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Escapee Using Facebook to Taunt Police is Caught

cgseo — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:01:59 +0000

We are always looking for new applications for social media outlets right? How can we get our message out to more people? How can we create community amongst customers? How we can get 40,000 people to follow us as we escape from the law? Whoa, wait a minute. That last one doesn’t seem very ‘marketing’ oriented does it? Well, that’s because it’s not and it is really a slow news day at least from this blogger’s perspective. So let’s instead follow the tale of the rocket scientist who escaped from a jail in England and has spent the last 4 months taunting police through his Facebook presence . I say rocket scientist because it wasn’t like he just went to jail and was getting ready for a long stint in the slammer (very 40’s gangster film sounding isn’t it?). No, in fact, he was getting close to the end of a seven year sentence for aggravated burglary but now he may have to find another way to work out his aggravation. Mashable reports A British man who has spent the four months following his prison break taunting police with clues and rude gestures on Facebook has finally been caught by Scotland Yard. After he disappeared from a minimum-security prison in Suffolk in late September, the man (named Craig Lynch) posted status updates about what kind of steak he was eating, the temperature, and his New Year’s plans, stopping just shy of giving police enough information to find him. He even posted profile pictures with signs mocking his pursuers. How about this for a marketing angle. You can breath new life into the Robert Downery, Jr. movie Sherlock Holmes with the obvious Scotland Yard connection. Maybe a little time travel for Mr. Holmes to the future could be in the works for Sherlock Holmes 2 as he tracks notorious villains and the like using social media. Heck, he already has the CGI stunt part of the future down so why not go all out? Turns out Mr. Lynch may have been more of a prophet than anything else The “About Me” section of his Facebook profile said: “You’ll have a laugh with me but it will end in tears. It always does.” Not the happiest of endings I suppose but what did he expect, privacy with Facebook?

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Escapee Using Facebook to Taunt Police is Caught

Are You Getting Enough out of Twitter & Facebook?

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:23:29 +0000

As marketing professionals, we usually have to justify ourselves to our bosses, our clients and everyone in between—especially in the less-tested, sometimes-hit-or-miss arena of social media. But now Ad Age wants accountability, too, as they ask “if you’re getting enough out of all the volunteer work you do for Biz & Ev and Mark,” or, more specifically, “Are we all just toiling mightily to make a bunch of rich nerds (Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his employees and investors, Twitter’s Biz Stone and Evan Williams and their employees and investors) richer, while we impoverish ourselves?” That’s both a literal and a figurative question, since using those social networks is exactly what makes their founders and investors money (well, sort of), and, as the argument goes, we’re essentially a volunteer labor force creating content for these sites—an interesting point. Meanwhile, using social networks (at all, as the argument here seems to go) means sacrificing time (true), actual interactions (possibly true but not always)—and our very souls and identities. They mean this to be a discussion on a personal level, since a central thrust of the argument is that these social networks have sacrificed so much of our privacy that we’re allowing them to steal (don’t we call that “giving” in English?) “the sole ownership of our own thoughts, emotions, personal expressions, etc.” from us (yes, if I post “I’m sad” on a social network, that means that they also own my emotion…. right….). Of course, if you’re using Twitter and Facebook as a marketer, you’re there looking for business ROI from publicity—being public. Ad Age (you know, “Advertising” Age? About . . . could it be . . . advertising ?) does acknowledge that social networks might work for these purposes, if they’re worth the sacrifice: If you’re a brand marketer, chances are good that you’re extracting real value from investing time and energy in social media (and you’re happy to have consumers volunteering their time to be your “brand ambassadors” or whatever you want to call them); good for you. (And if you’re a consumer who gets off on connecting with big brands — or just wants to interface with customer service in a forum, like Twitter, where certain marketers seem to be hyper-responsive — well, good for you too.) In general, if you’re soft-selling something — like content or an idea — that can benefit from free publicity, Facebook and Twitter are your friends. Even if, well, they’re the two-faced sort who think nothing of riffling through your handbag or backpack when you get up to go the bathroom — you know, glad-handing “friends” (those are air quotes) who are obviously using you for something, only it’s not always entirely clear what. Um . . . I hate to bring this up, but aren’t we as marketers just using our social networks as those same kind of “friends” (and possibly even the friends and fans we acquire on those social networks)—we’re just using them as the means to an end? I do agree, of course, that on a personal level, excessive use of social media can rob us of time and valuable interaction with the people we care about most. It’s good to examine our relationship with the Internet and social media on a personal level and decide whether it’s really worth the time and effort we put into it, or if we might put that time to better use. While that’s the brief summary of the argument at the conclusion of the article, the main thrust is that using social networks is such a great sacrifice of ourselves (even without a time investment) that it’s not worth it. What do you think? Do you demand ROI from personal social network use? Or are you glad that most people don’t ?

