Disqus - Latest Comments for bournesocial

Re: Where the Bloody Social Rivers Meet – A New Dam

bournesocial — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:12:50 -0000

Thanks for your feedback, Christine. What do you think is the best benefit for brands using Awareness? Would it be the ability to pinpoint which individuals are engaging with brands most and determine in which channels to ID the influencers touching your brand? Or is it making posting across multiple social sites turnkey? Or, is it measuring the engagement of consumers and reach of various messages? I don't think anyone has solved workflow AND measurement in social media. A message that Awareness may allow you to broadcast across multiple social sites may be counterintuitive when each site requires a nuanced approach. Is something lost when brands just push one button to launch a message across multiple platforms, when the work of finding influencers within a network, via friend-ing them in Flickr for instance, requires an act within the network? In other words, you are streamlining push of messages, but what about managing a YouTube in-box, a discussion in Facebook, and discussion in Flickr? All different forms of communication, none of which could be made turnkey because of the one-to-one nature of the communication?

Re: Where the Bloody Social Rivers Meet – A New Dam

bournesocial — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:34:35 -0000

Margaret, thanks for your feedback on JitterJam and how you view your company. Not over-extending my mixed metaphor of battlefields and dams, I do think that your service and others like it are like a dam in that you take the overwhelming amount of information coming from consumers directed downriver toward brands, and like a dam, you filter through that information flow, and generate power from it. Whether those consumers are riding kayaks, water skis or tugboats as their social platforms, you know how to collect them and relate to them as individuals irrespective of the way they travel to you (and the brands on the other side of the dam). Also, while I think that there is a battlefield today where both brands and individuals are meeting on a muddy pitch to interact with each other (at the intersection of the social streams), this is more like touch football than mortal combat. But, there are rules to play by no matter how serious the game. I'm very interested in your posting here about what sets you apart from Awareness as a contender for filter/workflow vendor world champion.

Re: Pandora – it’s a music provider, not a media channel

bournesocial — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:58:40 -0000

The most promising thing about Pandora and the source of its success is the model of consumer customization of content. Don't listen to what others want you to hear, listen to what you want to hear based on what you already like (and tolerate commercial interruption from time to time for that benefit). Time and again, as a Pandora user, I am inspired to try something new. Marketers who take this approach will find success: free service + customization + mobility = commerce. Anyone attempting to charge for a service that isn't customizable and doesn't provide a great mobile experience will not have the success of Pandora. It took Pandora years to find success, but their current model is working great. And I love my Roku that delivers not only Pandora but also Netflix, Facebook and a host of content that I want when I want it, for almost free.

Re: A compact camera that rivals the DSLR

bournesocial — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:06:15 -0000

Bijan, I represent Olympus, working at the Mullen agency in Boston, and I'm glad you like the Micro Four Thirds format. You should check out Rich Miner's Olympus PEN sometime and compare it with your camera.

Re: So You Still Think Social Media Doesn’t Count?

bournesocial — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:00:40 -0000

Jeremy, thanks for your comment, but I have to respectfully disagree. Twitter started as SMS and is still available in that format, Google added Buzz to your emails to socialize them, and Google and Bing are indexing Twitter results as fast as they can for the real-time web. So, social is growing and seeping into other more traditional online spaces.

Re: There’s no such thing as free social media

bournesocial — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:43:11 -0000

Thanks for your comments, Dan. There's an upfront investment and a long term investment for brands and individuals alike. While the initial costs can be low (there are no barriers to entry), they can ramp up considerably as you continue to network and grow your social footprint to at least a size 13. The more you grow, the more work you have to do to maintain your presence. Building social behavior into your daily regime is something that I am striving to do as much for myself as for brands, and it's a balancing act. Also, having something new to say doesn't hurt. With so much inspiration, it's a wonder anyone has time to communicate.

Re: Tim misses the door, but agility saves the day

bournesocial — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:09:24 -0000

At Mullen, we believe in both transparency and in being unbound, so our doors are made of glass. Moral of the story: while there's no glass ceiling, you should always be wary of glass doors.

Re: Out with the Old, In with the New

bournesocial — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:11:02 -0000

Once the sun spots destroy all of our online data, we'll all go back to paper, or like the cavemen, charcoal and cave walls. :>)

Re: Out with the Old, In with the New

bournesocial — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:16:43 -0000

There are a lot of people who feel similarly. With any new technology that resonates, it's tapping into a human behavior, and in the instance of Twitter, people want to connect with other people without barriers, and they want to know what individuals and the masses are thinking. Nothing out there now enables this better. But, certainly there are people who will be content to observe, those who will want to pass along, and those who will want to be creators of content. Whether that's Twitter or something that hasn't even been invented yet, the behavior will remain.

Re: Ning Proves That There’s Life Outside of Facebook and Twitter

bournesocial — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:32:53 -0000

What I love about NING is what I love about gated communities. In California, where I used to live, you find communities behind gates with houses all the same and homogeneous groups of like-minded people. In Facebook, you have everyone under one roof, and it's difficult to cultivate dialogue with everyone (raise your hand if you are fans of more than 10 brands, now ask yourself how frequently you write on the walls of those fan pages).

