There is a problem with social media. Conclusions should be drawn from the collective, from the aggregate of all social interaction, conversation, commentary, tagging, ratings etc. As the assertion goes, there's wisdom in them there crowds.
But that's not how we're all used to working.
We have evolved, I think you'll agree, to tune into one person at a time. Listen to one person. Watch one person. If I asked you to tell me what the population of London was thinking on a certain topic, unless that topic was their restricted choice of political expression and the question coincided with a local election, you'd be hard pressed to tell me.
We like our individual news readers, individual film stars, individual celebrities. And our individual journalists. You see, we can trust (most) journalists because they've had to subscribe to a code of conduct, a code of ethics. They have standards to maintain in executing their task at hand.
Now see what happens when "professional" media tries to go trendy and incorporate social media... do watch Jon Stewart's Daily Show video here about CNN's "unverified material". Gawd bless CNN for making it clear it's all about as reliable as any reference stating "so said a man in the street who calls himself tiddlywinks". Someone needs to introduce these guys to social Web analytics.
Hope you enjoy this week's Roundup.
Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team.
A Soliloquy: The Universal Language of Social Media
by Brian Solis of PR 2.0
© Tyler E Nixon (This is a striking photograph)
While I was traveling in NY for InternetWeek and DC for the Vocus conference recently, Mark Olson sent a note inviting my thoughts on a post he was authoring on the subject of authenticity versus authority. I immediately replied, “I’m in.”
This is a subject that is garnering much of my attention and contemplation as they are among the key words that orbit the social media marketing universe and are in danger of spinning off course and into a black hole of obscurity. More...
Everything You Think You Know about SEO is Wrong
by Mindy Gofton of I-COM
When people find out I work in search engine optimisation I get two reactions. The first is confusion from people who have never heard of SEO. The second is disgust - from people who have.
SEO consultants are like the used car salesmen of the internet, or so people seem to think. Even other industry professionals seem to believe that an SEO expert will as soon steal your wallet and use your credit cards to squat on 1000 different domains that will rank above your website by repeating keywords ad nauseum before they'll actually help your business. More...
Social Media is the New 'Punk Rock'
by Trevor Young PR Warrior of Parkyoung
Love this video by communications and training consultancy Engage/ORM. It paints a picture comparing the rise of punk rock with that of social media. Great stuff!
(Hat-tip @themediapod). More...
How an understanding of body language transforms your public speaking
by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott
Some of my more popular blog posts in recent months have been about public speaking.
Top ten tips for incredibly successful public speaking
Presentation 201: Why public speaking is like billiards
So I wanted to offer another set of ideas for successful public speaking. I was thinking about the differences in what I do now as a professional speaker with 50 gigs a year compared to what I was doing five years ago when I speaking about once a month.
The importance of body language
The big difference in the way I present is that I am now focused on body language. More...
Is Twitter The CNN Of The New Media Generation?
by Brian Solis of PR 2.0
What follows is the unabridged version of my latest post on TechCrunch, “Is Twitter the CNN of the New Media Generation?“
This past weekend the Twitterverse spoke-out in exasperation and opposition against traditional media networks (CNN specifically) and the absence of instantaneous coverage of the Iranian election and the resulting fallout. “We the people” wanted real-time information regarding the violent protests that erupted on the streets of Iran and the stories probing potential foul play in the results. More...
6 Degrees of Celebrity: Bing, xRank and Related Searches
by Mindy Gofton of I-COM
We've been playing with xRank today, a tool from Bing that allows you to search for celebrities and brings up related results such as biographies, videos, images, shopping, popularity trends and any other range of available information.
I was impressed by its ability to actually map relationships between seemingly unrelated things. For searches for minor celebrities, the results are rather intriguing as xRank seems to be able to map some rather insightful connections. For example, a search for the lead singer of American indie-folksters The Decemberists brought up the following: More...
You must keep your customers at arm's length online
by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology
Customers shouldn't become your friends in places like Facebook. That's the conclusion you can draw from new research from the University of Pennsylvania which looked at the whole basis for friendship. When we see people as true friends, we appear to change the way we relate to the individuals. The research shows that we engage with them without any need for anything in return.
Making online friends with customers could lose you money
If you become friends with your customers your brain will make it less likely that you will seek something from them in return for the relationship. More...
Brands are bottom of the internet heap
by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology
Iranian bloggers could teach some major international brands a thing or two. The current uprising of emotion and anger within Iran is getting the inevitable clampdown from the authorities. But they are up against technologically adept youngsters who are able to publish their views online.
Protesters in Iran defy the internet clampdown
For three days now, blogs, Twitter and other social networks have enabled the protesters to get their views known and probably to help organise themselves. More...
We are one. We'd like to look like one, talk like one, act like one.
by Philip Sheldrake of Racepoint Group
There is only one HSBC, one Nokia, one Ford, one Leica. That's fact. More important than fact, the customer only sees there being one.
Which is the straight forward unquestionable reason why it upsets anyone at all when we interact with a representative of a company, or have any kind of communication with a company, and the response effectively belies the fragmentation of the organisation, the fact that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and actually doesn't care. More...
The truth about blog and twitter content syndication
by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott
I'm a huge fan of blog syndication. I write a post once on my Web Ink Now blog, push the button, and it appears in many places such as my Amazon page, sites like MarCom Professional, the search engines, Newstex Blogs on Demand, and more.
But many bloggers don't understand how syndication works and why it is important. And some are downright fearful of syndication.
The ability to provide blog content to many places through syndication is incredibly valuable. With no extra work, syndication allows you to reach a potential audience of millions of people you would not otherwise reach. More...
Social media succession planning
by Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications
Image via CrunchBase We’ve just completed a piece of planning work for a prospect and spotted the issue that Econsultancy calls social media succession planning in its Online PR and Social Media Trends briefing.
It’s an issue for any organisation where an individual is the face of the company in social networks. The risk to the business is the individual building up relationships with customers and then choosing to leave the organisation.
In the sector that we’ve been researching brands are represented on Twitter either by a corporate account or an individual, or in a few instances both. More...
Econsultancy publishes online PR and social media trends report
by Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications
Social media is growing up. Econsultancy’s latest Online PR and Social Media Trends briefing outlines how the marketing community is engaging with this new channel.
Celebrities may have popularised social media sites such as Twitter but marketing folk have been quick to follow.
The report cites instances of how social media is being applied for qualitative research, track conversation around a brand, develop brand, drive sales, build relationships with journalists and manage customer relationships. More...
