Category: MicroMedia

I originally posted this on Techcrunch, and cross-posted here on the Web Strategy blog. If you’re like me, you may have noticed that Twitter may be arbitrarily, randomly, and haphazardly, unfollowing people you fully intended to follow. Similarly, if you’ve ever noticed your friends and contacts unfollowed you, it may have caused a sense of confusion, dread, or self-insecurity. Before one spirals into a series of apologies or deep-depression, it’s likely not your fault, (whew!). What’s causing this? I’m not sure, so I asked my proper contacts at Twitter who responded “This is a bug, and our team is working to fix it.” They also sent me a link to their support FAQ, which indicates the known issue. I’ll leave … Continue readingCoping With Twitter’s Unfollow Bug

Infographics. I love them. Nothing tells a story better than using colorful, easy-to-read illustrations that couple important data points that justify the meaning. In fact, over a year ago, I said that “Infographics are the new white papers. Our media consumption diet has shifted from steaks to shish kabob“. Infographics are becoming the norm –the medium is at risk to get saturated Yet lately, I’ve started to see this once early adopter medium get saturated. We’re starting to see infographics for every topic, and I’m getting infographics sent to me as part of press releases, or you can create infographics out of your resume on demand. Heck, there’s even an infographic for infographics on HuffPo and a different one on … Continue readingInfographics are Useful –But They Must Evolve

Shel, a contemporary, a friend, a mentor,  knocks it out of the park yet again with this follow-up book on the next set of smaller faster tools: microblogs.  Twitterville is a collection of stories that tell how the protagonist overcomes challenges from organizations, cultures, or crises. One of the challenges of writing a technology book is that  the tools and technologies change faster than the ink can dry.  Shel Israel’s Twitterville overcame this challenge with ease, as he focused not on just the tools, but instead the stories about how people were connecting to each other –not just a focus on the technologies.  I noticed the same crafted stories in his first book Naked Conversations, which focused on the impacts … Continue readingTwitterville: A Desktop Reference for the Social Strategist

After chatting with Loic today of Seesmic, we discussed what brands may want from Twitter.  It’s true, I’m getting more client calls from the world’s top brands about how to use tools like Twitter as a collective team. Based upon my discussions with them, here’s what I see are some key needs in: What Brands Want In a Twitter Client: Listening: Ability to quickly scan what is being said about the brand, products, services, employees and competitors. Although difficult expect sentiment tools to appear that help brands with thousands of mentions manage the discussion. Ability to understand who is saying what, and understand their influence. Management: Manage multiple accounts (Dell has about 35 seperate accounts) from a central team. Enable … Continue readingWhat Brands Want From A Twitter Client

This by no means represents all brands, but just some brands, perhaps those that are a bit more sophisticated. Last Friday I had a conversation with a manufacturing firm that had some relativily sophisticated questions about how they will prepare their plan around Twitter. This was a nice break from the “why does Twitter matter” questions I usually get, as they were thinking through a plan. Here’s some of the excellent questions this organization, and a handful of others brands are starting to ask: Should we create multiple accounts for different divisions? How should we name them?  How should the content be different? Is it ok to just tweet out news on our main corporate account? Or should we be … Continue reading7 Questions Some Brands Are Asking About Twitter