My September 2010 video clip of the month features Conan O’Brien revealing the name of his new TBS series using a Sharpie and some white paper in a YouTube video. I picked the video because it shows how social media is changing the way major announcements are made. For most of the last century, major public statements were made through press releases and press conferences for the media. Today, press releases aren’t just for journalists anymore, and they are … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: ‘Guy Walks Across America’
August 2, 2010 by
My August 2010 video clip of the month is "Guy Walks Across America," a viral video on YouTube illustrating how social media is changing advertising. The video, funded by Levi's jeans (which is featured prominently at the end of the clip), has racked up more than a million viewers since its debut on YouTube July 20. It features actor/model Michael Johnson wearing Levi's jeans and a plain T-shirt on a 14-day cross country trip past American landmarks both major … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Social Media Revolution 2
July 2, 2010 by
My July 2010 video clip of the month is a recently updated video by Erik Qualman, author of the Socialnomics – Social Media Blog, demonstrating social media’s explosive growth in recent years. The video is a follow-up piece to his original social media revolution video from last summer. While some of the information is similar to last year’s version, Qualman has updated the data and included new figures for the first time. A few of the highlights include: If … [Read more...]
What Bad Web 2.0 Customer Service Looks Like
June 30, 2010 by
After my Verizon e-mail went down for several hours yesterday, I checked the Web 2.0 "newspaper": Twitter. I quickly discovered many tweets and even a few blog posts, such as Verizon Email Outage: Twitter and Central for Webmail, about the outage, which appeared to be national in scope. To my surprise, however, @Verizon, the official Verizon corporate Twitter account, and @VerizonSupport, the official Verizon customer service Twitter account, weren't … [Read more...]
World Cup, NBA Fans Break Twitter Record
June 22, 2010 by
Two major sporting events this week created tweet tsunamis that helped Twitter reach all-time records for tweets. After the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament started two weeks ago, the social networking site began seeing huge traffic whenever a big goal was scored. Though Twitter normally sees about 750 tweets per second on an average day, a record was set Monday when tweets were sent at a rate of 2,940 per second just 30 seconds after Japan scored against … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: BP Commercial Spoofs
June 2, 2010 by
British Petroleum's (BP's) failure to adequately enlist social media in the communications battle over the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill made picking a single video clip of the month too difficult. So I've chosen two BP commercial spoofs, both highlighting BP's growing credibility gap as it desperately tries to control information and ignores the new (social media era) communication rules: collaboration, openness, transparency, and timeliness. While BP is … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Chris Brogan Interview
May 1, 2010 by
My May 2010 video clip of the month is an interview Chris Brogan gave for the LikeMinds conference in the United Kingdom. Brogan, arguably one of the top social media experts in the world, discusses his vision for social media's future. Here's the YouTube video: … [Read more...]
Do-It-Yourself Media Relations: 5 Easy Steps
March 7, 2010 by
Public relations is vital to building your company and promoting your brand. If you're a small business, non-profit, or start up, however, your budget might be too tight to hire a public relations firm to publicize your products and services to reporters and bloggers. Here are five easy steps for successful do-it-yourself media relations: 1. Create a Press Kit Every company should have a press kit: a hard-copy version, contained in an attractive folder, and an … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: University ‘The Office’ Spoof
March 1, 2010 by
My March 2010 video clip of the month is a spoof of the NBC sitcom "The Office" that students at the University of Denver produced to show their frustrations with technology in the classroom. The video features “Michael,” a technology professor who hasn't kept up with the latest technology and is trying to wing his technology lectures. At one point, he hands out floppy disks so outdated his students’ laptops don’t even have drives to read them. Later, he tries to … [Read more...]
Pentagon Uses Twitter to Announce Policy Change
February 28, 2010 by
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...]
Are Blogs King and Press Releases Obsolete?
February 6, 2010 by
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 Week. “I … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Social Media ROI
February 1, 2010 by
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
January 30, 2010 by
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 Publicity Expert … [Read more...]
Twitter: Pornography & Spam vs. Quality Contacts
January 10, 2010 by
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
January 1, 2010 by
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...]
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