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Are You Getting Enough out of Twitter & Facebook?

Zuckerberg Sparks More Privacy Discussion

cgseo — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:18:03 +0000

For many in the online space these days the words “Facebook privacy” would be called an oxymoron. Then of course there would be the usual calling others at Facebook morons and then it would get worse from there but I digress. Michael Arrington recently interviewed the poster child for the “Privacy? What privacy?” movement, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Mashable’s Pete Cashmore tells us : Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg claims that if Facebook was starting out now, sharing with everybody would be the starting point, rather than with a small group of friends. Is this more about reflecting social norms or changing them to help Facebook compete with Twitter? The statement, made during a livestream of the Crunchies awards , hits on a hot button issue for Facebook: it recently notified users of privacy changes via a pop-up notification. While the message claimed that Facebook was displaying the message to give users more privacy controls, blindly clicking “next” was a way to make much of your data public. And in fact, some data like the Friends List has become more public without any settings changes by users. I honestly don’t know where I stand on all of this. I think my only real concern is just how little attention most people pay to these major shifts in social norms especially when they are moved along at rocket speed by something as pervasive and powerful as Facebook. I know that even with the new “everyone needs to see everyone else’s stuff” privacy policy at Facebook, I can go in and lock down my public profile to whatever degree I want. How many of the 350 million supposed users of the service actually know that or even care? I don’t know. I suspect not as many as should. An interesting article appeared in the Wall Street Journal today from Jaron Lanier , which is an excerpt from his new book. He is a pioneer in virtual reality technology and has some very real concerns about this new move to the “social collective” and I don’t disagree with him on much of it. Here’s a sample: Here’s one problem with digital collectivism: We shouldn’t want the whole world to take on the quality of having been designed by a committee. When you have everyone collaborate on everything, you generate a dull, average outcome in all things. You don’t get innovation. There’s a dominant dogma in the online culture of the moment that collectives make the best stuff, but it hasn’t proven to be true. The most sophisticated, influential and lucrative examples of computer code—like the page-rank algorithms in the top search engines or Adobe’s Flash— always turn out to be the results of proprietary development. Indeed, the adored iPhone came out of what many regard as the most closed, tyrannically managed software-development shop on Earth. I realize that I am mixing and matching the personal web and the business of the web. They are, however, intricately intertwined especially as we move into the future. When the generation of “open information and free stuff etc, etc” are in the business world (and a lot are already) this new “social norm” that Zuckerberg talks about so casually could very well mean the end to true innovation unless signed off by the collective. As a result that means watered down ideas in most cases. As if it’s not bad enough, the US government is showing socialist tendencies. What if the business world became that way too? Geesh, time to buy some land, make my own clothes and grow my own food. We will all be brought to the middle and the world could be very average. Of course these are just my own opinions on this but I am really no that interested in having to depend on everyone “signing off” on one my ideas before it can move forward. I am not thrilled about the idea of things like “search neutrality” that reared its ridiculous head in the recent weeks. I like privacy. I like some semblance of control. Maybe it is time to consider that plot of land and a tractor. That is of course, if it’s OK with everyone.

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Zuckerberg Sparks More Privacy Discussion

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz Gives Herself A Grade for Her First Year

