Disruptive Conversations

Want to work in marketing/social media? In Montreal? Mitch Joel wants you...

If you are interested in getting a new job in marketing/social media, my friend to the north of me, Mitch Joel, is looking for you:

I rarely use this Six Pixels of Separation Blog to talk about the comings and goings at Twist Image, but we have had an incredible year of growth (great clients and fun projects). We had done our projections for 2008, but stuff happens (in a good way) and we're looking for a slew of additional people and talent who want to try their hand in the Digital Marketing space on the agency side.

All the relevant information (including the desire that you be bilingual) is found in Mitch's blog post. Mitch is a great guy... TwistImage is doing some great work... and Montreal is a beautiful city! Check it out!

Technorati Tags: mitch joel, social media, montreal, jobs, marketing

Jeremiah Owyang demonstrates why Forrester hired him - "Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle"

Jeremiah Owyang continues to demonstrate today why Forrester hired him with a great (and lengthy) post called "Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle".  Excerpting from the post doesn't do it justice, so I'll just point you over to the post.  I will include his warning and his intended audience:

Warning: For Advanced Strategists only
This is for the advanced only, not a company that is still trying to answer “what or why”. To gauge the sophistication of your organization, see this chart. Deploying this strategy without grasping the foundations of social media, the cultural changes it implies or testing trial programs will likely lead to failure.

You: A Social Media Strategist
You’re responsible for the direction of your online strategies for your company or organization, specifically using social media and computing tools to reach, connect, and build communities around your brand. Most folks at your company know this space is important, but don’t know how to do it, they are relying on your expertise to think holistically, integrated, and strategically.

It's a great post... thanks to Jeremiah for putting it together - and for sharing it with all of us.

Technorati tags: social media, social media strategy, social media strategist, jeremiah owyang, web strategist, strategy

Congrats to Jeremiah Owyang for joining Forrester

I have never met Jeremiah Owyang, but I've been a regular reader of his "Web Strategy" blog for ages. He writes extremely well and many (but not all) of the topics he covers intersect with many of the topics I cover here.   Since reading his blog, I've also connected with him via Twitter and Facebook as well, adding yet more dimensions to our connection.  I've come to know a bit more about him and appreciate/respect his knowledge and interest.

So I was thrilled to read that he will be joining Forrester Research as an analyst in October.  As he indicates, a lot of the writing and information gathering he's been doing on his web site are really akin to what goes on within the analyst world... so it's a natural step for him.  Personally, I think it's great for Forrester to gain someone with the amount of experience and connections that Jeremiah has.  I would have to think he'll definitely be an asset to Forrester's clients.

Congrats, Jeremiah!

Technorati tags: social media, web2.0, marketing

Marketing Pilgrim: 26 Free Tools for Buzz Monitoring

Over on the Marketing Pilgrim site, Andy Beal put up a good post yesterday "26 Free Tools for Buzz Monitoring". Definitely well worth a read if you are in the need to be monitoring what's happening online related to your company, brand, name, whatever.... I knew of most of the sites, but there were a few new ones.  Nice job on Andy's part to put together this list.

Technorati tags: social media, monitoring, marketing

Mitch Joel: "Burn the ships!" - linking social media to the 1400's...

Getting caught up one some blogging, I just had to comment that I loved Mitch Joel's "Burn the ships!" motif in his talk at the Canadian Marketing Association conference back in May.  He started this with a post back in September, "It's Time For Marketers to Burn the Ships" but this was that motif given form in a presentation.  Now, I wasn't there at the CMA to hear it, but I did read the reports and I've consistently heard great things about Mitch's presentations. I'm sure it was fun.

I just like the slogan... "burn the ships!"  What a great way to express the need to plunge into the new world and dive deeply.

Anyway, kudos to Mitch for coming up with a memorable way to frame the whole discussion.  (And yes, Mitch, given that we're only about 1.5 hours apart, one of these days I will have to finally hear you present!)

Technorati tags: mitch joel, social media

Bill Clinton and Tony Robbins on the same stage... with Mitch Joel?

