashtag (Wayne, Jeff and Ryan) for organizing the best social media series in the Triangle. I met another great group of people whom I’ve followed and chatted with on Twitter and other networks so it’s always great to attach a person to an avatar!

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Posted in Events, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Strategy

Aggregators Offer Quick Start Mashup Pages

3 comments Written on July 31st, 2009 by
Categories: Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
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I’ve been doing some testing of RSS aggregator and mashup tools to develop requirements for a marketing portal project. These tools are great for non developers and marketing geeks like me to build a slick set of pages that can pull in multiple RSS feeds and other site content from both social media sites and standard HTML web pages.

I created demo pages on using both Netvibes and Pageflakes.

Both of the sites allow you to create free accounts and verify via email address. Once you verify the account you are ready to start building your portal pages.

Depending on the amount of content you are linking to, you may want to create multiple pages. This is done thru the use of tabs that are horizontally aligned at the top of the page. Tabs can be customized along with the header area with pre-built templates or you can create your own. I did find it difficult sometimes to make some graphic changes stick to the headers. Therefore I recommend that you do a quick site map to determine how much information you will be working with.

To create your first page select the content or “flakes” as Pageflakes terms them and select from a multitude of social networks, pre-built searches and RSS feeds. The tools also allow you to enter RSS feeds directly by entering the site or RSS URL. You can search by keyword and browse by category to find leading social network sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. You can also create an embedded view of your corporate web site page by creating a flake that shows a fixed width view of any web page.

Based on my testing and development I found that you should have no more than a dozen flakes on a page. This is where the grouping helps with the tabs. You can have 50+ possible sites to pull content from but ideally you should be able to carve this into groups of:

  • A welcome page with links to 10 pages with additional information and the main news feeds.
  • A blogs page with 10 blog feeds
  • A Twitter page with 10 Twitter user RSS feeds and or keyword search results
  • A photo and video page with links to 10 user accounts, keyword search, tags or other criteria to Flickr, Picasa, Slide, YouTube and other sites.
  • A page with links or feeds from 10 sites that are grouped by subject matter or target markets.

Pages can then be set to Public view that will then allow you to share with your audience. I’m still in the final development of my pages so some of them are public viewed so coworkers can view without having to login to my account but have not been promoted otherwise.

I plan to release these page soon but they are still in development. To demonstrate a simple page that aggregates some of my social media information I built a demo page at http://www.netvibes.com/bmcd67.

Have you found any good mashup tools or examples?

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Where Do You Get Your News?

No Comments » Written on July 19th, 2009 by
Categories: Social Media
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Until a few months ago I read the newspaper everyday, a regular subscriber since I was 18 years old. At first I read it for sports and entertainment. As I got older I enjoyed reading and learning more about hard news stories that were not being covered in depth on TV news. When the local paper (Raleigh News & Observer) shrank to a small size of coverage due to budget cuts, I had to say goodbye to my morning paper.

Since then I have been reading Newser to browse national and world news headlines. For local news I’ve been relying on Twitter for links to local news stories. I have to admit that this changes in news and information consumption has been happening over several years. As the web has grown we all have searched for specific news stories for research, curiosity or to get the information ASAP. Also the web has allowed us to read news in places where we don’t reside in but may want to keep abreast of regional news.
I have found that reading news on the web is OK for scanning articles to get a quick glimpse and basic understanding of the story. I have discovered that reading more in depth articles I find it more difficult to read longer stories online. I hate to say it but I’ve developed the terrible habit of scanning to get some quick information, then skipping to the next interesting story link on the page.
The other downside is that I find myself watching TV news more. I have been watching several of the networks as much as possible to gauge the quality of the news as well as personalities and branding of each network. But I have to admit the most interesting two networks are NBC and Fox News. I like NBC as the best of the big three networks for their evening news. Fox News I started watching to see if it was “Fair and Balanced,” as they claim. I have to admit that Fox News is more com temporary in terms of how it integrates new media. I don’t agree with their conservative slant but do understand how they have captured the cable news rankings.
How do you get your news? How has it changed with technology? Share your experience.

