Read and Send Tweets From Your Email Account with Kabutr

Kabutr is a neat little service that lets you read your Twitter timeline and send tweets right from your email. You can then “use the capabilities powered by your email client to tag, star, filter, remember, search, and forward tweets.” Finding the right Twitter client or having to navigate to the site constantly can be a pain. Kabutr makes Twitter enjoyable with its ease of use and convenience.

To get started you’ll need to login with your Twitter account via OAuth, and then enter your email address. Once you click the validation link in the email they send you (right away), you’ll be all set to get started.

In a little while you’ll start receiving tweets in your email. It is suggested that you create an email filter to organize your tweets and inbox. You can create a filter for emails coming from the address “tweets@kabutr.com“. You will get an email with this plus other useful tips on using the service.

You will also receive your own custom email address that will be used for sending and replying to tweets. If you want to reply to a tweet, simply reply to the email message (the subject will be ignored). You can even attach images and files to the email and they will be automatically hosted and shared via a short URL.

If you want to stop receiving tweets, you can pause the service via the Kabutr website.

You can use the features of your email service to help optimize Kabutr. For instance, you can search for tweets by username or keyword using the email search function. You can use tags/labels to further organize and filter your tweets. For instance, you can put tweets from a certain user in its own separate folder, or you can put your replies in another folder.

There are a quite a few features that will be coming soon also.

You’ll be able to:

• Select users to exclude from your emails.
• Automatically shorten or split messages that exceed the 140 character limit.
• Shorten URLs.
• and more

So now that you see how Kabutr makes tweeting easy as 1, 2, 3, go ahead and give it a try!

(image source)

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Afterlife Well Spent: Zombies Take Over Sears.com

You may think of Sears as a stuffy, old fashioned brand, but they’re working hard to change your opinion with a brand new social shopping site and zombies!

Sears has outdone themselves with a Halloween site makeover that doesn’t miss a trick and is loaded with treats. They’ve taken the basic website and replaced the ads with zombie versions such as dead hands showing off rings and a fridge complete with brains on ice. Clicking through the links will take you to a real page where you can buy real items and how can you not buy with an enticement like this?

The center of the page features a Zombie Gift Guide where you’re asked to choose the zombie type (slow, cranky, dirty) and brain preference (runny, chilled, boiled). These lead to more zombie graphics with gift suggestions that are legit.

In keeping with their new social media push, Sears has a Twitter application on their front Zombie page, zombie videos and an in-game site where you can build your own Zombie friend! If you’re fluent in the language, you can also choose to view the page in Zombian (Nah, brahbra! Bargz bra!nz haarh) but English is also available if you’re not up to the challenge.

Visit the Sears Zombie right here and be inspired. They maybe mindless zombies, but this marketing ploy is bloody brilliant.

Take Control of Your Inbox and Get Organized with Taskforce

As I’ve mentioned before, my Gmail account is horrific. It seems like something so simple as keeping it organized has become a huge chore. In an attempt to redeem myself, I signed up to receive an invite to Taskforce. So far, I have been using the service for about a week and it has really come in handy. So now I’m sure you’re wondering, what is Taskforce?

Well it’s a little drag-able widget that

“integrates into your existing workflow; allowing you to assign tasks collaboratively, and eliminate email overflow. You can write comments, attach files and prioritize tasks.”

Taskforce is installed via a browser extension (Chrome, Firefox or Safari) and can be used with Google Mail or Google Apps for your domain. It splits your emails into three logical components: Action, Information and Broadcast. Any email message can be converted into a task and you can even set  a 2-day reminder for it.

A nice feature that Taskforce adds is the ability to collaborate with friends and coworkers. This is because tasks can be shared and you can also add comments to them. This is great for eliminating even more email because you shouldn’t need to do CC’s or BCC’s as often — and no more replying back and forth via email, just use Taskforce comments for that.

Action (New)

I’m still not 100% sure of how this area works. Tasks just seemed to appear here magically. I did notice that you can add items in this section to your current tasks just by clicking on it. You can also invite users and add comments to these items.

Information (Current)

Here you can see current tasks. This is just a speculation but I think that all new tasks are added here, and if you set a reminder for the task, it then gets moved to “new” in 2 days so that you know it’s important. Items here can be rearranged by just dragging and dropping. Checking off an item will remove it from the list. Clicking on a task will let you see more info, invite other users, add comments, open the related email, edit and archive the task.

Broadcast (Activity)

The activity feed adds your own personal social timeline to your inbox. All broadcast emails (notifications, updates, messages) from sites like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn and more will be placed here and archived in your inbox. Emails in which you’re CC’d can also be placed here if you choose. This helps to clear up your inbox of all those (sometimes annoying) social networking notifications.

You will have to set this up by creating a Gmail filter and then forwarding your messages to an email specified by Taskforce. They will give you step-by-step directions for this once you get your invite.

Taskforce also has mobile access. You can use their mobile site to view, add and manage your tasks as well as add comments. Plus you’ll also be able to view your activity feed.

I find Taskforce a lot easier to use than other tools out there for organizing your inbox. I like how it removes all the annoying social networking notifications and turns them into a mini-timeline right in your inbox.

I don’t like how the items are handled once clicked though. When you click on an item in the activity stream, it takes you to the email message and then you have to click to open it. I kind of wish that it could open it up within the widget. Besides that, I’m finding Taskforce very useful and definitely think it’s a keeper.

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Coke Shuffles Marketing Org to Reflect Changing Landscape

How does a company become one of the most recognized and respected brands on the planet? In the case of Coke (get it, case of Coke?) it’s comes from the benefit of a lot of years of being at it (over 100) making changes along the way (sometimes failing miserably like the New Coke debacle) and adjusting to the shifts in how people receive, digest and disseminate marketing messages.

