Archive for the ‘Links’ Category
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
Ever since Google Reader introduced more social features like following, sharing, liking and commenting, I’ve been watching what friends like CC Chapman share more and more, and in some ways that has become my new discovery mechanism. I still believe very much in the link economy and I think sharing links is one way to tell people what you like.
It comes down to trust. If I know this individual produces good content, then the stuff he or she finds interesting enough to share with his or her community, it must be good content as well.
The one problem I have, is that it’s not all that easy to find out who’s sharing what on Google Reader unless they’re already an email contact. So here’s my shared items as well as my shared items rss feed and bookmarks i save on Delicious.com.
If you have one, share it with me as well!
Tags: delicious, google reader, rss, shared items, sharing
Posted in Links, community, social media | 4 Comments »
Sunday, January 18th, 2009
When Prof. Michael and I were discussing what to include into the Digital Media class this term, one thing I thought we should make compulsory is Twitter. Even though it had its downtime in 2008, I think the service definitely has potential, and so this week, it’s almost all about everyone’s favourite (or “favourite”) microblogging tool, Twitter.
If you’re lazy, Steve Spalding has the Essential Twitter Guide ready for you, which is a collection of the best Twitter-related posts and guides around the web.
From the student’s point of view, Studentlinc has a post on Figuring Out The Benefits Of Twitter.
Steven Hodson is doing his Twitter and Friendfeed spring cleaning, and he points to Twitter Karma as a way of discovering who’s a mutual follower, who’s just following you, or if you’re just following them. One sneaky trick that some people use is to follow you, wait a couple of days to see if you follow them, and then unfollow you so that they can artificially inflate their follower number. This helps safeguard against that.
Finally, the one non-Twitter related link for the week, is the question “What’s A Community Worth?” over at Social Voice. It’s a fairly long article, but the real world examples/case studies of how community can be beneficial to an organisation.
I have a whole chunk of Twitter-related posts generated over the last year, (including a small Twitter 101 segment) feel free to check them out!
Tags: benefits of twitter, communicate asia, digital media, essential twitter guide, michael netzley, social voice, steve spalding, studentlinc, twitter, twitter 101, twitter karma, twitter spring cleaning, what's a community worth
Posted in Links, twitter | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 22nd, 2008
Traveling week means just enough time for a quick round of links
Millennials
My dad sent me this article from Business Week titled “The Millennials Invade the Business Schools“, in a follow-up piece, Queen’s University (where I was attending until recently) was ranked #1 for international business schools, but the point here is really how Gen Y is hitting the business schools and the workforce:
members of this so-called Millennial Generation have been praised and derided in equal measure—for their tech knowhow and idealism, their unrealistic career expectations, and their doting “helicopter” parents, who hover over their kids obsessively
I think that’s really interesting stuff. Will schools react to us well enough? I already feel like my home school doesn’t.
Personal Branding
Dan Schawbel gives us 10 Ways Personal Branding Can Save You From Getting Fired, which I think easily doubles up as 10 ways it can get you hired. Priceless skill, in this recession economy.
That said, Jeremiah Owyang tells us some companies can see a personal brand as a risk, and try to respond to them.
Tags: b-school, business school, business week, dan schawbel, Gen Y, jeremiah owyang, Links, millennials, personal branding, queen's university, recession economy
Posted in Links | No Comments »
Monday, December 15th, 2008
This week there was a bit of a big deal over Chris Brogan’s Kmart experience that I got to read about from Steven Hodson over at the Inquisitr.
On one hand we have people saying he’s a sell out and other negative things (please, why does Chris Brogan need to sell out for $500??), on the other hand Jeremiah Owyang posts a nice round up post on the whole thing.
For the record, I’m fully in support of compensating bloggers, and I think as long as it’s done with full transparency (as in the Kmart case), it should be fine.
I do however want to turn attention to two important questions that I saw in a couple of comments about the whole thing:
1) Would Chris Brogan have blogged about Kmart if he wasn’t paid? (personally, I don’t think so)
2) Did getting paid affect objectivity in any way?
I think these are the big questions that we’ve been debating over back home as well. So far I think our sponsored blog posts in Singapore are working out well, but maybe it’s because by and large we haven’t had the need for separation between out personal and professional lives.
