Apr 28 2009

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

April 28, 2009 – 9:00 am

Government 2.0 is a popular subject this year. Lauren Vargas of Communicators Anonymous shares her experience at Government 2.0 Camp. Lauren says, “I think it is important to stress that government does not need social media for greater transparency…what we need is re-evaluation of policy hindering transparency (who, what when, where, why – How do we collaborate and share internally? Think Enterprise 2.0) then use the tools to spread the word and further collaborate externally.” Visit Lauren’s blog to read more about her experience and to view mind-map she created for the camp.

“Why are high education consultants given more credibility than full time staff who say the same exact thing?” This was the question Karlyn Morissette asked her Twitter network. In conversation with 40 of her followers via Twitter, Karlyn deduced four points revolving around money, employee bias, consultants’ views and whether the questions was posed incorrectly. Go to KarlynMorissete.com to read the full discussion and add your two cents.

Do you have trouble deciding who to be friends with on Facebook or any other social network? New Media Mavens Blog’s Alison Woo provides reasons and tips on who to befriend online. She discusses how online networks give you the ability to network and for business people, even generate possible leads. For those that are weary about personal and professional clashing, Alison reminds us to use private settings. What’s your criterion for befriending or accepting friends/followers on social networks?

Nick Gonzalez lists social media myths that “irk” him. The five misconceptions he discusses include: “social media isn’t media, social media is one product, social media buys need to be done apart from traditional digital buys, social media is an uncontrolled conversation and social media doesn’t have an ROI.” Share the misconceptions you hear about social media on socialmedia.com.

Alan Weinkrantz of Alan Weinkrantz PR Weblog shares his presentation “PR Really Matters – And Works with Social Media.” Alan presented this at the InteractiveAustin 2009. View the 22 slide presentation to see why Alan believes PR and Social Media work together.

Lee Odden provides “25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips” from some of the top social media marketers including Charlene Li, Ford’s Scott Monty and Dell’s Senior Manager Richard Binhammer. These contributors share “distinct competitive advantages for both individual and businesses from a better understanding of the social web.”Read more about what these marketers say about their social media experience and some of their tips at Online Marketing Blog.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Marinel Mones | Posted in Blogs of Fire | Comments (4)
Apr 21 2009

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

April 21, 2009 – 9:15 am

Digital Labz discusses the importance of successful marketing using a “quality link building campaign. The blog shares a list of 70 social media sites “that allow do follow links; which should have the potential to contribute to the search rank of the page being linked.” Check the list out and offer your suggestions.

Bob Gilbreath provides a step-by-step model on how to strategically use social media rather than jump on the bandwagon. He hopes that people will see how “a strong business objective and insight can help understand the opportunities for social media.” Visit Marketing with Meaning to read his four step model.

Buzzoodle Blog’s Ron McDaniel asks, “Are you a sales gardener or a sales hunter?” Ron uses a sales gardener as an example for a marketer stating, “A successful sales gardener is someone that uses Inbound Lead Generation effectively to more easily close leads that come to them…A sales hunter will go out and produce generate leads quickly.” So which one are you? Figure it out by visiting Buzzoolde’s Blog.

Do you know what social marketing is? Alex Rampy differentiates between social marketing and social marketing in terms of Web 2.0. She states three themes she “finds consistent between the two applications: freedom vs. control, mission vs. mantra, and voice vs. message.” Do you agree with Alex? “How can social media marketing and social marketing learn from each other?” Share your thoughts and join the discussion on SocialButterfly.

Shailesh Ghimire shares a tip that he believes every business should know about setting up a business presence on Facebook: the difference between a page and profile. Through the latest design, “Faceboook has made a clear distinction between profiles and pages”: profiles = individuals and pages = businesses. Continue reading the other changes Facebook made in order to accommodate businesses on Social Media Wiz.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Marinel Mones | Posted in Blogs of Fire | Comments (4)
Apr 14 2009

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

April 14, 2009 – 10:02 am

Toby Bloomberg of Social Media Marketing GPS is writing the first business book using Twitter as the platform and distribution channel. The book is about social media marketing and each chapter includes interviews with people who are active in the topic. Join the conversation and provide insights for Toby’s book using #smgps.

Mayra Ruiz shares a recent survey conducted by the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) discussing the role of social networks to help innovation amongst companies. According to the survey, “54% of global executives from 19 different industries agree that marketing on social networks will be a key ingredient in an organization’s ability to survive and thrive on turbulent times.” Check out the rest of survey results on MayraRuiz.com.

Need help finding a job? Find a job through social media. Sandra Fathi of tech affect shares six ways to help you stand out in a “sea of experienced [and] qualified applications.” Some of her tips include making yourself “findable,” joining social networks and actively listening for job openings through Google Alerts and RSS Feeds. What are some of your tips?