NING communities work because people want to be there, and NING understands that you want to keep your presence customizable (like in MySpace). Just as people have moved to the suburbs to escape the cities and be among those with shared interests, so will NING usher in a gated community of member's only niche social networks. Good fences make good neighbors.

Re: Dominos: A Social Reinvention?

bournesocial — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:17:43 -0000

There's something about this that strikes me as off. Pointing to your weaknesses as a form of self-deprecation is great if you're a human being, or a stand up comic, but admitting that your product sucked so you've decided to listen to your customers, just makes me wonder why they weren't listening all along. This is a tough maneuver to pull off, and it may lack the sustainability because at some point, presumably, the pizza will be better. Meanwhile, the video will make a great sizzle reel at the annual Dominos sales meeting. The only way to combat a poor product is with a better product, and instead of fighting the past, I hope Dominos focuses on the hot market for frozen pizzas as their real competition.

Re: The Benevolent Acts of Reciprocity and Recognition

bournesocial — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:38:41 -0000

What a great post on the cusp of Thanksgiving, when we gather round the table to show thanks for all of the blessings we've received. Like social media, for the most part Thanksgiving is a secular activity celebrated by people of all colors and creeds. Perhaps the true meaning of the holiday is warped by our popular culture into a day of overindulgence and the gateway to holiday shopping season. In that sense, social media is always going to be challenged by those who wish to profit by it. So, here's hoping that reciprocity will continue to reign and that social media, like the holiday, will stay true to itself. Pay it forward - pass the cranberries!

Re: Creatives: The New Necessity for Public Relations?

bournesocial — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:28:47 -0000

Let's not forget that the founder of Public Relations, Edward Bernays, started off getting Suffragettes to smoke cigarettes while marching for women's rights, therefore promoting tobacco use by women and making it mainstream. PR has always been about making news for clients, and telling stories. Because social media is all about dialogue, and about narrative, PR practitioners "get it" maybe better than creatives who think in terms of 60-second TV spots and campaigns (that inherently are one-offs and not about building relationships). Because the idea of a brand is no longer in the hands of the companies behind the brands, PR people can bridge the gap between producer and consumer. The best PR folks, like Bernays before them, made the news, and made it viral because everyone wanted to talk about it. The more things change, the more.... you get it.

Re: If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, Shut up!

bournesocial — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:16:56 -0000

Great comment. The way of handling troublemakers in a community in the past involved throwing them out of the community. Unfortunately, there's no way to make an influencer stop posting or saying controversial things just to be heard above the din. And there's no modern equivalent of kicking them out of a community.

I believe the cure is for the community to act collectively to let these troublemakers know that their behavior is unacceptable. Whether the troublemaker is a person or a corporation, they must be held accountable by the community. So, there's no current equivalent to sending the inmates to Australia. But we can shame them with our refusal to follow them, retweet them, acknowledge them, and so forth. When we can transcend the soundbite and get to real dialogue, we'll have civility.

Re: If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, Shut up!

bournesocial — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:41:10 -0000

Aaron, I think that what's happening is that people are losing their filters because the walls are coming down thanks to social media. And people of influence, be they rappers or politicians, need to know that their every comment is being parsed by the media and the public. What this whole situation proves to me is that influence, and using it to say something controversial, enables the influential to trump the dialogue of the masses, so that all they do is discuss the shocking statement or act, without dealing with the issues. What we've seen this week is an amazing ability for those with influence to shape discussions. I'm just hoping that the many are more powerful than the few to create real influence. Isn't that the dream of social(ist) media, really?

Re: The Entrepreneurial Agency

bournesocial — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:15:52 -0000

Stuart, I think that the idea of collaboration between solo artists and bands is a sound one, but while Graceland was a good album, I've always thought that Paul Simon was at his best when he focused his energies with Garfunkel, instead of with Lady Smith Mombazo. But I digress...

I think that this model has risks as well as rewards. Basically, everything that has been said in other comments: revenue sharing, team spirit vs. community, too many chiefs and not enough Indians, etc. The idea of having many people test an idea out and then have a company produce it, is also a great model for an organization. That's Quirky.com. Consultants working for themselves and for the group could be fantastic, but it could result in one-hit super bands like Blind Faith that burn brightly but briefly.

And you can call me Al.

Re: When Good Consultants Go Bad

bournesocial — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:37:24 -0000

You mention the UA issue of the broken guitars video going viral, and that's a great one, but I think perhaps the Dell example of how they've turned their company around and have become a case study in customer service via social media is probably an example of turning social lemons into lemonade.

Were you to make a lot of noise about the furniture brand online, and the company were paying attention with a tool like SM2 or Radian6, then they would have seen that and responded quickly (and maybe even started a Twitter handle for customer service a la @comcastcares). I think that you actually should have made some real noise about the problem, regardless of who reads it, because if companies don't listen (as Dell and Comcast have) they will be failing to deliver real service to their customers.