It appears as if they are well on their way to keeping their position if the recent moves in their organization are any indication. AdAge reports

Coca-Cola announced internally today that it is making changes to the leadership team of its global integrated marketing communications and capabilities organization. That group, led by Wendy Clark, falls under Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer.

“It’s recognition of a shift in the landscape,” said Ms. Clark, senior-VP integrated marketing communications and capabilities. “Increasingly, we understand the idea of a liquid and linked landscape. And perhaps we weren’t structured for ultimate success within that landscape.”

Seeing large, iconic brands recognize that in order to remain at the top and compete in the future that they need to have their organizations reflect the new marketing reality is pretty big. It was last year in fact that a representative of Coke said that Coke.com was no longer their home page but Google and social media in general was where people reach Coke and truly was their front facing web presence. In a day and age where it’s pretty easy to poke fun at big companies and their lack of social media savvy this move is pretty refreshing (like an ice cold Coke on a hot day, right?).

The article went on to explain more of the theory that went behind this shift in the marketing organization and why a key hire was made.

Ivan Pollard, formerly global partner at Naked Communications in London, will be relocating to Atlanta to take on the role of VP-global connections. He had been working with Coca-Cola in his role at the agency, most recently leading the integrated agency efforts for the brand’s World Cup efforts. His new role will include leading the company’s efforts to engage consumers through paid, owned, shared and earned media.

First of all, look at his title, VP-global connections. A non-traditional title because traditional marketing, while still important, is not the beginning and end all for brands. His role? To engage consumers. Enough said. With a brand that is purely a consumer product play engagement will be critical because that’s what individuals are learning to expect from the brands they support.

And if you were not convinced already that Coke is setting the stage for the new look marketing organizations of the future see what Wendy Clark had to say about what they had been seeing that prompted this change.

Ms. Clark said that, previously, the organization had been more siloed and, in some ways, put more emphasis on paid media. It was a revelation to discover that of the 150 million views the brand has amassed on YouTube, only 25 million to 30 million of those views could be attributed to content Coca-Cola had put into the marketplace.

Wait, did I read that correctly? Someone at a big company had the smarts and humility to realize that the success of the brand wasn’t all about their efforts? Instead they are listening to the marketplace and responding in a way to best capitalize on the market conditions that are evolving now and will only become more important moving forward.

Look, maybe you guessed it already but I am a Coca-Cola bigot. It’s the only soft drink I will ever consider and I look for other types of drinks to have the Coca-Cola origin to decide if I will try them or not.

Having said that I like the brand even more now that I see that as a company they are staying flexible and responding to the shifts and changes in the world of consumer marketing in a way that will give others pause to think “Is this the real thing and should we being doing it too?”

So have a great weekend and enjoy a Coke and a smile!

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Local Franchises Lag in the Social Media Market

Over the years, my husband has spent thousands of dollars on tools from Snap-on, but his connection to the company was always through a local franchise owner and not with the corporate office. But if you look for Snap-on on Facebook, you’ll find only a few dealers have pages. Of those, most are out of date and one is friends locked. That’s no way to do business.

According to comScore’s Local Search Usage Study, (as reported by Clickz) “69% of consumers are more likely to use a local business if it has information on a social networking site.” 22% contacted a business after finding them on a social network and 67% of those consumers went on to make a purchase.

So why are local businesses lagging when it comes to social media? Much of the problem comes from the brand name itself. Twitter, Facebook and all the rest only allow one account per name. That means that if there’s already a Snap-On fan page from the corporate office, the local dealer has to name his fan page something else. There are a variety of obvious combinations but after the top ten, it gets sticky, especially on Twitter where you’re limited to a short character count.

To solve this problem, Facebook would have to allow for child pages. Franchise owners would each own a page listed under the main corporate page. Then, when the consumer searches for their local dealer, all they have to do is start at the brand name and then chose their town from a list.

The second problem with local affiliate social media accounts is one of branding. Most franchised entities work very hard at keeping a certain standard at all their locations. Signage, colors, logos are all handed down from the corporate office but controlling what a franchise owner says on a Twitter account is near impossible.  For this reason, I wonder if corporations encourage or discourage social media use among their dealers and franchise owners.

Search Avon on Facebook and you get interesting results. Their main brand page shows up near the bottom of the search results. The top results go to a Spanish site, a local owner and several accounts that have been abandoned. There’s no way to tell though, until you click through. After three clicks, I would have given up the search.

Brand names need to help their local dealers get on the ball with social media. They should set up a standard for account naming that includes the nearest big city to help direct customers and content from the main brand site should be shared with all of the local accounts. Accounts that aren’t active should be removed because the lack of upkeep reflects poorly on the parent company.

Statistics say that social media can be a worthwhile means of generating leads, increasing sales and creating a two-way dialogue with customers. Still, not all franchise companies are ready to hand over the username and passcode to their partners. In February of this year, Franchise.org talked with a franchise compliance director who had a dim view of social media.

“All of our research indicates that, so far, the actual return on investment for companies that do social media networking has been very low to zero. Moreover, we have learned that especially in service-based systems, when you allow franchisees to use “easier” ways to market, the more traditional, and more effective, face-to-face marketing suffers.”

The fact that he refers to social media marketing as “easier” tells me he hasn’t been doing it right, and that, I suspect, is why his ROI has been so low.

Do you have experience with franchising and social media? We’d like to hear about it.

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Friday Fact: Wealthy On Facebook But Don’t Actually Use Facebook

I call this the Friday Fact section (which I reserve the right to not do every single Friday) because it sounds good but the reality is there are no real facts about the social media space. There is information and there is research but none of it should be held as the absolute truth.

Having said that today’s fact is about the wealthy and Facebook. The Wall Street Journal reports on a poll conducted by the SEI Wealth Network that found the following.

The poll from SEI Wealth Network, a wealth-advisory firm, showed that 70% of respondents with $5 million or more in investible assets are users of Facebook and other social media sites. That is more than the 61% of the broader population who use such sites.