Brian Solis of PR 2.0 shares results from Forrester’s latest research survey “that links business buyers and their process of researching solutions to Social Media.” Out of 1,200 technology buyers from U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the U.K, social media isn’t only limited to consumers or B2C. One interesting results showed out of the respondents only 5% are nonparticipants of Social Media. Read more at PR 2.0.

When should you or should you not use social media? Chris Crum shares “a bunch of resources to help you determine” when to use social media. Chris even shares an article from Liana Evans discussing a study Gartner stating that by next year, “60% of Fortune 1000 companies will be involved with some form of online community that’s used for customer relationships” and only half will succeed. Read more about how to measure social media’s effectiveness from Chris as well as Liana’s tips at WebProNews.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Marinel Mones | Posted in Blogs of Fire | Comments (4)
Apr 9 2009

Livingston Is Gone

April 9, 2009 – 12:01 am

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We are announcing the acquisition of Livingston Communications this morning by CRT/tanaka (original tight race image by Jani Kajala).  The deal closed on Tuesday, March 31. As part of the acquisition, we will cease to trade as Livingston Communications, and become the Washington, DC office for CRT/tanaka.

Personally, I am thrilled by this move. As I mentioned in a prior post, social media adoption is in full swing now. The time is coming when this media form will  no longer be special and become fully integrated into the larger communications mix.  I’d rather not wait three years for it to happen. You can see CRT/tanaka CEO Mark Raper’s views in his blog post.

CRT/tanaka is an outstanding firm with a strong reputation in the PR and advertising space. And we have developed a reputation for strong, results-oriented social media programs.  The acquisition brings us back into the larger communications fold, and together we intend to make CRT/tanaka one of the early firms to integrate social media across the front line.

To start our efforts together on the right foot and continue the social media ethos we’ve established, we published a white paper on the Cultural Challenge to Integration. It is based on a recent series of Buzz Bin posts. Enterprises seeking to adapt social media can use this white paper to help address one of the primary barriers to success.

Here is some third party analysis from Beth Harte and Kami Huyse.

Five Lessons Learned

This marks the end of a three-year entrepreneurial endeavor for me, from the basement to award-winning author, through boom and recession to a successful conclusion.  There are some things I’ve learned along the way, which I’d like to share:

1) Your personal life means more: Being an entrepreneur requires 60-100 hours of your week.   And you and your family suffer for it.

3374841087_14b819c538 An executive’s life isn’t much easier, but there’s less responsibility and weight on your shoulders.  I value a renewed relationship with my wife much more than being “the man,” and as a result look forward to being more present for her.  I wish I knew this three years ago, but the resulting lessons have created a better husband.  To my wife, Caitlin (pictured above), I love you.

2) Personal branding and companies don’t mix well: One of the biggest challenges I’ve had was the short-sighted mistake of putting my name on the door.  The resulting scaling problems were always a point of contention, and we actually seriously considered rebranding as Verv Communications last spring. We didn’t because of the timely equity behind “Geoff Livingston” and Now Is Gone.

This experience is still one of the primary reasons why I fight personal branding tooth and nail. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to work under a banner without my name on it.  It will be good to become a worker amongst workers in name now as well as spirit. And if I ever start a company again it won’t be named Livingston. Team social media, heck, just team period. That’s the way of companies.

3) Being an employer will make me a better employee: Oh, now I get where my bosses came from. And I think I owe a few of them amends. :) Amazing how it feels to have the shoe on the other foot. Thanks to my prior employers for the experience and the lessons learned.  Even if it took me starting this company to learn them.

4) It’s not all that. I’m not Chris Brogan, but I’m not John Doe either. Yet, you can tell by my irreverence towards nano-fame that it doesn’t mean much to me. In fact, it can be much more of a nuisance than a benefit with issues like privacy, heckling, etc.   For me, what does mean something is benefiting society though strong actions, helping a client, showing someone a way to help grow themselves, and generally, just being kind and giving.

Nano-fame should be a non-conditional by-product of doing the right thing as opposed to the ultimate goal.  Winning means accomplishing something.  What do you want to do? Be known or do something that impacts your world?

5) Don’t announce a deal until it is closed. I still have the utmost respect for Maggie Fox and crew at Social Media Group.  But I think it’s safe to say that both Maggie and I wish we had gone through the paces quietly and found out our cultures did not mix on the side rather than the civil, yet public break-up we experienced.

At the same time, there’s a second lesson from the failed acquisition with SMG.  You can fail, get up and try again. In fact, you can succeed where you have failed in the past.