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Posted in Social Media

And That’s The Way It WAS

No Comments » Written on July 18th, 2009 by
Categories: Marketing, Social Media
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Walter Cronkite passed away yesterday and since I remember watching him as a kid and as a Public Relations major in college and writer all my life, he is the gold standard for journalism. You were never told that in class since he retired about four years before I started college and took journalism classes. All the professors grew up with Cronkite and CNN was new and had not established the 24 hour new cycle we have today.

So today as I watch our 24 churning ball of news I get upset more so on the reporting of Cronkite’s death for a couple of reasons. First, we’ve just gone through what seems like a roller coaster of celebrity grief with MJ and all the others. Karl Malden, heck I found out a week after he died that he passed when I saw The Daily Show cracking on NBC’s Chuck Todd for most drawn out six degrees of separation. Basically all gazillion media outlets will cover this story for the neext 48-72 hours until you know every person that ever met, watched or heard of Walter Cronkite.

But the most annoying aspect of our news today is that they get it wrong most of the time. I think Cronkite and his peers were great at what they did and had a passion for getting it accurate. Not right in terms of justification as today’s talking heads do. But accurate in terms of describing what happened so that it can be as closely interpreted by the next person. This is the challenge of journalism, writing is the tool and talent is the art.

So I was upset this morning when watching Fox & Friends and seeing their “News Advisor” who worked with Cronkite make a statement that I knew was inaccurate the second she said it. She said that Cronkite was not the first anchor, that Hunt and Brinkley on NBC were, where she had worked before coming to CBS. She’s wrong because:

On July 7, 1952, the term “anchor” was coined to describe Cronkite’s role at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which marked the first nationally-televised convention coverage.[15] Cronkite anchored the network’s coverage of the 1952 presidential election as well as later conventions. In 1964 he was temporarily replaced by the team of Robert Trout and Roger Mudd; this proved to be a mistake, and Cronkite was returned to the anchor chair for future political conventions.

Hunt-Brinkley were most likely called broadcast journalist at that time. So yes, Hunt-Brinkley were the leading broadcast journalists until Cronkite came along and changed the game enough so to create new language and meaning around the word, anchor.

My favorite quote by Cronkite was that words should mean something. I think they used to when we read newspapers, had only three talking heads to choose from and had to make a strong intellectual choice for our current events information and opinion. Now people use words they have no idea what the word means but it sounded good to them when they heard it, regardless of how accurate or relative it may be. Hard to put any trust in that.

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No Newspaper, Now What?

2 comments Written on May 11th, 2009 by
Categories: Digital Media, Marketing, PR
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After being a daily newspaper subscriber, working in public relations for several years, and being an avid reader all my life, I stopped subscribing to my local paper a few months ago. It was a tough decision made easier by the declining quality and quantity of my local paper, The Raleigh News and Observer.

I fought it as long as I could. I watched the paper cut and cut the newsprint down more each few months due to declining advertising. Then the Business section was trimmed down to two pages and buried in the Local section.

I felt sorry for the staff that had worked hard to build this paper. I remembered snubbing the paper when I was a student studying journalism, electronic media (which in the 1980′s meant TV or movies). I used to stop by DJ’s bookstore and newsstand on Hillsborough Street and buy either The Charlotte Observer or The New York Times. I figured Charlotte as a bigger city so paper had to be better. I learned that was not the case when I moved to Charlotte a few years later and had to read The Charlotte Observer on a regular basis.

I remember back in 1995 when nando.net was the first online daily newspaper. It appeared that the newspapers were on top of this web technology thing that was emerging. That was not to be the case.  Last week there was talk of bailing out the newspaper companies on talk radio. As much as I don’t want to save every dying industry in this country, I do think the newspaper will be missed if it goes away altogether.
The most likely scenario is that we’ll lose the local newspapers in the smaller markets. The larger media companies will survive due to diversification and other revenue streams. So what does it all mean?  Well for one there will be no more letters to the editor, just comments to blog posts.  Will we lose the investigative journalism that uncovers abuses of power, scandals and other major stories?  Or will new communicators arise from Web 2.0 technology and we’ll just have to search for the right keywords?  Will we trust these new sources of information as we trusted our newspapers?

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Posted in Digital Media, Marketing, PR

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