SEI touted the results as proof that the rich are social-media animals. “Wealthy individuals are engaged with social media even more than the rest of the American public,” said David McLaughlin, Senior Managing Director for the SEI Wealth Network.

That would be true–if the wealthy spent time on the sites. But the poll also showed that only 17% of the multimillionaires use the sites on a daily basis. That is far less than the broader population, in which 38% use such sites at least once a day.

Pretty funny how even the Wall Street Journal is taking to calling out what headline research findings (the results touted in press release headlines) are actually saying (much like this post from yesterday).

Honestly, this does not come as much of a surprise to me. Most people don’t become multi-millionaires by twittering their life away. They also aren’t looking for networking opportunities through new social network connections. Why? At some point a stranger is a stranger is a stranger and when you are wealthy you have to be careful that you are not becoming a target. Sounds harsh but that’s the way the world rolls these days.

As is always good practice, if you want to see how this subject gets people going just read the comments connected to the article at the WSJ. Everyone has a theory as to whether or not this data is flawed and the theory the rich have plenty of time to play golf but not be on social networks etc, etc.

So what does this say in the end? Not much. If you are a financial advisor looking to find leads through social media, though, you may be fishing in an unstocked pond.

What’s your take on this week’s Friday Fact*?

*Research is not fact although we desperately want it to be. It’s just information.

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A Triple Grande Latte with a Side of iTunes: Starbucks Launches Their Digital Network

The last time I was in a Starbucks, I was surprised to see a large number of patrons hunched over laptops and iphones as they silently sipped their trendy drinks, completely ignoring the actual human sitting across from them. I imagine it’s this need to be virtually connected at all hours of the day and night that has led Starbucks to launch their own digital network.

Working in partnership with Yahoo! the Starbucks Digital Network offers in-store Wi-Fi users a taste of new music, local news and events and the low down on the latest lifestyle must haves.

In a company press release, Stephen Gillett, Starbucks executive vice president, chief information officer and Digital Ventures general manager (and geez, by the time you finish calling him, he’s late for dinner) had this to say:

“Our customers are the inspiration for the Starbucks Digital Network. They’ve told us they want to be the first to know what’s happening in their neighborhoods and around the globe, to have an easy way to discover new music, great books and important films and find ways to be more involved in their communities.

These points combined with our passion for creating a unique customer experience, our heritage of recommending culturally-relevant works and focus on giving back to the community, led us to create this new, one-of-a-kind, localized content experience with Yahoo!.”

The first network of its kind, the Starbucks Digital Network presents hand-picked content in six channels: News, Entertainment, Wellness, Business & Careers, My Neighborhood and Starbucks. For the first week out, Starbucks is offering a couple of freebies that fit in with their bohemian style. Music lovers will get two free songs from the band “Fistful of Mercy.”  Book lovers will get an excerpt from Anita Shreve’s new novel “Rescue.” Movie lovers will get a special clip from “Waiting for Superman” and when they buy a ticket, they’ll get $15 credit at Donorschoose.org which supports classroom projects all over the US. For more added value, the network offers free access to a variety of subscription-based services such as the New York Times, WSJ.com and USA Today eEdition.

Starbucks calls the content on the network “snackable,” saying there is something for the person who spends ten minutes waiting for their order but also for the person who wants to spend an hour winding down with a coffee and the news.

Here are some of the channel highlights:

Entertainment:

iTunes features music and videos as well as the digital version of the successful Starbucks/ iTunes Pick of the Week card program.

Bookish Reading Club offers free access to great books each week from numerous publishers including Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Group (USA) and Simon & Schuster.

New Word City offers stories and groundbreaking ideas from some of the world’s most inspiring and instructive authors including Captain Mike Abrashoff, Jim Champy, Juan Enriquez, Jeffrey Gitomer, Seth Godin, John Kao, Don Tapscott and Alan Webber.

SnagFilms opens launch with a series of music documentaries including “Buena Vista Social Club,” “Girls Rock,” “Heavy Metal in Baghdad,” “Kurt and Courtney,” “Dig” and powerful films on Biggie & Tupac, the Flaming Lips, Jimi Hendrix and others. Moving forward, SnagFilms and Starbucks will co-curate monthly themed film festivals for the network.

For those with kids in tow, Nick Jr. Boost offers free access to its complete, personalized educational program for early learners and their parents.

Wellness

Rodale offers specialized digital content including articles, recipes and videos from Rodale.com, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, Bicycling, Prevention, Organic Gardening and Eat This, Not That! as well as a custom “Map Your Ride, Map by Run” app that helps customers find new routes in their local community for fitness or fun.

Business & Careers

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with more than 80 million members across the globe, heads up the Business & Careers channel and offers early access to a career-focused blog, an exclusive video on job seeking tips hosted by Lindsey Pollak.

Yahoo! Finance will feature Laura Rowley’s Money & Happiness blog and How-to Guides bringing financial advice and tips to the network.

My Neighborhood

Foursquare, Patch and Zagat will all provide localized data.

Says  Adam Brotman, Starbucks Digital Ventures vice president:

“What you see today, is only the beginning. Expect more localized content and community features in the future, more ways to personalize your experience, new ways to be rewarded and an ever-growing collection of premium content.”

The network went live in nearly 6,800 U.S. company-operated Starbucks on Oct. 20.

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The Cult of McRib: How Fake Ribs Drive Real Product Buzz

It was during the summer of 2006 when I sat down with my first McRib. Over the next two weeks, I ate at McDonald’s seven times, downing eight rib-resembling sandwiches (I clearly wasn’t having the best day on one of those visits). Despite the obsession, the McRib hasn’t crossed my mind often in the four years that have passed. Until ten days ago as I was browsing my Twitter feed …

McDonald's confirms the McRib's triumphant return on its official Twitter account.