I’ve struggled with this issue for awhile before finally starting up my personal blog (which by the way, averages better traffic than this blog) and I think if ever companies were to approach me to talk about their product that didn’t fall in the technology or social media field, it’d definitely go there.
Important takeaway from this issue? Risks and consequences don’t just extend to companies dabbling in social media and blogger outreach, but bloggers as well. It’s definitely making me think twice over ever accepting any offer outside my respective niches.
Do you see a problem with this? Does Chris Brogan the consumer blogger have less clout than Chris Brogan the social media blogger?
Tags: case studies, chris brogan, consumer, daddy blog, kmart, social media
Posted in Links, case studies | 2 Comments »
Monday, December 8th, 2008
Only four links this week:
Twitter/Brand Monitoring
Jesse Stay has an exclusive interview with the woman behind @BritneySpears on Twitter over on Louis Gray’s blog, and I found this to be a very, very interesting read. When you think about Twitter, you think about people in social media or tech people or people who live their lives online. Yet @BritneySpears has found some footing with an audience of more than 10,000 (maybe it isn’t even her audience, maybe it’s a wider audience than her usual), and the results look to be, for the most part, positive.
It just makes you think, if a female pop star with a tarnished image in the last few years can get on something like Twitter and begin to make small steps to getting back on the right track, what can your company do with it?
[I'm @uniquefrequency on Twitter, if you want to link up there]
Social Media In Businesses
More than 60% of companies are not ready to engage in social media – Surprise surprise? Not really, if you ask me.
if you have a “spying” culture you distrust your employees’ reading habits and how they spend their time. You will therefore distrust their ability to engage with customers on your behalf or you will put so many controls over it that it will sound 100% inauthentic. Think of people willing to speak in public in dicta rial countries – they have zero credibility, as most people assume that they are shills for the regime.
If your company is one of those that blocks Facebook, all it does is signal an extreme lack of trust in your employees. And most of Gen Y aren’t going to take it (Minus the bankers. They’ll do anything for money)
Generation Y/Millennials/Digital Natives
Read Write Web tells us that Millennials Will Route Around IT Departments – There are statistics in this research, but here’s the bottom line:
This report definitely makes it clear that IT departments can either choose to adopt some of these technologies, or they will risk that a large number of their young employees will simply go rogue.
I’ve had a little bit of experience with this in the past and I can say with some certainty that whatever organisations think they’re blocking, they’re not. Whether I want my email forward to Gmail and IT won’t do it for me, or running Firefox from my USB stick because I can’t download Firefox, there are ways to get it done. Blocking IM and/or Facebook? Pretty much useless with the 3G iPhone. (not that I have one).
Just let it go and find more meaningful work for the IT department to do (like improving web analytics, for one).
Blogging
Bryan Person of Social Media Breakfast asks whether blog sidebars are useful. I think they are and I feel I could definitely utilise mine more efficiently. How do you use yours? What are the must haves for your blog sidebar?
That’s it for this week, do share links with me on Delicious.com (I’m uniquefrequency) or just leave them in the comments below!
Tags: 3g iphone, @britneyspears, @therealbritney, blog sidebars, brand monitoring, britney, britney spears, bryan person, businesses not ready to engage in social media, delicious, digital natives, facebook, firefox, generation y, gmail, is your business ready for social media, it departments, louis gray, millennials, social media breakfast, social media in business, twitter, uniquefrequency, usb stick
Posted in Gen Y, Links | 2 Comments »
Monday, December 1st, 2008
If you usually skip weekly link section (published Sunday night/Monday morning, depending which part of the world you’re in), don’t skip it this week because there are two great research pieces, two blog posts and *gasp* one semi-mainstream media post this week. All great reads.
Community Management
Online Communities: Establishing A Community’s Culture – As empirical as research can be when it comes to stuff like “community” and “culture”. A must-read for those involved in community management, or thinking about entering it.
Gamer Demographics Research
Very interesting findings about Target Audiences For Online Game Advertising. Among others:
THE INTERNET AS A DOMINANT FACTOR IN YOUNG MEN’S LIFE:
* 69% say they can’t live without the Internet, versus just 31% for television
* 40% use the Internet for more than 22 hours a week
* 36% say they can’t live without the Internet for socializing
* 33% say they can’t live without online entertainment
GAMERS AS CONSUMERS
* The average gaming household income ($79,000) is notably higher than that of non-gaming households ($54,000).
