Folks, it’s all about making people’s lives better. Facebook continues to be a solid social media tool because it can actually improve your life (or, destroy it through addiciton ... either way) by effectively connecting you with your community.

Their people just published a white paper on viral marketing designed to teach businesses how to leverage customers through Facebook, and they’ve also added another feature that further enhances Facebook users to communicate and connect with their friends. They call it, c-h-a-t. You may have heard of it.

The whitepaper was actually a pretty good read--I learned a few things myself. This was a good move for them as it does two things: 1) It establishes their authority in viral marketing, and 2) Targets the growing Facebook business demographic. Facebook continues to distancing itself from its "Facebook is for kids" criticism as more and more people recognize the name. It is becoming so widspread that you are no longer considered a nerd or young-punk if you’re a Facebook user; instead, the question has become, "You’re not on Facebook?" I mean, my Dad is on Facebook (honestly...).

Also, the chat feature is pretty solid. While there are pros and cons to it, brands now have a new channel for making themselves available to customers. I know it’s already being done by some companies; but brands should be excited about another opportunity to listen to what their customers are saying.

Continue reading "Facebook Making Another Big Push"

Tapping into your customers and your community to co-create content can be an excellent strategy for building engagement with your brand.

Let me emphasize the important word in that phrase: can.

Because sometimes, it just seems to go all wrong.

Like when Chevy invited customers to create their own Tahoe commercial, and people responded with taglines like, "$70 to fill up the tank, which will last less than 400 miles. Chevy Tahoe."

Unfortunately, CNN missed the lesson on how to appropriately work with communities to generate content with their new T-shirt generator that let’s fans create custom T-shirts out of real CNN headlines, or upload their "headline." CNN can now rest assured knowing that there are T-shirts in the wild proudly displaying the iconic CNN logo above the headline: "I prefer MSNBC."

Bonus points for the first person to submit a Viget headline to a CNN T-shirt.

[Update]

While there are plenty of great examples of excellent co-creation and customizing content, one of the newer entries to the field is Moleskine, who is offering customers an opportunity to upload their own design and have it laser engraved on their book. Perhaps altering the historic design of the Moleskine is an abomination to some, but others will no doubt find the personalization a wonderful enhancement to an already storied product. Great way to blend a strong brand with a personal touch.

Someone recently friended me on Digg, and has been shouting at me ever since. I didn’t know the guy, but I thought, “Hey, why not? I’ll friend him...he seems to have dug some similar stuff as me.” Next thing I know, the guy has made it his life’s mission to shout me to death. He’s passed along wonderfully insightful comments such as, “Very Impressed by these” and “Very Unique Art Work.” Perhaps the best part is that he friended me twice with two separate profiles...twice the spam? Awesome. That guy got blocked within days.

Classic.

Social media is a new generation of advertising and marketing, designed to enable conversations and build meaningful community. What we have here is an individual who is using new media, in an old way.

The old way: Want someone’s attention? Shove it down their throat.
The new way: Want someone’s attention? Earn their trust through meaningful participation.

Anyhow, I just found that to be a good example of the confusion of digital marketing and reminded me a bit of that cell phone analogy I mentioned the other day.

The shift from the “old” way of marketing to the “new” way is not like the shift from radio ads to TV ads--same idea just a different medium. Social media is built on an entirely different foundation and we can no longer operate within the same guidelines.

I’m thinking about creating a support group for those who have suffered at the ignorant hands of social media spammers, would anyone be interested? I invite you to release your baggage and find healing…

DC has a strong buzz that’s fostering a growing tech environment in which Internet startups can thrive.  From the work and ideas being tossed around here at Viget, even at the micro level I am feeling the general buzz of new ideas, big wins, and an entrepreneurial spirit.* This morning’s panel discussion at Potomac TechWire hosted at the Ritz was exceptional commentary from some of the best in DC’s tech community. 

Continue reading "Potomac Tech Wire Internet Outlook ‘08 Recap"

This morning when I opened my reader I had a few folders that had the nice little “1,000+” number next to the folder. How, depressing. I began to read through the posts one by one and marking them off as ‘read.’ One hour later I hadn’t made a dent in that annoying little “1,000+.” By the way, thanks for putting that number in fire engine red because I wasn’t already aware how out of control it is. Anyhow, in each of the folders where said number appeared, it’s usually just one blog that is the culprit and it got me thinking....is it possible to blog too much?

I decided to ask the Google machine. Well, turns out I’m not completely off my rocker because the first search result was a post by Seth Godin entitled, “The Noisy Tragedy of the Blog Commons.” In that post, Seth laments the Tragedy of the Commons in relation to blogging. In a slight twist on the definition of the commons, Godin asserts that we’re actually over saturating people because we can.

I want to subscribe to blogs that make me wish for more; not blogs that make me wish they’d stop writing. I want a blog that is selective in it’s content; not a blog that publishes everything it can get its hands on related to it’s industry. I mean honestly, who has time to read 100 posts a day from one blog alone? I know I can tag my information, I know I can just scan headlines; but why not do the tagging for me? Why not scan the headlines for me? Why not produce only the best of the best content, and leave the rest for the pageview & blood thirsty ego-blogger? Obviously there are some exceptions--take TechCrunch or AdAge for example....and there are your friends blogs that you read because you care about your friends. But my favorite blogs are still those that censor information for me and tell me what I need to know.

I think the Microhoo situation was a good example. That was the shot heard round the blogosphere. Everyone wrote a post (if not multiple posts) regarding the takeover, but I read very few blogs that actually had something good to say. Perhaps people felt the pressure to write about it so as not be deemed irrelevant.

But therein lies the rub for me…

Continue reading "Is it Possible to Blog Too Much?"