The McRib will be gracing menus in less than two weeks and fans have wasted no time leveraging digital media to celebrate its resurrection. There’s the handy McRib Locator to map sightings, @McRibWatch on Twitter for real-time updates while on the hunt, and more than 200 Facebook groups dedicated in some way to the elusive sandwich – all unofficial. All this for a sandwich available for a limited time “because people get tired of it,” according to the McDonald’s U.S. president.

Parables of cross-country travel and sandwich-smuggling have framed the sandwich as a cult product, appealing to a cadre of obsessive fans with most consumers left to smirk (or gag). However, in an era of heightened word of mouth and social media broadcast, a growing group of McRib fans is finding its voice. While McDonald’s’ most infamous sandwich has a history of online success spurred by farewell tours and a “Save the McRib” campaign, this is the first opportunity social media users nationwide have had to be vocal.

Aside from a tweet here and a Facebook post there, the buzz hasn’t been driven by McDonald’s – it originated from the cult. Is it possible then, after 30 years of cult success and purported esoteric status, this is the year the McRib emerges from the underground? I think so.

Why? Word of mouth qualities inherent in the product – driven by social media. Between the pickles, onions, and hoagie roll is a sandwich that has buzz (among other dubious ingredients) in its DNA. While some of its success has been accidental and some has been random, three fundamental qualities of the McRib that have helped McDonald’s spur genuine word of mouth in 2010 – and might help you generate buzz too.

The product's marketing intangibles make the McRib buzz-worthy.

1. The McRib is like no other. Clearly a fact that can’t be argued. Though, I don’t mean because the sandwich is a cultural oddity – the sandwich is remarkable in both composition and proposition. Even from a quality standpoint, the McRib is no lobster tail, but lobster tail is already lobster tail – what’s the point? In an online landscape, uniqueness can spark WOM, but it’s only the beginning.

2. The McRib doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. It’s not a hamburger, it’s not for everyone, and, heck, some people don’t even think it’s pork. No matter, because McDonald’s embraces an inadvertently crowdsourced mythos of the sandwich that grows every time it returns to the menu. While many products aren’t received with such foolhardy affection, the key is authenticity and it is fundamental to the survival of any product or service online.

3. The McRib is no stranger. Not only has McDonald’s embraced the sandwich’s following, the company feeds its fans through interaction and responsiveness. While engagement is a no-brainer at this point, one-on-one interaction is still rare for organizations of any size. Obviously, social media channels allow for an opportunity to strengthen a bond and delight an acknowledged customer. Any organization on social media must engage - it’s not on a wish list, it’s on a must list.

Setting the landscape for buzz includes product or service uniqueness, authenticity, and responsiveness. While these aren’t the only qualities necessary for generating word of mouth, it’s essential they’re baked – or molded – into a product or service.

What other product attributes do you think are necessary? Do these principles apply to your organization? Answer those questions while I gas-up my car – a McRib was just reported in Falls Church, Virginia about 10 miles away.

Image credit: Electric Mayhem.

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Washington Post Says “No Twitter For You!” To Its Journalists

Whenever there is a great controversy or conflict regarding the appropriate use of social media by the traditional media (in this case the journalists for the Washington Post) it’s important to look at several things. First, what is the subject matter that triggered the ‘discussion’ (which in this case is one of the one of the most volatile you can imagine: homosexuality). Second, where it was printed in the paper (in this case it was a column on faith so you can connect the dots there) and third is it about social media or about the subject matter itself?

Over at Mashable, the claim is that the Washington Post is making a mistake by shutting down interaction by its journalists on Twitter.

The Washington Post sent a memo to its staffers telling journalists not to answer critics from Post-branded Twitter accounts or to use their personal accounts to “speak on behalf of the Post.”

The memo comes after the Post published a controversial guest article online, “Christian compassion requires the truth about harms of sexuality,” by Tony Perkins.

Here are some of the contents of the memo:

This week, some Post staffers responded to outside critics via our main
Twitter account. At issue was a controversial piece we’d published online. The intent in replying was to defend the decision to publish the piece, but it was misguided both in describing our rationale for publishing the piece and as a matter of practice. It shouldn’t have been sent.

Even as we encourage everyone in the newsroom to embrace social media and relevant tools, it is absolutely vital to remember that the purpose of these Post branded accounts is to use them as a platform to promote news, bring in user generated content and increase audience engagement with Post content. No branded Post accounts should be used to answer critics and speak on behalf of the Post, just as you should follow our normal journalistic guidelines in not using your personal social media accounts to speak on behalf of the Post.

Perhaps it would be useful to think of the issue this way: when we write a story, our readers are free to respond and we provide them a venue to do so. We sometimes engage them in a private verbal conversation, but once we enter a debate personally through social media, this would be equivalent to allowing a reader to write a letter to the editor–and then publishing a rebuttal by the reporter. It’s something we don’t do. Please feel free to flag Marcus, Liz and me when you see something out there that you think deserves a response from the Post. As we routinely do, we will work with Kris Coratti and her team to respond when appropriate.

The argument from Mashable reporter Vadim Lavrusik is that this response is archaic and spells doom for this kind of system because by not allowing dialogue through social media by reporters is ‘old school’ and doesn’t reflect the current social nature of news.

Of course, this varies from news organization to news organization, but this model is broken. It only reaffirms the old model of “we publish and you listen,” and a model that had a disconnect from the news process and the former audience. It is not a model of conversation and dialogue around news that has become increasingly social. Why not encourage reporters to have a dialogue around the news? Around the stories they cover, producing and giving more transparency to the process?

Mr. Lavrusik has a lot more credentials than little old me but I would like to say that just because news is becoming more social it doesn’t mean it is getting better. In fact, there are those who might argue that because anybody can say anything to anyone about anything that the truth may never actually be known.