* Gamers are willing to pay extra for the latest and greatest: they are twice as likely as non-gamers to buy a product featuring new technology even if they are aware that there are still bugs.
Twitter
Like many other people around the world, I was hooked on the hashtag #mumbai on Twitter following the attacks. The lessons learned from this are everywhere, so I won’t re-blog them here, but it’s nice to see social media tools getting some recognition from big mainstream media outlets like Forbes on Twitter’s Moment.
Blogging
Mitch Joel tells us to Start A Blog Today, and I couldn’t agree more. Especially for those like me, waiting to enter into a very competitive market in this recession economy, it could just make the difference, assuming you’re applying for an enlightened corporation that would recognise the benefits of blogging.
Blogger Outreach
Finally, Brian asks Why Do We Have Blogger Events? and I think he’s hit the differentiating factor on the head. It’s not about randomly inviting people for events, it’s about community building. And that’s the hard part.
As always, share your links with me on Delicious or just leave them in the comments below!
Tags: #mumbai, blogger outreach, blogging, brian koh, can't live without the internet, community management, establishing community culture, forbes, gamer demographics research, gamers as consumers, harmless bananas, internet as dominant factor in young men's life, internet usage statistics, mitch joel, should i blog?, start a blog today, target audience for online game advertising, twitter
Posted in Links | No Comments »
Monday, November 24th, 2008
Twitter
If you’re still using Twitter, Louis Gray has 15 Tools For Your Twitter Toolbox which you might want to check out.
Social Media
How To Be The Social Media Champion At Your Office by Jason Falls. Many of us are graduating this year if not next, it might be time to think seriously about bringing such a change to our offices.
Collaboration
And speaking of offices, EtherPad is a tool that allows you to collaborate on text documents in real time. I was pretty blown away by the screencast, you should give it a view. I’m looking forward to using this on future projects!
Recessionary Marketing
Do Not Kill Off Marketing During A Recession is the call by Hutch Carpenter. Most of us in marketing (unlike the CEOs) know this, and I’ve read that there is statistical data to show that it’s a bad idea. Try Hutch’s little cartoon for a more intuitive feel.
Generation Y/Millennials/Digital Natives
New Study Shows Time Spent Online Important for Teen Development – I’m a little out of the “teen” demographic, but I think this study hits the right notes and more importantly, should give employers an idea of what to expect when we hit the workforce. I haven’t had time to read the full white paper, but the two page executive summary is pretty exciting.
As always, share your links with me on delicious/uniquefrequency or post them in the comments!
Tags: championing social media, collaborate on text documents, collaboration, delicious, digital natives, do not kill off marketing during a recession, etherpad, generation y, how much to spend on marketing in a recession, hutch carpenter, jason falls, louis gray, millennials, recessionary marketing, screencast, social media, social media champion, social media in the office, teen development, twitter, twitter tools, uniquefrequency
Posted in Links | No Comments »
Monday, November 17th, 2008
A weekend of travel means less blogging this week, but definitely not less reading!
Blogging
You want to show you know what you’re doing, even if the company you’re in follows prehistoric methods, so that the next person who hires you has a reference point. Joseph Jaffe tells you how in AdWeek – Save Your Career, Start A Blog
RSS
Daily Blog Tips has 50 Simple Ways To Gain RSS Subscribers – some might just come in useful!
Word Of Mouth
Andy Sernovitz gets another link this week for telling us why Your Word Of Mouth Markting Doesn’t Have To Be About Your Product. I’ll admit I liked this post partially because Molson Canadian is my new favourite beer while I’m here in Canada. (Oh and they have a blog, and recently an event right here at Queen’s!)
John Johansen had a great experience at Best Buy, which is the polar opposite of what some companies are doing in this recessionary period. (Examples to be posted, soon). He also mentions that because it was a special event there was extra help, free drinks etc, but many people also bought something. Do you think they included his blog post (or any other positive ones) while measuring the ROI of that event?
Social Media ROI
While we’re on that topic, David Meerman Scott tells us how to Answer The Ultimate Question: “How do I convince my boss of the ROI of new marketing?” – It’s not a long video, definitely worth a look.
Gen Y, Millennials and Digital Natives
Quickly becoming an interest point for me these days. Prof Netzley has a deck on Educating Gen Y and how collaborative technologies foster participant-centered learning. . I’d say it’s definitely worth flipping through, especially if you’re trying to figure out what the heck Gen Y is about and how we learn.