And the next time someone else has the same experience as you did with the brand, you will have been part of the problem and not part of the solution. People really only write reviews about poor customer service in the traditional places, and people read those after they've been hurt because they want to warn others, not before to check out whether they will be hurt before they buy something.

Re: The Big Media Push: Worthless?

bournesocial — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 08:18:31 -0000

When companies launch new products, "the big push" is like their labor pains giving birth to a newborn. And they are just as sensitive about anyone calling their baby ugly as any proud parent would be, so they want to make sure that everything is perfectly coordinated.

I think that for most companies with something specific to launch (CE companies for example), the strategy of pre-launching with targeted messages and then having a big D-Day moment, is best. Teasing information in advance of launch is very powerful as it can build incredible buzz. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't work. It all depends on how good the marketing is.

I met with a company called Chaordix recently, and they enable crowdsourcing for companies to perform R&D that can wind up as a product on the market. Now that's the ultimate "tease." A product that doesn't rely on a launch strategy, but relies on the people who made it. It worked for the Swiffer, so surely it can work for future products.

Re: Knowing Something First Doesn’t Make You Smarter

bournesocial — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:20:29 -0000

That's a sound method for keeping the hype out of the sharing. Sometimes it seems that we're a generation of over-sharers. You could spend all of your time Digging interesting material, retweeting and reposting content, and create nothing of value yourself. To me, being active in social media is having thought+action. Actions minus thought are animal impulses. Don't give into your inner Judas Cow.

Re: Knowing Something First Doesn’t Make You Smarter

bournesocial — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:16:07 -0000

Yeah, the whole Judas Cow thing is really disturbing. When I learned about it i didn't eat meat for a week. Don't get me started on chickens!

What's happening is that people are re-tweeting without reading, and things that are seen as firsts get attention from people who want to be seen as ahead of the curve. As a result we're winding up hyping things that need to be examined in greater detail. With real discourse. Few things should receive instant fans. I'm not against people calling attention to things that matter, but please use discretion or you will become what Bill O'Reilly calls Ditto Heads.

Re: Social is everywhere and nowhere

bournesocial — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:04:02 -0000

On the 40th anniversary of Woodstock let's not forget that marketers are always quick to adopt the language of the young and influential as their own in order to sell more stuff. First Jerry Garcia became a designer tie brand instead of a tie-dye shirt icon, and then The Beatles just became a Rock Band video game. As they say, the more things change the more they stay the same, and for social media that's even more true.

Marketers today are getting into social media that used to be the realm of musicians (MySpace) and Ivy League types (Facebook). What's lost in the process of marketers using social for profit and brand awareness is a sense of innocence and real community. Between being and nothingness is a limbo of blah. As marketers we need to ensure that we don't ruin it for future generations, and that we don't sell out.

Re: Scaling Back: Skills Versus Technology

bournesocial — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:04:45 -0000

Since Medieval times when scalding oil was poured on invaders from the parapets, we've been choosing tools to fit the task, and when it comes to choosing the right social media tools, some of us are still in the dark ages. I made this point before in my post All Social Media Gurus are liars: http://bournesocial.com/?p=49

Re: Public Relations: It's the Content, Stupid.

bournesocial — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:29:51 -0000

I think it was Burger King that first realized consumers want to "have it your way." It's always been the case, and only recently have marketers caught up to the panoply of voices waiting to be catered to as the individuals they are. Marketing aspires to the one-on-one interaction, and that's why word of mouth marketing is powerful, because as hard as companies may try to make an impression to the masses, they'll never substitute for what your friends tell you.

As creative executions move from prime time TV into social forms that require peer-to-peer "hey, did you see that!" pass along-ability, the bar is being raised higher for the marketing itself to stand alone as creative marketing. We're moving away from metaphor and into reality. Perhaps this is because of the influence of reality on our lives in everything we consume (even TV -- I love you Khloe Kardashian). Read more about being born social at http://bournesocial.com

Re: Not Happy With Your Facebook Username? You Can Now Change It

bournesocial — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:56:50 -0000

Adam, Facebook has opened up a Pandora's box and is creating a fan page identity crisis. I think I've found a cure for their multiple fan page personality disorder. See what I have to say about this here: http://tr.im/SaveFace

Re: Gaming – Are brands missing a big opportunity?

bournesocial — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:41:16 -0000

John, one other thing to consider is the nexus of gaming and social media. Increasingly these two areas are being intertwined. Consider all of the online participants in World of Warcraft, Second Life and Gaia Online (full disclosure, Gaia is a Mullen PR/Social Influence client). Just as social media is working out how to integrate advertising effectively for brands, and brands are integrating themselves into social media, gaming in social media is open to many more opportunities than the LivingSocial "five favorites" model. Consider what zynga is doing right now with Mafia Wars integrated into Facebook and going viral via friend networks. The future of gaming in social media has only just begun, and it will be fascinating to watch their convergence.