It’s because of the need for impartial reporting which is fact based that this distance should be there. If reporters had to constantly engage and defend their positions when would they actually write more stories? We live in a society that won’t let arguments die so they become pissing matches and wars of verbal attrition where the person who gets the last word wins whether they are right or not. I don’t think that’s so good do you?

There is no easy answer for this one but I think that it is important for true news reporters to keep some distance. They write stories to present news with the ideal being that there is no bias. As a fellow human being I simply say that this is an impossible task and one we need to shelve immediately but that’s just my opinion.

How that news is then debated and hashed out in the public forum is up to the readers and there are avenues for this to occur. I say the reporters need to steer clear of the public debate because they will then inevitably be swayed or tore up or whatever and their desire to be a true reporter of news will be replaced by their feeling that each day will be a battle to defend their reporting.

Oh and by the way. This whole debate was sparked by an opinion piece. Get it, opinion. I think the Washington Post was pretty courageous to present this view in their paper. It’s not their view per se, but it is a view. That’s what good journalism is about isn’t it? Present different sides then let the reader decide whether they agree or not. The reader can then act according to their belief and desire to pursue it further. I would hope there is a rebuttal of sorts from the other side of the ledger at some point. That would be a good thing.

Maybe a little distance is a good thing as well. At the time of this post, the audience was split at 50% thinking that journalists should be engaged in social media and the rest having some form of restriction on their interaction as the preference.

What do you think? After all, I am not a journalist so I can talk to you .

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Congress Has a Few Questions for Facebook

When if comes to privacy, Facebook doesn’t have any. This week, we all got a look at a letter from Congress that was sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding answers.

Maybe demanding is too strong a word, but the letter, which came from two members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, made it clear that they expected a full response by next week.

Reps. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Joe Barton of Texas make reference to the recent Wall Street Journal article where it was stated that third-party Facebook apps were selling off user information. They follow this with 18 questions which include:

– Did you notify users of this series of breaches, including the specific nature of the information shared without their consent? If not, why not?

– What procedures do you have in place to detect and/or prevent third-party applications that may breach the terms of Facebook’s privacy policy?

– To what extend has Facebook determined that data relating to minors 17 years of age and under were breached?

The gist of the long list of questions is to find out when Facebook knew about the breach, how many people were affected and how they’re going to prevent such an event in the future.

Many of the questions are designed to decide culpability and the specific question about minors makes this more than just your average privacy case.

You can read the full letter from the Congressmen right here.

A company spokesperson for Facebook has said that they’ll be happy to answer the questions and clear up any “confusion” caused by the Wall Street Journal article.

In the meantime, CBS News is reporting that Zynga, the company that runs Farmville, is being sued in federal court for violating a number of privacy acts. Now Facebook is going to have to make a big decision in regard to standing behind their most popular games maker or divorcing themselves from the situation in hopes of being seen as an innocent party.

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Five Tips for New Grads: How to Use Social Media to Start Your Career

 It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in my dorm room sending my college roommates links to YouTube videos and someecards on Facebook. Fast forward four years later; I never expected I’d be starting a career in social media. In those four years social media revolutionized communication, and a career in the field means the opportunity to be part of one of the most exciting, rapidly changing areas of marketing and PR today.

For new college grads, we’ve been using the Internet as another social layer of our lives since high school, and the lines between personal and professional use can often be blurry. When pursuing your career, it’s important to make sure that your passion for sharing content via the social web will help you get hired—not turn employers off. Here are a few things I’ve learned to keep in mind:

1. Be careful of your online footprint. Don’t underestimate what employers will be able to find about you online. Be aware of what results search engines return, and keep this in mind whenever you post updates, upload photos, or comment online. Make sure what employers find reinforces a positive impression of who you are, from anyone’s perspective. Creating a personal website or public resume on LinkedIn, starting a Twitter handle with your full name in the profile, or blogging about your professional interests can be good ways to control the information that comes up about you in search.
2. Always present yourself the way you want to be perceived. Similar to a job interview, the way you act and the things you say on social media platforms can quickly make or break an employer’s idea of who you are. Check spelling and grammar, and if it’s something too personal for work, it should probably be left offline. Stay away from profanity and vulgarity—you (most likely) wouldn’t cuss in front of your boss or a client, so you shouldn’t online either.
3. Share your professional knowledge. Hiding behind a private Twitter handle may not be the best way to advance your career. Impress prospective employers and new colleagues with your expert skills at using your own social media accounts and with the quality of the content you share there.
4. Learn by watching others. Take note of how the professionals you admire use social media to build their personal brand. Gather insights into best practices and make an effort to use the techniques you observe and make them your own.
5. Continue to be curious. Social media provides a constant, real-time source of news and professional resources. Follow the Twitter handles or blogs of the movers and shakers in your field. Take note of the strategies world class companies are using. Social media moves fast, and it’s up to you to be on top of it.

Pair these practices with a portfolio filled with great leadership and experience, examples of the results you drove and an energetic attitude, and you’ll be applying for jobs with social media on your side. To see what positions are available within the Ogilvy PR 360° Digital Influence team, make sure to check here: http://blog.ogilvypr.com/careers/.

What tips do you have for using social media as you start your career?

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Social Media is Good, Trust Me

In light of  the recent privacy breech on Facebook, it’s no wonder most internet users don’t trust social media. Only 16% have faith, says a study by Vision Critical with forums and blogs scoring even lower.

Who do we trust? The only online source is news, I’m assuming they mean from a known source such as CNN or the New York Times. TV, radio and print all came in much higher on the trustworthy scale.

Seeing as most of us are using social media for marketing, how do you get over the trust hurdle? The key is responsiveness. Says Professor Judy Olson,

“In e-mail, Linkedin and Facebook messages, much of the traditional markers of trust, such as voice intonation and body language, are hidden. . .  when only text is available, participants judge trustworthiness based on how quickly others respond.”