Tags: adweek, andy sernovitz, best buy, blogging, collaboration, collaborative technologies, communicate asia, daily blog tips, david meerman scott, digital natives, educating gen y, Gen Y, generation y, john johansen, joseph jaffe, michael netzley, millennials, molson canadian, new marketing, participant centered learning, queen's university, recessionary times, ROI, rss, save your career, social media roi, start a blog, ways to gain rss subscribers, word of mouth marketing
Posted in Links | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s rare political edition of Links For The Week, it’s back to the regular stuff.
Tribes
- There was an allusion to “Tribes” a couple of times in yesterday’s post, listen to Seth Godin talk about it for more than an hour in this special edition of the Marketing Over Coffee podcast. It took me a long time to finish it because my daily commute is five minutes, but so worth it.
Generation Y, Digital Natives & Millennials
- Workplace 2.0: Motivating and Managing Millennials – Very short (12 pages total, about 8 pages of content) PDF file on managing millennials (aka: us). It doesn’t actually give much of a “how to”, but it does lead you to understanding us more. I must say he is right on about fervour, hard work and tireless labour. I’d work overtime, for free, for a job that’s rewarding in an industry I’m passionate about.
- Digital Natives are here by Mitch Joel – Again, great post to help the people in management understand the digital natives. I feel a lot of people still aren’t ready to accept that our generation is a little bit different and that being constantly connected is more of an empowerment than a distraction. But those organisations who do grasp that, are going to be able to channel us much more efficiently.
Social Media Strategy
- The Strategist and Social Media by Kami Huyse – Great slides in there that you should read if you’re beginning to think of a social media strategy, especially points about risks of social media engagement, and the Sea World case study.
Plurk
Google Reader
Music & Social Media
- MTV to MySpace: Post Our Content, Please – you might remember in my review of the book/rant Cult Of The Amateur by Andrew Keen that he called Viacom (parent company of MTV) suing YouTube a “powerful message”. I say the partnership between MTV and MySpace is a) a more powerful message b) a sign that at least one player in the industry waking up to reality.
As always, share your links with me in the comments, or you can find me on delicious.
Tags: andrew keen, apple, beth harte, cult of the amateur, delicious, digital natives, generation y, google reader, itunes sucks, kami huyse, links for the week, marketing over coffee, millennials, mitch joel, mtv, myspace, obama, Plurk, read it later, risks of social media engagement, sea world, seth godin, social media strategy, tribes, viacom, youtube
Posted in Links | No Comments »
Monday, November 10th, 2008
In the wake of the historical moment that happened earlier this week, there have been tons and tons of blog posts on President Obama’s victory. In this special edition of weekly links, I present five of them that really caught my attention, four of them marketing and/or social media based, and one commentary based.
1) Marketing lessons from the US Elections by Seth Godin. – I haven’t read Seth Godin’s “Tribes” yet, but from hearing about it and reading his blog, it’s pretty intuitive what it’s about. Find out how tribes (and stories) played a part in the elections.
2) Obama proves that there is nothing more powerful than an engaged community by Alexander van Elsas in the Netherlands – Tribes, community, they’re the same thing. Having them is one thing, but having them and setting fire to them is another.
3) Ten marketing lessons from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign by David Meerman Scott – Not going to go through all ten, but I loved the points about citizen journalists and putting your fans first.
4) Online Facebook Efforts Prove Successful for the Obama Campaign by Louis Gray – Some interesting data on the Facebook community engaged with Obama. Louis asks if John McCain’s loss could be a result of the lack of social media efforts. I certainly think it’s a key reason.
5) Obama: The morning after and some last thoughts by Steven Hodson at the Inquisitr – I picked this because a) it appeared in my Google Alerts for my name, and b) because it collects some really heartfelt comments from people around the internet, and not all of them American, demonstrating how truly global this election has been.
If you weren’t big on the elections and the marketing/social media efforts, have no fear. Regular round of Links For The Week will be right up tomorrow!
Tags: alexander van elsas, citizen journalists, david meerman scott, engaged community, google alerts, inquisitr, john mccain, louis gray, marketing lessons from the us elections, obama facebook efforts, president barack obama, putting your fans first, seth godin, steven hodson, tribes
Posted in Links, Marketing | 1 Comment »
