We Are All Jerks

January 10, 2012
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Organizations big and small are getting in the social media game, even if they aren’t quite sure what their success metrics are. Twitter is integrated into the iPhone’s OS. Our phones have cameras, we can shoot photos and video everywhere we go. We check in. We share where we go, what we ate, what we saw and who was there. Facebook Timeline makes us feel like our whole life should be documented from start to finish in photos and status updates. The message is clear: be social. But if you make a mistake, we jump. Accidentally tweet something you meant [...]

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Where Are The New Ideas?

January 6, 2012
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Last night as I was watching Jersey Shore (not even going to lie about it), I saw a commercial for MTV’s new show. It looks like a show about a few twenty somethings living in the city, falling in love, trying to make sense of their lives and work. The characters look clever, irreverent and witty. They’re enough like us so that we can identify with them, but funnier and better looking. Which was Friends. Or How To Make It In America. Or 20 other shows, some that didn’t quite make it. Yesterday I read and reposted something Chris Brogran wrote [...]

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Is Social Business Real?

January 4, 2012
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Yesterday I (awkwardly) commented on an interesting post by Geoff Livingston, Social Business or Social Bullshit? On Friday he will pick the top 5 comments and send each person a copy of Jason Fall’s new book. Take a look if you want to give it a shot. I’ve wondered this myself which is why I commented (not that I wouldn’t like the book). For me, the question is more about terminology. Here is what IBM (where I am an internet marketing consultant) says the characteristics of a social business are: A Social Business is engaged—deeply connecting people, including customers, employees, and partners, to [...]

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Doing What You’ve Always Done

December 23, 2011
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My family always made pizza and fugialuni on Christmas Eve. Fugialuni is something my Great-Grandmother made with her family. It’s Sicilian, though I’ve never met another person who has heard of it (Italian or otherwise). It has been my family’s tradition for years. When my husband and I got married, we tried to blend our two Christmas Eve traditions. We invited both families to come to our house. First we served his family’s traditional meal, then we made 6 pizzas and 6 fugialuni. The result was that there was too much food and way too many dirty dishes. Realizing that [...]

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How Long Does It Take To Create New Content?

December 14, 2011
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The web is fast, right? We can create content and make changes quickly. Direct mail, advertising and events all take time to plan and execute, but putting up a new page can be done quickly. Right? Yes and no. While it’s often technically possible to create a new page quickly, some early planning will make your page much more useful. These are some of the steps I consider: Strategy: who is this content for, what does it need to communicate and what is our goal in creating it? This is always the first question because the answers drive many of the [...]

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