Thank You

Over the Spring we will be rolling over our branding to CRT/tanaka. And thus this chapter is now gone.  Thank you to everyone for their support over the past few years.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Blogs of Fire, Livingston Communications | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (89)
Apr 7 2009

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

April 7, 2009 – 9:32 am

Amanda Denson of PepperDigital shares a new study from the University of Melbourne that correlates social network updates with workplace productivity. According to the study, workers that use ‘Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing’ are “9% more productive than those who don’t.” The head of the study, Dr. Brent Coker, believes not only does social networking increase communication among employees, it also helps an organization recruit potential employees.” He encourages companies who block social networks to “rethink” their social media policy. What type of guidelines does your company have for social media use in the office?

Do you need a refresh on crowdsourcing? Dana Schwartz provides a quick primer and a list of companies that used crowdsourcing to accomplish large tasks. A few of the examples include RYZ, a crowdsourcing footwear company, and NetFlix’s efforts to improve their DVD rating system. Feel free to add another example to the mix at SmartBlog On Social Media.

Great news for nonprofits! Kivi Leroux Miller posts that “Guidestar is now working with GreatNonprofits to share user comments about charities with each other.” Average donors can now learn more about other nonprofit organizations and charities before making decisions on who to donate to. The comments also help current donors engage with nonprofits – especially with feedback. For more information, visit Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com.

Judith of At Your Service…, asks, “Are you viral?” She provides stats from an article she found “discussing top viral marketing tactics used by B2C marketers.” ‘Encouraging E-mail Forwarding’ and ‘Tell-A-Friend Boxes on Sites were the top two with 91% and 80%’, respectively. For more stats on the survey, please visit At Your Service….

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is hosting a free webinar this Thursday, April 9th at noon EST. According to Word-of-Mouth Communications Study, Walter Carl will discuss how to measure the value of consumer conversations. Everyone is invited (you don’t have to be a member of WOMMA) to learn “specific tips and techniques to assess the value of WOM to your brand.”

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Marinel Mones | Posted in Blogs of Fire | Comments (0)
Mar 31 2009

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

March 31, 2009 – 9:30 am

Who wants to be a social media expert? Kipp Bodnar of Digital Capitalism believes nobody should want to be a social media expert. He argues that “all media is quickly becoming social, meaning the idea of a social media expert is far to general.” Instead, Kipp encourages people to “fill a niche within the broader social media industry.” Check out his video about the subject and provide your insights as well.

Rick Klau, a Blogger team member at Google, shares some lessons Blogger learned as a brand on Twitter. In his personal blog, tins, Rick highlights eight lessons including consistency, asking questions, and enduring negative feedback. Read the rest of the lessons and provide insights on what you’ve learned using Twitter.

Do you need directions on how to search the social web? Well, the Robin Broitman of the Interactive Insights Group offers a list of social search tools that enable searches across multiple social media outlets, blogs, micro-blogs and social bookmarking. The post also includes tools for searching conversations, brand monitoring as well as other “how to” posts for finding information. This is definitely one to bookmark and share!

Rebecca Thorman says, “Stop writing about social media.”In her blog Modite, Rebecca encourages bloggers to start using tools instead of discussing what tools are. She also distinguishes innovators from observers and dares people to interrupt conversations rather than join conversations. Read Rebecca’s post for her four steps to escaping the social media wagon.

Nick Gonzales reports that Birmingham City University is now offering a one year masters degree in social media! The course will teach students how to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Blogs and podcasts will also be a focus for the course. Go to Social Media News to see the Jon Hickman’s video (the course convener) to learn more about the class.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Marinel Mones | Posted in Blogs of Fire | Tagged , , | Comments (5)
Mar 24 2009

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

March 24, 2009 – 9:30 am

Do you need a separation from your work and personal social media personalities? Louis Gray advises to use multiple browsers, to create a second login for TweetDeck and Disqus, as well as “always work methodically when acting on behalf of the company.” To read more about these tips or to share your own, visit Louisgray.com.

The PR Friendly Index for March 2009, created by Brendan Cooper, is now available. The Index uses a compilation of social media resources to determine the top 100 PR blogs. Brendan says, “…what I’m trying to achieve here is an ongoing, developing investigation into how to measure blogs, what can be measured, and to engage in debate about the benefits and drawbacks to each method.” To check out the blogs, visit Brendan Cooper, Your friendly PR Social Media Planner.

You created your blog and now all that’s left are the improvements. It’s time to sign up for the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge, created by Darren Rowse. Starting on April 1, participants will receive tips and practical tasks to help improve their blog. Look for more details in the days to come on his ProBlogger!

A new report by The Conference Board, Managing Reputation Risk and Reward, “reveals that intensive social media monitoring and engagement are still early-adopter activities.” Nathan Gilliatt shares from the report that “one third of the companies have extensive social media monitoring programs in place, and 75% report little or no active participation in social media.” He wrote on his blog, The Net-Savvy Executive, that this new report tells him the basics of social media will continue to be taught for a long time.

