Pentagon Uses Twitter to Announce Policy Change

Price Floyd's Twitter feed

Breaking with tradition, the Pentagon used Twitter Friday to announce major changes in its social media policy. Under the new policy, military personnel can Tweet, blog, and update their Facebook pages on the U.S. military's non-classified computer networks. More than a dozen social media sites the Pentagon blocked in May 2007 will now be unblocked. Price Floyd, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, broke the news of the … [Read more...]

Off to My Satellite Office: Panera Bread

Panera Bread satellite office

NOTE: This post is out of date. "Alice" starts Extended Day, the Montessori equivalent of full-day Kindergarten, in September 2011, which will make me available for semi full-time work. A client recently asked me to redo a company website in WordPress in five weeks. That means I may be spending a few evenings next month at my satellite office: Panera Bread. As I mentioned in my "My Life as a Communications Consultant" post, thanks to the Internet, I work … [Read more...]

Twitter Code Swarm: A Mesmerizing Video

twittercodeswarm

One of the things I love about Web 2.0 is all the creativity and collaboration it creates in the high tech community. Today, I want to share with you a Vimeo video from Ben Sandofsky, a team member of the new Twitter Engineering blog, which visualises Twitter's commits history in a beautiful and mesmerizing way. A commit happens when a developer makes changes to a software's code or documents and transfers them into the central project repository. The video … [Read more...]

Are Blogs King and Press Releases Obsolete?

huffington

UPDATE: As noted in my Is Twitter King and the Press Release Obsolete? post, Brokaw: ‘I Don’t Get Twitter…Just Stuff That Fills Air' post, and Video Clip of the Month: Conan’s YouTube Choice post, social media has the future of press releases in a flux. Stay tuned! Blogs are more effective than press releases, Arianna Huffington, cofounder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, said during a Q&A interview in the February 2010 issue of PR … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Social Media ROI

Socialnomics

My February 2010 video clip of the month is a video by Erik Qualman, author of the Socialnomics - Social Media Blog, on social media return on investment (ROI). The video showcases several social media ROI examples along with other highly successful social media strategies.  Here's the YouTube video: … [Read more...]

HOW TO: Arm a Press Release with Magic Magnets

SEO magnet

A snappy, eye-catching headline used to be the most critical part of a press release back in the day when a press release was—shockingly—actually a release to the press. Now that the Web has allowed people to read press releases directly, even the cleverest headline is useless on a news release that doesn’t generate traffic. In today’s Web 2.0 world, the most important thing your press release and its headline needs is keywords. Keywords are what … [Read more...]

Twitter: Pornography & Spam vs. Quality Contacts

spambot

I lost about a hundred Twitter followers over the holidays. "Alice" was on Christmas break, and I didn't have time to review my new followers to decide if I wanted to follow them back. I check every Twitter profile before I manually follow back, making it is easy for me to fall behind. I definitely do lose a few contacts that way. Some new Twitter followers will unfollow you in as a little as two days if you don't return the follow. Of course, some of these can … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Serendipity Engine

chris_brogan

My January 2010 video clip of the month features a valuable talk Chris Brogan gave at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City. Brogan is arguably one of the top social media experts in the world and his blog is rated number 0ne by Advertising Age magazine. Here's the YouTube video: … [Read more...]

Your Brand: Taking Social Media Seriously

twitter_bird_book

Now that Google has added live results from Twitter into searches, you need to face the fact once and for all that you can no longer control your organization's online reputation. Negative comments on blogs, Facebook, or Twitter have the power to tarnish your brand overnight in ways unimaginable a few years back. Even a small business should take social media seriously and try to influence conversations about its brand. A common concern, however, is managing … [Read more...]

Your Brand: 10-Minute Social Media Monitoring

twitter

Google is adding live results from Twitter into searches this week, forever changing the nature of brand management. Now more than ever, you need to monitor your organization's social media presence.  You need to know right away if the live Tweet results include "worst service" or "sucks," so you can diffuse these conversations and "push down" negative tweet search results. A common concern, however, is that monitoring social media takes too much time, … [Read more...]

With WordPress, Your Ideas Beam into Reality

feed

I love WordPress! In case you missed my Oct. 15, 2009 post, WordPress is one of the leading free open source content management systems (CMS).  It’s user-friendly, interactive ( i.e., Web 2.0), and lets you create professional looking websites in no time. More importantly, you can quickly improve your site when you come up with new ideas or technology changes—without having to pay for any software or development costs. This Sunday I came up … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Muppets on Social Media

muppets

The Muppets Studio produced a cute clip about social media. Here's a link to the video on YouTube: … [Read more...]

My Life as a Communications Consultant

juggling

NOTE: This post is out of date. "Alice" starts Extended Day, the Montessori equivalent of full-day Kindergarten, in September 2011, which will make me available for semi full-time work. When I am out and about with "Alice," my 2-year-old daughter, I am often asked what I do for a living. I usually answer "communications consultant" rather than "work at home mom" (WAHM) or "mompreneur."  Some people seem to think WAHM and mompreneur are the new euphemisms … [Read more...]

Social Media Campaign Sets Guinness Record

GuinnesWorldRecords

The Atlanta-based social media marketing agency Everywhere set a Guinness World Record October 16 to 17, 2009, for the most widespread social network message in a 24-hour period with 209,771 mentions on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. In fact, the massive viral effort was so successful that #beatcancer, the campaign's trending topic, became the top one on Twitter. Incredibly, Everywhere conceptualized and executed the one-day pro-bono campaign in one week. It ended … [Read more...]

Blog with Integrity FTC Webinar

Blog With Integrity hosted a free webinar on Nov. 10, 2009, featuring Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Associate Commissioner for Consumer Protection Mary Engle. The webinar discussed the new FTC guidance on disclosure and endorsements, which is critical information for bloggers who write about products and services plus the public relations and marketing people who hock them. You can view the Vimeo video below. I have signed Blog with Integrity's online pledge. I … [Read more...]