Mitch Joel (of Six Pixels of Separation fame) from about 1.5 hours north of me in "beautiful Montreal" has passed along word that he will be part of "The Power Within" workshop in Montreal on April 3, 2007.  And yes, as shown on the event page, the bald, black-wearing blogger will indeed be on the same stage as Bill Clinton and Tony Robbins... and Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield to boot!  Congrats to Mitch for landing the gig and it definitely sounds like an interesting event.  It's tempting to consider... as a frequent speaker myself, it's always great to see people who are excellent presenters as you can usually learn so much from seeing them.  We'll see...

Technorati tags: mitch joel, the power within, montreal

Owning the #1 Technorati search result through using the new WTF feature!

How would you like your text and a link to your blog(s) to show up at the very top of a Technorati search as the #1 result? As shown in the picture to the right, I just did that.  If you do a Technorati search on "Michael Keren", with or without quotes around his name, you wind up with a screen like the one I've shown, and right up on top is a peach-ish/tan-ish box with a flame next to it that has a headline, some text and a link to my Technorati profile.  I just put that up there a few minutes ago.

It turns out that two days ago, Technorati released a new feature called "WTF", which they are defining as the more "work-safe" acronym of "Where's The Fire?" [1]  Essentially, you can create a "blurb" explaining why there's a "fire" around a certain search term and post it. Other Technorati users can then vote on the blurb and the blurb with the most votes is the one that lands on top of the list.  As explained on Technorati:

Ever wonder why something is sooooo popular? Why are the hot topics hot? WTFs explain the buzz around people, things, and events. Who writes these WTFs? You do! Anyone can write one on any topic, and everyone can vote for the best explanations. The ones with the most votes rise up and the dreck sinks. Let millions of other people benefit from your genius… no blog required!

Dave Sifry writes more about the new feature and says this:

Here at Technorati HQ, we know that we're taking a pretty risky step - we're putting our highest-value real estate - the topmost search result - in the hands of our community. This is a big social experiment to see if people will work together to help create something great and useful, and will use the voting system to push up the best explanations to the top.

Indeed they are taking a risk... and the experimentation is great to see.  Now let's see how successful it is.  I can see the power of it... but I can also see the abuse.  Since anyone who is a Technorati user can create WTF blurbs for any search, there is nothing to prevent people from leaving blurbs that are quite negative.  For instance, in light of today's economic news, I could (but won't) go leave a blurb on the Exxon Mobil search that says:

Exxon Mobil is a sleazy oil company that announced a quarterly profit of $39.5 billion which works out to a *profit* of $4.5 million dollars *per hour*, while the US Senate is debating whether the minimum wage should be bumped up to $7/hour.

Uh, oh... sounds like yet one more thing that PR and marketing folks need to pay attention to!  I'm guessing the PR folks could put a counter-definition up there as a WTF blurb, but then you've got to get the most votes to wind up on the top!  (And in today's climate, gee, which one is going to get more votes?)   Of course, you could do it for individuals as well.  For instance, because Mitch is just way too easy to pick on, I could (but won't) add to the "mitch joel" Technorati search:

Bald black-wearing blogger from "beautiful Montreal" with tons of groupies who raves about Second Life and pronounces "image" a funny way.

I don't know what happens if Mitch then posts a WTF blurb of his own and both have no votes.  Does the latest blurb win?

So the question is - will bloggers in search of links go through and populate Technorati with WTF blurbs that might get people to view their Technorati profile and then their blog?  Will we see "fights" to determine whose blurb gets on top?  How long will it be until unethical people start WTF-spamming to drive links to their profile and blogs?

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to yet be an overly easy way to monitor if there is a "WTF" blurb written for your company... obviously you can look at the page for your search.  If there is already at least 1 blurb, you can monitor the URL "www.technorati.com/wtf/<name>", as in  http://www.technorati.com/wtf/michael-keren, but it's not clear to me that there is yet an automated way to do this (like an RSS feed).