She recommends always sending a quick response to any queries, even if it’s only to say you’ll follow up with a more detailed response at a later date.  It’s a simple step but easy to ignore.

Another commonly mentioned issue is transparency. Folks are more likely to trust what you’re putting on Facebook if they know where it’s coming from. Are you a real person? Do you have a home base of operations? Use a real photo of yourself on your social media accounts and make sure there are plenty of ways to contact you. Not everyone is comfortable dashing off a complaint in a Twitter message, but you want to give them every opportunity to get it off their chest and get help.

One of the simplest and most overlooked ways to gain trust is by saying thanks. I’m guilty of this and it’s not because I’m not thankful, it’s just. . . well, honestly, I don’t know why I don’t do it more often.

This morning, I was talking with a group of colleagues who mentioned that they get annoyed when they aren’t thanked for an RT on Twitter. To me, that’s odd. I don’t need six more Tweets thanking me for passing on information I thought was useful. Apparently, I’m in the minority on this. So, right now, let me stop and say thanks to all of you who retweet my posts here at Marketing Pilgrim.

The point of all this prattle, is that to most folks, social media is one entity, so when Facebook gets caught with its hand in someone’s private pocket, we all get punished with a lack of trust. Make sure your efforts stand out by not ignoring these blunders. Tell your customers that their information is safe. Tell them you’re there to answer questions, and most importantly, tell them thanks for their patronage.

Trust me, it’s good business.

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Bing Foots the Bill for Interactive Book Campaign

People love a good treasure hunt, and that’s what Bing is banking on with its interactive marketing campaign for Jay-Z “Decoded.”

The complex ad campaign involves book pages hidden all over both the real world and the virtual one. The object is to use the combined forces of the world’s population to uncover and ‘decode” all of the pages before the book comes out in print on November 16. Random House is publishing the memoir but word is that Bing is paying for the campaign which couldn’t have been cheap.

Here’s how it works. You go online to Decode Jay-Z with Bing and get a clue which pops up over a Bing map. The first clue is this:

“Find your first page in the NYC district where Jay and Leo saw Wale at the Highline.”

Don’t know the answer? That’s where Bing comes in. The search box is located under the response box and I’ll admit I had to use it to find the answer, which I got from other reporters writing about this story. Not how they intended it to go, I’m sure. The second clue though said Jay-Z mentioned this “Phillip” in a Time-Out article. Use the last name to find a fancy art gallery in the area (Chelsea). Now I had to use Bing in the way it was intended. Found the article, got Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman, Chelsea and art gallery got me to the Nancy Hoffman Gallery and voila, I was in like Flynn.

Unfortunately, I don’t live in New York, so I had to depend on a local to go to the gallery and shoot a photo of the page which is on display as a piece of art. Pretty cool. The people who saw the page in person were able to get a code which they enter online for a chance at a prize.

For the housebound among you, there will also be online scavenger hunts for pages so you can win without leaving the house.

It’s a monumental project and I can’t imagine the kind of coordination it took to put this together. The ROI comes back in a couple of ways. First, Bing is getting a huge amount of publicity and traffic just for hosting this thing. Random House expects to sell through the first printing of the book even though it will be fully available online. Jay-Z is getting his royalties and lots of buzz.

The second level of return is on dollars and buzz generated for each spot where the pages are located. David Droga, creative chairman of Droga5, the New York agency that is behind the campaign said that pages will turn up in the most unlikely places including at the bottom of a hotel swimming pool, inside jackets in a store window or on the felt of a pool table.

“People were lining up to be part of this, like premium hotel brands and sports stadiums. It’s a sincerely mutually beneficial partnership. At the center is Jay-Z’s book, but all the players at the table stand to benefit.”

As of this writing, seven pages were released, seven found and six decoded. Looks like they’re off to a great start, and I’ll bet that by the time this game comes to an end, they’ll have more players than they ever anticipated.

What do you think of this campaign? Is it likely to push Bing to beat Yahoo in the search engine wars? Or will it be a one time glut of traffic that falls away when the game is over?

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Video Chatting Gains Ground, Can Product Placement Be Far Behind?

Almost a fifth of American adults have tried video calling either online or via their cell phones. That’s one of the findings from the first study from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. 17% of adults have made a video or teleconferencing call of some kind, 6% have made them with their cell phone. Since this is the first time they’ve studied video usage, particularly through a cell phone, they don’t have a benchmark, but you don’t need a study to see that video chatting is on the rise.

Several times a week, I see commercials on TV with people video chatting by cell or by laptop. A deaf woman uses it to sign to her boyfriend. Kids use it to connect with daddy who is miles away on business. A soldier sees his new born baby for the first time. Communications companies hawk the idea in the way chemical companies hawked plastic back in the 50’s. It’s space age technology in the hands of the everyday person. How cool is that?

Let’s look at a few more findings:

• Video calling online is especially appealing to upscale users. A third of internet users (34%) living in households earning $75,000 or above have participated in such calls or chats, compared with 18% of those earning less than $75,000.
• Younger internet users are considerably more likely to conduct video calls. Some 29% of the internet users ages 18-29 have participated in video calls or chats or teleconferences, compared with 15% of internet users age 65 or older.
• Online men are more likely than online women to participate in online video calls (26% vs. 20%).
• Urban internet users (27%) and suburban users (23%) are significantly more likely than rural users (12%) to have participated in video calls, chats, or teleconferences.

Here’s what I’m thinking. We know that mobile is a growing force in marketing. We also know that social sharing and recommendations from peers helps when selling a product or service. So how about product placement in video chats? Think about it. In the same way we hire mommy bloggers to write a post, we pay a teen to put a Dr. Pepper on his desk as he chats with friends, or hang a Nike poster on the wall behind him. Urban, young men are the primary users, so why not play the latest rap tunes while talking with your bros. KaChing! That’s money in the pocket for both the chatter and the brand.