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:09:51 +0000

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been almost one year that Carol Bartz has taken the top position at Yahoo! She officially celebrates the one-year mark next week but is taking a look back at what was probably a whirlwind event no matter how much experience she brought to the table. Bloomberg reports that Bartz recently gave herself an interesting grade for her performance for the year: a B-. Why is that interesting? It’s interesting to me because it seems to be pretty honest. It’s saying “Hey, I did OK and everything is OK but there is room for improvement.” I appreciate the honesty because she places herself precariously close to a C grade, which is just average. So what were Ms. Bartz’s own words? Carol Bartz gives herself a B-minus in her first year as chief executive officer of Yahoo! Inc., saying she could have moved faster to reorganize the company and strike a Web-search agreement with Microsoft Corp. “It was a little tougher internally than I think I had anticipated,” Bartz, 61, said in an interview at Yahoo’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. “I did move fast, but this is a big job.” The Bloomberg article paints the picture of Bartz being dealt a ‘tough hand’ (does this writer also cover politics for them?) which can be perceived as the truth, an excuse or a combination of the two. You’ll have to make the call on that one. Her year though started with a lot of work to clean up that ‘tough hand’ which did include dismal economic conditions overall. After becoming CEO, Bartz cut her staff by 5 percent, shuttered underperforming businesses such as the GeoCities Web- hosting site and installed her own management team. Then she broke out the big pen for “boat loads” of fun in the Microsoft, bingahoo, Ya-bingaroo or (insert favorite name here) deal in July, which began the end of the era of Yahoo as a search engine. A partnership with Facebook was thrown in for good measure as well. Now the company is concentrating on its strengths and trying to reclaim its identity in a manner of speaking. The company also has been hiring people for sales and engineering, tapping into the savings generated by its cost- cutting efforts. “A very good company kind of got buried,” Bartz said. “It is coming out.” Last year also saw some pretty dismal financial performance but Bartz is unapologetic which comes as no surprise. Despite these numbers the stock was up 38% for the year. Go figure. Yahoo’s sales have fallen for four straight quarters, and its stock trailed the Nasdaq Composite Index in the past year. “We came out of one of the worst climates ever,” Bartz said. “And if you look at growth of Fortune 500 companies, only being down 12 or 15 percent is damn good. I’m not going to apologize for our growth.” Funny how being down 12-15 percent can be spun into a sentence that implies growth where there was none. Anyway, now that the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” are fading fast, what does Bartz say is ahead for Yahoo? Bartz said she plans to do more acquisitions this year, probably of less than $1 billion apiece. Potential targets include overseas companies and data-analytics businesses that help advertisers assess their results, she said. Bartz said the company continues to improve its products, such as its home page and e-mail service, though she didn’t give specifics. Last year, Yahoo unveiled a new version of the home page, the site’s first major upgrade since 2006. Yahoo is likely going to need to make some serious noise in the upcoming months to be heard above the din that is being made by Google and all the others in the Internet space. What do you think the upcoming year(s) have in store for them?

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Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz Gives Herself A Grade for Her First Year

Social Media and the Future of Sports

cgseo — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:40:05 +0000

In an attempt to give our readers some real world application of all this social media theory swirling about we will be occasionally speaking with some real people who do the real work. How about that? Today we look at social media and the sports world. Regular readers of this blog know that I am a bit of a sports fan. I say a bit because I am no longer playing any fantasy leagues etc so I am not a sports fanatic. I am primarily a New York area sports fan but not the usual kind (Giants, Mets, Devils. I could care less about the NBA). People in that area are pretty passionate about their sports and that’s how I learned to be a fan. Now times have changed considerably. It is difficult for the everyday fan to afford attending actual games (especially if a family is involved). As a result the connection to sports is changing and social media is creating a whole new channel for the fans to interact and be a part of the action that they may not get at the stadium or the ballpark. Pat Coyle of Coyle Media has been involved in the social side of sports for quite a while now. Pat has worked as the Director of Marketing for the Indianapolis Colts and helped create MyColts.net, which is an active online community for the fans of the NFL franchise. I talked to Pat about this and other social media projects he has underway. Frank : Since most people in the social media industry came from somewhere else what is your background? Pat : I have always had an interest in ways technology impacts human communication. I am a Chicago native came out of a direct marketing and sales career to be the Director of marketing for the Colts. I left to start a company and returned to the Colts after five years to be the Director of Digital Business for four years. Coyle Media, my consultancy to the sports industry, is now 2 years old. Frank : So tell us about Coyle Media and what you are doing? Pat : Coyle Media has two legs at this point. One is Sports 2.0, which has its own community at sportsmarketing20.com . The focus of my sports practice is to help teams (and other properties) make money through digital media. The main revenue sources we assist with are sponsorship, ticket sales and community building. The other part of Coyle Media is a social media platform called SmallerIndiana.com , which is a hyper-local online community we launched 2 years ago. It has grown to 8,000 members, and is driven by a sponsorship business model. The consulting business keeps me very busy so the communities, while growing, could use more of my time. That’s the nature of the online community business but I’m not complaining. Frank : You started and have grown MyColts.net. Tell us about that. Pat : The theory is simple: connect fans to each other and you connect them closer to your brand. Colts fans want to socialize with other fans. They want to be seen and recognized and they want to feel like they’re getting inside access. MyColts.net was designed to give fans all three of these things. We figured if we could engage fans through social media, it would give us another way to help sponsors engage with fans and it would give us another channel through which we can sell merchandise and tickets. So far the site has over 28,000 registered members. Research showed as well that while there are ticket buying fans that are in the Indianapolis region the greater number of Colts fans actually reside throughout the country. This site gives them a chance to become more involved in the team without ever likely being able to attend a game. Frank : What are your thoughts on the NFL and their attempts to limit social media interaction with the athletes and fans? Pat : I run a little counter to the “let it be wide-open” crowd. I can see the side of ownership and the need to protect their investments. While most think that the owners are just rich guys getting richer, they are actually taking on all the risk so their desire to keep things contained to protect the brand are less about being “old school’ and more about doing good business. I do, however, think ownership must face the fact that fans are gaining control, so their habit of controlling content may have to evolve rapidly in order to allow fans to do what they do. While it will be an interesting transition it will be best for everyone in the long run. Frank : How will social media effect how sports are marketed and sold in the future? Pat : There is a HUGE opportunity to tap Facebook and Twitter in combination with team social communities in order to add value to fans’ experiences, create opportunities for sponsors and make money for the team. But these things won’t happen by accident. Teams need to make them happen. So far, most teams do not have anyone running their digital channels. I think that needs to change if teams are going to tap the full potential of digital. I hope to see teams begin to optimize their sites for sponsorship and ticket sales. In fact, that’s the focus of my Sports 2.0 service…to help teams optimize their digital channels to drive profits. The biggest idea in my brain right now is a way to help teams sell tickets through the social graph. I am working on this one and will let you know more when it’s ready. I am really excited about the prospects for sports teams as a result and I think the future of sports marketing will be heavily concentrated here. Frank : Thanks for your time. We look forward to seeing how the sports industry embraces social media and how you will help shape the way we interact with sports teams in the future. You can see more of Pat’s thoughts on these subjects at patcoyle.net

