The Buzz Bin

“Did Skittles Skidaddle the Social Media World?” asks Rob Longert. Skittles, by using its homepages to track real time Skittles conversations happening on Twitter, has become a hot topic on the popular microblogging site. Rob goes further, pointing out the multiple components of Skittles’ social media campaign, and considering the “stunt” from a PR perspective. Visit, PepperDigital for more details about this innovative case study, and let the community know what you think about the campaign.

Danny Brown has an interesting idea to better utilize the intelligence and experience of the traditional communications professional as communications begins to shift to new media. Danny says, “Younger people know social media but don’t have business experience. Older people have that business experience but don’t necessarily have the social media knowledge.” He believes that partnerships between the two generations would greatly benefit both groups. What do you think?

Eric Enge of Search Engine Land has a thoughtful post on how social media can benefit SEO beyond simply increasing inbound links. According to Eric, social media will have an even increasing influence on search engine ranking signals, in no small part because it is self policing. Eric says, “Companies that understand how to use social media services as part of a broader PR strategy will get an early first mover advantage over their competition.”

ClickZ’s Shane Atchison says the old quantitative measurement rules of broadcast media no longer apply. Shane says that the short term, transactional analytics are becoming less important with new media because they don’t fully measure its greatest value: generating new ideas and business intelligence.

Michael Gass also has an opinion on social media analytics; he says, “One of the reasons social media is growing in popularity is that it is more measurable than traditional media.” On Fuel Lines, Michael provides his readers with tips on how to meet their objectives including best practices on measuring blog analytics, how to compare blogs to each other, and using Twitter and other social media tools.  

What do you believe to be “the greatest challenge facing online media today”? On David Henderson’s blog, he believes that the root problem is the social web’s lack of credibility. When people post self-serving propaganda it corrupts social media, causing people to question its authenticity and transparency, hurting its credibility. Do you agree? What can be done about it?

Want a recap of the internet marketing and social media news from 2008? Tamar Weinberg put together an impressive list of select posts from 2008 on Techipedia. The list covers a number of topics including SEO, Facebook, strategy, Flickr and more. Tamar worked over a month compiling this list, and the end result is a gift to the community that should not be missed.

Duncan Riley says, “Hyperlocal websites, both existing and those to launch will thrive as they become the only place to find community news; in 2009 community newspapers will fold in record numbers.” Duncan argues that this is because advertisers are now using eBay, Amazon.com to sell their products rather than advertising on community newspapers. Also, larger newspapers are also struggling and therefore are cutting their rates – making it more affordable for local advertisers to reach a larger market. Visit Duncan’s fascinating post on The Inquisitr, and see how blogs and hyperlocal online media is not only filling in the gaps, but actually improving on traditional community news.

How is your personal digital footprint? Mitch Joel of Six Pixels of Separation warns PR professionals to watch what they say online, and to remember Google’s long tail when messaging. He says to ask yourself, “Would you feel if – in the future – your children looked back on these conversations to see what their parent was really all about?” Mitch also suggests finishing your conversations, warning against posting a negative comment and not following up with solutions.

January is a new year and a new opportunity to market your brand. Rohit Bhargava provides the readers of his Influential Marketing blog with three ways to break stride from 2008 and help unleash their brands in 2009. Rohit suggests developing new clients by being aggressive and giving them a “reason to break their old (and therefore outdated) tradition and consider switching to you [from your competitors].” He also suggests breaking up your goals into smaller, more manageable goals. Finally, Rohit smartly encourages readers to create value for the community by using the power of social media tools to educate, not simply advertise.

With the President-Elect Obama’s Inauguration fast approaching, Katya Andresen reminds us of how Obama was able to captivate America. Katya says Obama was able to use two main factors, audience appeal and infrastructure. Other organizations such as Change.org and The Case Foundation are following the Obama Campaign’s example. Visit Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog for more information about these campaigns and also see her 2008 “horrific superlist of social media blunders…”