I ran this idea by my teenage son who instantly replied that he’d never sell out that way, but if one of his favorite psychobilly bands offered him a hundred dollars to play their music while talking with his friends. . . that’s a devil he might be willing to deal with.

What do you think? Could video chat product placements be the next big marketing push? And how long do you think it will be before half of all Americans are chatting face-to-virtual-face on a daily basis?

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Facebook ‘Likes’ Driven Most by Brand Outreach

While there is debate as to just how people come to follow brands on Facebook it appears as if the “If you build it they will come” approach not the way to go. In other words, if you don’t perform real brand outreach to get someone to ‘Like’ your brand on Facebook or get someone else to promote it for you then your chances for success fall considerably.

eMarketer reports on a survey conducted by DDB Worldwide and Opinionway Research in September tells the story that most Facebook brand followers are not researchers or self-starters.

The report also shows that Facebook brand attrition rates are at 36% and that number doesn’t include those who choose to hide brand updates from their Facebook newsfeed.

So why do people stop following brands on Facebook?

The chart above tells a story that many expect to be the case but I think they still decide to bury their head in the sand about its true impact on their Facebook Page efforts. The reality is that people leave because of crappy content, crappy content delivery or a combination of the two. Too much information, useless information, information overload…call it what you want. With only 7% of these respondents saying that they left the brand because information was not frequent enough it is saying that we need to do more than just produce content. Content for content’s sake is just adding to the noise and people are turning that noise off as a result.

So what’s your take in the use of Facebook by a brand? What produces real results for a brand? What do I mean by real results? I think you know. It’s having people who are genuinely interested in your brand, getting value from your Facebook efforts and thus becoming more loyal to your brand. How do you create real value without adding to the noise?

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Is Facebook Privacy Just an Oxymoron?

With the box office for “The Social Network” beginning to feel the effects of everyone in the social media industry already seeing it and the likelihood that the rest of the world doesn’t care, it’s time to get back to real business for Facebook. Oftentimes, though, real business and Facebook is more about what Facebook is supposedly doing ‘to’ people rather than ‘for’ them. Today is no exception.

The Wall Street Journal is yet again calling out Facebook on continued privacy concerns

Many of the most popular applications, or “apps,” on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people’s names and, in some cases, their friends’ names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook’s strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook’s rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users’ activities secure.

The rest of the article essentially says what we already know because we follow this stuff including major app / game developers like Zynga who are getting more data than they should. Anyone who looks at what apps in the Android store are looking at when you download them should know that supplying you with fun is not the end game for most developers. Why? Because they need to make a living too so the best thing they can sell is your data.

The problem has ties to the growing field of companies that build detailed databases on people in order to track them online—a practice the Journal has been examining in its What They Know series. It’s unclear how long the breach was in place. On Sunday, a Facebook spokesman said it is taking steps to “dramatically limit” the exposure of users’ personal information.

“A Facebook user ID may be inadvertently shared by a user’s Internet browser or by an application,” the spokesman said. Knowledge of an ID “does not permit access to anyone’s private information on Facebook,” he said, adding that the company would introduce new technology to contain the problem identified by the Journal.

Wait a minute. Hasn’t Facebook been taking steps like this all along? Apparently not. It’s hard to really know what Facebook is or is not doing and where they are actually doing or not doing it. It appears as if that rule #1 in their PR department is to be sure to “Baffle them with BS” which results in no one knowing if Facebook has or has not actually done anything substantial to protect users privacy.

As for the developers of these games that are taking your data and selling it? They must either be coached by Facebook or they learn well with their coy responses to inquiries about their perceived privacy transgressions.

Defenders of online tracking argue that this kind of surveillance is benign because it is conducted anonymously. In this case, however, the Journal found that one data-gathering firm, RapLeaf Inc., had linked Facebook user ID information obtained from apps to its own database of Internet users, which it sells. RapLeaf also transmitted the Facebook IDs it obtained to a dozen other firms, the Journal found.

RapLeaf said that transmission was unintentional. “We didn’t do it on purpose,” said Joel Jewitt, vice president of business development for RapLeaf.

Do you believe that explanation? I don’t but I have adopted the approach that I will error on the side of caution when it comes to these things. In the world of online privacy it is better to take the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ approach rather than the reverse.

So let’s face it. No mater how many people suck up to Mark Zuckerberg and claim that he is a nice guy who is trying to change the world blah, blah, blah (and there are seriously big industry names who like to publicly profess their admiration etc for Zuckerberg) the evidence points that underneath all the buzz, he likely has a black heart when it comes to privacy concerns.

What does that mean? It means he is playing like he cares about privacy when the company obviously doesn’t. How do I know that? I don’t but any company who continually says that they are not doing something then when they get caught with their hand in the privacy cookie jar they act all sheepish and say “We didn’t mean it” is just acting like the kid who tries to get away with everything. Always quick with the mea culpa when caught but right back at it once the interest dies down.

So don’t expect the term Facebook privacy to ever mean anything. They need your data to make money. It’s that simple. As a result do you think that Facebook and its entire ecosystem are going to just stop trying to get your data? I hope you’re not that gullible no matter how ‘nice’ the real Mark Zuckerberg is or is not.

(UPDATE: To be fair read the ‘response’ from Facebook to its developer community. I feel like it’s more PR CYA but we’ll see.)

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From Side Project to Sustainable Business … Using Social Media

This guest post is by Clare Lancaster, of WomenInBusiness.com.au.

Over the last 18 months I’ve built two profitable businesses with the help of social media. One business was a sure thing; the other was a side project. My side project was a blog: womeninbusiness.com.au. All of the important numbers (subscribers, page views and profits) are growing monthly and I’ve never paid a cent to promote it.

When I decided to drop out of corporate life, my first move was to open a consultancy. I had been working online since 2001 and by 2008 was confident I’d accumulated enough skills and experience that finding work wouldn’t be a problem.