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Social Media and the Future of Sports

Social Media: More Than Meets the Eye?

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:15:58 +0000

Social media is gaining greater acceptance across all levels of business from the SMB to the multi-national enterprise. No surprise there. What is beginning to play out though is the fact that the space is new and evolving. As a result, some of the techniques or tactics that seem to be the ‘norm’ are now being seen a bit differently. Why? Because there may be other things that just work better. That’s where the evolving part comes in. eMarketer reports on a Marketing Profs survey (this link is for a synopsis of survey that is for sale and we are not in any way associated with that sale) from earlier in September 2009 that shows what is usually done on some social media outlets isn’t what is driving results. The most common marketing tactic used on Facebook was attempting to drive traffic to corporate materials through status updates, followed by friending customers. But the most effective tactic for consumer-oriented companies was creating a Facebook application, which was done by less than one-quarter of total respondents. The chart below tells the rest of the story: Now that’s for Facebook. Apparently the same rules apply for Twitter. Like those on Facebook, marketers using Twitter were also most interested in increasing traffic. Driving traffic by linking to marketing Webpages was the most common activity on the microblogging site, followed by driving sales by linking to promotional pages. But again, the most effective tactics were different. So what was Twitter most effective at for companies? Online reputation monitoring and management. Sure you can drive traffic to your site but there is always the question of the quality of the traffic you drive. As for responding to a negative comment or seeing your brand get trashed? That’s easy and obvious to spot and there is no real wiggle room. It is what it is. As a result companies need to respond and there is a ‘measurable’ result. Here is how the rest of the uses panned out. So where are you on this one? Do you use social media in ways that may not be talked about in the mainstream but have yielded success for you? Remember, it’s OK to share because it’s about social media. No secrets here .

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Social Media: More Than Meets the Eye?

Facebook Receives News of A Merry Christmas Indeed

cgseo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:23:12 +0000

While most of us in the Internet marketing “industry” were all aghast at the Facebook privacy problem of ’09 , the rest of the world could have cared less. You know those people, right? The ones who don’t live and breathe this stuff to the point that all perspective is lost? These are the ‘everyday’ Facebook users who don’t give a rip about Mark Zuckerberg and the continued search for 7,000 people who care enough to impact any policy changes with the social media giant. So those regular folks pushed Facebook to a point where it had never been before: the number one site during the Christmas holiday. ReadWriteWeb tells us Christmas is a holiday that brings people together, so perhaps it should be no surprise that Facebook has become a part of millions of peoples’ Christmas experiences. For the first time in its history, Facebook was the #1 most visited website in the United States on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year, according to traffic analyst firm Hitwise today. Makes sense doesn’t it? Personally I was more prone to using Skype rather than updating everyone but that is certainly a personal preference. So while the site finished third for the year behind Google and Yahoo Mail it was certainly a milestone to be seen as the Christmas site of choice. Last year Facebook finished second in this contest to Google but was able to flip positions this year. See what a year of gigantic growth can do for you? Wonder if Santa will be as nice to Facebook next year after the rest of the world catches on that their “goings on” at Facebook aren’t as private as they used to be?