 It will be fascinating to see how people use - and abuse - this system.  So the question, if you are a Technorati user, have you written a WTF blurb for the searches that relate to you?  Will you do so?  Or will you let others...   (and no, Mitch, I won't be submitting that one for you!)

[1] Non-English readers may not realize that "WTF" is also translated in at least American slang as "What The F___?" with the commonly used profanity that sounds a lot like "duck" (as Dan continues to try to keep his blog work-safe).

Technorati tags: technorati, blog search, wtf, blogging, social media

What looks like bombs under bridges? Real-world disruption in Boston and other cities due to crazy advertising campaign

C.C. Chapman writes about today's craziness in Boston caused by an advertising campaign gone wrong.   Reading the news out of the Boston Globe, it sounds like a pretty crazy day there.  More news here.  And it's not just Boston... these packages are in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia.  You can almost see someone thinking about it... "why don't we place these signs around cities and encourage people to go out and find them?"

But... duh!... in this day and age, to go and plant things under bridges? and other similar locations?  What in the world were they thinking?  Very unbelievable?

On the other hand, Turner Broadcasting has now received more attention that they could ever have imagined for this cartoon series.  I imagine someone's head will roll at Turner... but I also have to wonder how many people will at least know of the series name by now.

Crazy stuff...

Technorati tags: turner, turner broadcasting, advertising, publicity stunts, pr

Huh? So Skype is changing it's tag line to what?

Okay, so if you have a brand ("Skype") that has a tremendous amount of recognition, what makes you wake up one day and decide that you are going to change your main tag line from:

The whole world can talk for free

to... wait for it... yes... they actually do appear to be serious:

Take a deep breath

Huh?  Jaanus explains it a bit on the Share Skype blog and hints at a longer post to come about the whole brand transition.  I'll have to say that will be interesting to read, because this move seems a bit puzzling.  I personally won't miss the conversation bubbles (although their story is interesting), but the change in the tag line seems puzzling at best.  Obviously we have to stay tuned...

Technorati tags: skype, branding

The incredible importance of providing graphics to help others promote your brand

UPDATE: I recently came across this post that I wrote on this topic back in August 2005 that also provided a couple of examples (one of which I note is no longer available, but hey, 1.5 years is ages in terms of the web).

(Originally posted to http://dyork.livejournal.com/261661.html )

Continuing a theme I've harped on numerous times over the past year or two in FIR reports and posts here, I sent a message to the New England Podcasting mailing list today talking again about the incredible importance of making it easy for other people to promote your brand in social media in a graphical form.  You can read the message but the point can be summarized in this:

If you want people in the social media world to help promote your brand, make it easy for them to get a logo or other image associated with your brand.

Ideally make it a nice little graphic people can right-click and grab (either as an image or link) directly from your home page, as both Mitel (my employer) and also Skype have done.  Or make a seperate page as Shel and Neville did over at FIR with a link to that page from the sidebar of the home page.  Whatever you do, just make it easy and people will help you promote your brand.

Now, of course, total control freaks will argue - correctly - that people can also abuse your brand if you make the logo available.  Definitely!  For instance, I've seen the Skype logo morphed into so many different forms... behind jail bars... with a big red circle/bar (to indicate "No Skype here")... Jan over in Malaysia is always inserting into various images, not always of the charitable type.  But there's two arguments there: 1) in the end, the abusers are using your brand image (and they probably would anyway) and inadvertantly helping promote your brand logo; and 2) unless you are doing really hideous things as a company, there are probably far more who will use your image positively.

I'd also add that if you are such a control freak, you certainly aren't going to do well in "social media" and you may as well just prepare right now to be outdone by more social-media-savvy competitors.  Run away now while you still can (and perhaps consider a different career move... any illusions of control in PR/marketing are swiftly being destroyed in the world of user-generated content... at best you can hope to control some aspects like the images used (maybe) and some of the message - but that involves engaging in the conversation).

Anyway, have you looked at your company/entity/podcast website lately?  Is there a graphic readily available that people can use?

 

Technorati tags: blogging, branding, images, podcasting, social media