Around about this time, Twitter was the next big thing. I realized if I wanted to offer my clients the best service I could, I’d better get to know what Twitter was, and work out it was going to be any good for business.

Little did I know that the answer would be a resounding ‘yes’—and that it would help me take my side project from an idea to a sustainable business in less than two years.

Ten steps to sustainability

1. Establish a personal blog.

I started blogging on clarelancaster.com before I launched my consultancy.

I had a clear objective for the blog—that was, to demonstrate my knowledge and start to build my online reputation. I wrote about social media case studies, the basics of online marketing, and my journey so far. I shared my knowledge with wild abandon and started to attract an audience.

Not only did this blog allow me to demonstrate my knowledge but it provided me with a home base to send people I’d connected with through social media.

2. Build a social network with purpose.

Twitter was (and still is) my social networking platform of choice. When I signed up, I spent months observing the conversations, getting to know the etiquette and slowly but surely growing my network strategically.

I sought out and connected with industry thought leaders and journalists, identified people with similar work backgrounds and ethics, and spent time chatting and sharing links not only to my blog posts but to articles that I was reading that I knew would benefit my network.

My patience and consistency paid off when I received a DM from the editor of Australia’s largest small business magazine. She’d been following my blog and invited me to write a five-page article about social media.

That article led to another DM, this time from the editor of Australia’s largest online business magazine. I was invited to write a column with the potential of becoming a monthly contributor. I’ve just filed my 14th column with them.

3. Connect with people who share your interests.

While much of my network building was strategic, I also enjoyed connecting with other people who shared my interests.

One day I was chatting with another woman involved in online business who was writing about similar topics. A few days later I woke up to find that I’d been listed on Forbes as one of 30 female entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. It turned out that contact was a writer for Forbes, and the result of that coverage was 3000 new followers in three days.

Some might say it was luck. I say, you only get lucky when you put in the ground work.

4. Connect with your readers outside of your blog.

In addition to emailing a thank you to every commenter who interacted with my blog, I’d also visit their blogs and add them to my Twitter network. If they had a LinkedIn account promoted on their blog, I’d add them there too. This strengthened the relationships I built, and made a lasting impression. I still do this occasionally today.

5. Build anticipation for the launch of your business.

We all know that at the heart of social media is authenticity and transparency. As I was building my consultancy website, and deciding on my services and pricing, I chatted about it on Twitter. I asked for feedback on taglines and navigation text, and focused on involving my network in the journey to launch.

When the time came to open for business, I had a network that helped spread the word for me. They felt invested in the process and the journey I’d taken to get to that point.

6. Develop products based on your audience needs.

One of the first strategic networks that I built was focused around my industry peers—marketing and digital types. Six months after launching my I consultancy, I’d just experienced my first nightmare client and was looking into diversifying my income streams.

My first experiment was an ebook—a guide to using Twitter for business. I sold the majority of my guides to other marketing consultants and learned a valuable lesson: know your audience, listen to what they need, and create it. Then use social networking to spread the word. Don’t hesitate. If you spot a need, jump on it.

One of the reasons my ebook sold so well was because it was one of the first on the market. The reason it spread was because it told the reader what they needed to know, they got results, and they recommended it to their networks.

7. Rinse and repeat.

After I’d been writing on my personal blog for a while, I got the opportunity to acquire the womeninbusiness.com.au domain. I snapped it up and have since used social media to build traffic to the site and foster community around its message, which is to help women create their own paths using online business.

As with any profitable blog, this site has a variety of revenue streams that are dependent on the trust, influence, and interest of my audience both on my blog and on the social networking platforms I use.

I used the same technique that I used for my consultancy to launch this business.

8. Monetize the trust you’ve earned.

I know there’s something icky about framing the idea this way, but it’s the cold hard truth. You’ve worked hard to provide (free) value on your blog and social networking platforms, and to keep the attention and trust of your audience. If you want to create a sustainable business, you’ll need to monetize their attention.

I do this by recommending affiliate products, selling my own products and services, and advertising.

I view the products I choose to be affiliated with as part of my overall product range. I only recommend products I’ve used and feel proud to associate with my name and the reputation I’ve worked hard to build.

A successful affiliate promotion should span your blog, social media platforms, and mailing list. A profitable one will perfectly match the needs of your audience. If it doesn’t, it’s better to find one that does, than to compromise that trust.

I recently launched my first premium product, a do-it-yourself online marketing ecourse. Twitter was a great platform to tell the story of this offering, and let people know about it in a natural way. In fact, the less salesy I was about the product, the more registrations I received.

9. Promote your meaningful transactions.

When you own an online publishing business there are two things you’ll be doing continuously: creating and promoting.

You’ll create content and you’ll need to promote it. Not only do you need to promote your content, you need to promote the meaningful transactions that affect your bottom line.

Meaningful transactions are the actions that turn a passive visitor or reader into an active part of your business. They’re the things that will make your business sustainable. As a blogger, an essential meaningful transaction occurs when a visitor subscribes via RSS or email. If you’re also an affiliate, a meaningful transaction would take place when a reader clicks on your affiliate link.

Write a list of your meaningful transactions and cycle through them, not forgetting the social media success ratio of one part promotion, one part sharing, one part conversation.

10. Keep a critical eye on your output.

Even though it’s important to promote your meaningful transactions, it’s more important to keep an eye on the quality of your output and the reaction that you’re getting from your social media audience.

When I first started kicking goals I would excitedly jump on Twitter and tell the world. After a while, I could tell that my excitement was coming across as self promotion. I scaled back and remembered the golden rule. In social media, it’s not about you. It’s about what you can do for others.

How are you using social media to grow your blog’s following and your business?

Clare Lancaster offers blog reviews to help improve the business performance of your blog. She is passionate about helping people make their own path in work and life and can be found on Twitter most days (@clarelancaster).

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