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Facebook Receives News of A Merry Christmas Indeed

Social media marketing top websites

cgseo — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 07:04:23 +0000

If you are new to the world of social media marketing it is helpful to know where to start networking. The best places are the social networks that already have a large amount of traffic and members because social media marketing is a time consuming task. Thus, you want to make sure that you narrow your markets down to the areas where you can have the largest impact which is why you may want to read about the top social media marketing websites. College craze gone viral: The Facebook The Facebook started with just four schools in Boston and grew into one of the hottest social networks online. By building a business profile and taking care to friend everyone you know you can quickly spread the word about your business via their profiles attracting people as they read their friends profiles. Like most social networks, The Facebook can be used like a spider, once it gets going it continues to spread like rapid fire. The Celebrity network: Twitter Twitter is probably one of the most famous social networks due to the fact that celebrities use it on a frequent basis. In the same way that celebrities keep their names fresh and current by ‘twitting’ so that their fans stay abreast of the activities, you can use Twitter to keep your business name, sales, and promotions fresh in patrons minds. Add in the fact that you can twit for your business and catch people while they are already outside of the home, and you have a slam dunk for getting customers inside your doors on a regular basis with an appealing enough Twit. The professional network: Linked In For those who are looking at social media marketing as a way to strengthen their business or start a joint venture the best social network on the web is LinkedIN. Here you can find professionals from all walks of the world who you can network with to exchange advice, business ideas, and possibly even financial backing if you align yourself with the correct contact.

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Social media marketing top websites

Facebook Set to Pass MySpace Revenue Ahead of Schedule

cgseo — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:43:38 +0000

Facebook has drubbed MySpace on almost all fronts—in the media, with users, in growth, in traffic—except ad revenue. But expect that to change next year, according to eMarketer : “It will surpass its former rival, MySpace, in ad revenues in 2010, when marketers worldwide will spend $605 million on Facebook versus $385 million on MySpace.” The projections for next year show MySpace on a downward trend, falling from $490M worldwide this year to $385M next year. Facebook on the other hand is still climbing: from from $435M this year to over $600M next year. Meanwhile, overall social network ad spending is going up. eMarketer predicts 7.1% growth for total ad spend next year, bringing the total to almost $1.3B. Although they initially expected 2009 to see a downturn in revenue, now the stats show 3.9% growth over last year. Back in September, we saw that 20% of all online advertising was on social networks , with MySpace slightly leading Facebook (9.2% to 8.2%). I suppose we can expect the social share of online advertising to continue to grow—but not MySpace’s. The biggest factor contributing to Facebook’s revenue growth this year, according to ClickZ , is its growth. They reached 200M users in April —and just five months later, they’d added another 100M users . Now at 350M active users, Facebook has doubled in size since February of this year. Yeah, I’d say that would drive some revenue growth. What do you think? Will Facebook really pass MySpace? How has MySpace been able to retain its revenue lead for so long?

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Facebook Set to Pass MySpace Revenue Ahead of Schedule

MyBlogLog to Become NoBlogLog?

cgseo — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:15:55 +0000

I don’t quite ever remember a social network that I at first so loved, and then ultimately, so hated. Fortunately, the bad taste left in my mouth by MyBlogLog will likely go away at the beginning of the year–according to rumors that Yahoo will shutter the service. MyBlogLog had so much potential as a network that connected bloggers with their readers. So much, in fact, that Yahoo bought the company back in January 2007 . The ink was barely dry on the contract when the service simply started sucking: Removing MyBlogLog Widget – Too Slow Today MyBlogLog Reacts to Boycott, Reinstates Shoemoney MyBlogLog a Bunch of Schmoes? Forget Google, Now MyBlogLog Adds Friends without Your Consent That’s just a summary–and doesn’t include the now infamous event where a former Yahoo employee got egg on his face. You can argue that MyBlogLog suffered because of better solutions from Google and Facebook, but in the end, I believe the company’s former co-founder Eric Marcoulier hits the nail on the head: “So much of your company’s long term success when it’s acquired is based on the amount of executive juice it has. The only way it survives and flourishes is if you have an executive champion who promotes it internally. Shortly after we were acquired we were transferred away from our champion and under someone who didn’t feel the same way about MyBlogLog. In those circumstances, things simply slow down.” Or completely suck. I wonder how many other Yahoo products have suffered the same fate?

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MyBlogLog to Become NoBlogLog?