David Mullen encourages you to participate in this “Unknown” blog discovery meme. The purpose of the meme is to help create blog love by highlighting undiscovered blogs and providing reasons people should subscribe to them. David says, “I’m a big fan of finding people who are producing great content but still flying under the radar.” Visit his blog David Mullen – Communications Catalyst for more information or to suggest blogs!

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Marinel Mones | Posted in Blogging, Blogs of Fire, social media | Tagged | Comments (7)
Mar 17 2009

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

March 17, 2009 – 10:33 am

Considering Coke’s social media presence, Lisa Barone reminds readers of the significant influence that brand ambassadors have. Lisa says, “…there is hope for big brands looking to succeed in social media. You don’t have to spam the damn thing to death, after all!” Visit Outspoken Media for more details on Coke’s social media successes in leveraging brand evangelists.

The Spotlight Ideas blog posted a list of 100 top social media blog posts. The list spans a cross section of the social media blogs and covers blogging, strategy, social networking, tools, and more. Eamon’s post highlights top content since early 2008.

Many companies want the benefits of social media, but don’t feel they have the time to devote to it. Robin Broitman’s post on Interactive Insights Group will help. Robin has “put together a comprehensive list of articles with great advice, tips and tools to help you be more productive and efficient when using social media.”

Ted Cuzzillo of TDWI says, “Social media has opened a new kind of conversation full of expression and relevance that’s changing CRM.” The conversation is changing, and listening to customers is growing increasingly easier and becoming more important. However, “The hard part is that they have to marry the data gathered from these new sources with data gathered in more traditional ways.”

“Having 5,000 Twitter followers and 200 that actually converse with you is not nearly as impressive as having 500 Twitter followers and almost all 500 that converse with you,” says Eric Pratum. Eric suggests that there are no measurement tools that show the true value of a social media influencer’s importance, and he wonders if we’re overlooking “powerful people in social media” because of their status. Visit EricPratum for his complete thoughts.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Nelson | Posted in Blogs of Fire | Comments (0)
Mar 10 2009

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

March 10, 2009 – 9:52 am

Who is the ‘typical’ Web 2.0 user? Lincoln Spector provides PCWorld readers a look into Netpop Research’s Media Shift to Social 2009 study. According to Lincoln, the study found Web 2.0 users “tend to be youngish, outside the middle class, and equally likely to be men or women. Unsurprisingly, they also tend to live much of their life on the Internet, and use more than one device to get there.” Interestingly, those making $50,000-$70,000 contribute the least amount of content to the social web. Visit Lincoln’s post for full details and the link to the study.

“It’s one of the biggest writing lessons I’ve learned in the past few years — the art of less — and the appearance of Twitter has only reinforced this lesson’s importance,” says Michael Lopp. He offers several keys about tweeting with brevity and style. Visit Michael’s randsinrepose blog for insights into saying more with less while creating original tweets, conversational tweets, and retweeting.

Jon Howard has an interesting post on what he terms “AES Disorder.” Adding to Susan Greenfield’s ideas, Jon examines the neurological dangers caused by social media sites. In particular, its possible negative impact on attention, empathy and sociability, especially to young people. Is social media harmful? Visit Living Brands blog and consider Jon’s questions.

Shel Holtz analyzes the recent Skittles social media campaign. Skittles has received a lot of social media coverage from its campaign, but will it pay off long-term? Shel considers “What would bring people visit the Skittles site?” And “What story do we want to tell people who come to the site?” Visit A Shel of My Former Self to see his complete thoughts, and let the community know what you think.

The transition from traditional communication channels to social media does not mean forgetting about “big media hits.” On the contrary, The Agency Blog’s Giovanni Gallucci says, “Anyone who’s in public relations and marketing online and solely focuses on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube as being the end game, should be fired.” In the first of a series of posts, Giovanni provides suggestions on how to leverage social media for traditional PR placements. Future posts will include case studies, suggestions on SEO, coordinating online and offline efforts, and more.

Will social media revolutionize government? Doug Beizer of FederalComputerWeek provides readers with “a sampling of how Web 2.0 has changed the way some government managers handle business.” By comparing pre and post government 2.0, Doug demonstrates the clear advantages and efficiencies of using technology strategically in the public sector.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Nelson | Posted in Blogs of Fire | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)
Mar 9 2009

Geoff Livingston Addresses National Park Service Communicators

March 9, 2009 – 12:13 am

I had the great privilege of addressing the National Park Service public affairs conference last Thursday on social media adoption. Discussion includes Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, focusing on the Service’s mission, and pitfalls like Shiny Object Syndrome. Case studies included:

  • Congressional Tweeting
  • TSA Blog
  • The Library of Congress on Flickr
    The Nature Conservancy Flickr Effort

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    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Blogs of Fire, Geoff, Livingston Communications, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (2)