Archive for May 2009
Political Music Video Day
Swedish candidate for the European Parliament, Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, posted a video on her YouTube channel, where some guy sings (in Swedish) about why he's going to vote for her to the Cuban tune Guantanamera.
Another example of wanting to utilize new media but not fully understanding how to handle it.
Via @jocke
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Understanding Your Target Group
Nordicom (a Nordic communications research center) today released their annual Media Barometer. The report contains several interesting facts:
- The amount of Swedes on the Interwebs have almost doubled from 2004 (35% - 68%)
- Only 8% of Internet users use blogs (I wonder how that question was asked... I truly doubt that figure)
- Consumption of TV news programs have gone down from 55% to 40% since the beginning of the century
This is really interesting stuff, but it could have been released in a smarter fashion, not simply using a super traditional press release. This kind of news is truly blogger material, so why isn't it released blogger stylee, utilizing the fact that we want interesting news but have short attention span and too little time to blog?
They could have chunked it up in a list of most interesting statistics, included a short, embeddable interview video (sure video takes time and costs money to produce, but this must be one of their most important initiatives during the year) talking about the survey results, and also including an embeddable statistics image.
This would have helped spread the material and more important – it would have increased the relevance of the material that was spread.
Heck, this post would have looked much smarter with an embedded video and statistics image.
Obama is the Chosen One for Government 2.0
Quite often social media is used only to prove that an organisation keeps up with current trends. The Obama government (more about it here and here) could be the best case study around to display how social media could be used to display information and transparency and create dialogue.
Below is a video where Macon Phillips, New Media Director at The White House, showcases new media efforts at The White House.
While Swedish politicians recently found out about Twitter, which they use to push their messages in the same way they always have used media (all talk, no listen), Obama not only uses but innovates modern web technology to connect with his audience.
Great Headlines are Everything
Photo: Thomas Hawk
During my short career as a football writer I used to get a decent amount of constructive criticism regarding my headlines ("Olle, your headlines suck", were the words I got from my editor, who now has reached TV fame as a sports commentator). This taught me to learn from the people who know how to write headlines.
Problogger today has a few tips from an eye tracking survey. My favorites are:
- Dominant headlines most often draw the eye first upon entering the page
- A headline has less than a second of a site visitor’s attention
- For headlines — especially longer ones — it would appear that the first couple of words need to be real attention-grabbers
Online Business Models are Hot, Hot, Hot
Photo: azerty
Sweden's largest tabloid, Aftonbladet, lets go of 100 employees, leading to a discussion whether you can charge for online content or not. Joakim Jardenberg from Mindpark argues that it isn't possible (in Swedish) while ex journalist/crisis comms guru Paul Ronge isn't so certain (in Swedish) – all you need to do is use more and innovative business models.
Business weekly Veckans Affärer's Mikael Zackrisson writes a truly interesting story (in Swedish) saying that media bosses are thinking wishfully when hoping that consumers will pay for news. Zackrisson also argues that the online news media business models are old fashioned and that they are complaining about things like copyright rather than innovating.
The Identity Challenge
I personally think the business models issue is one thing, but that the identity challenge could be more important. One reason social media is killing news papers is their strong idenity. The identity is created by a mix of personality, passion and authenticity – three pillars upon which most popular blogs, forums and communities are built.
This means becoming more focused and more niche, allowing the journalists to display more personality. This is something many news papers can't handle, since it means turning over the brand to the journalists.
At the moment many Swedish news papers focus lots of energy on staying alive, which includes innovating add-on products such as DVD's and books to be sold together with the papers. While this makes money it is not their core business, which is news. News (and analysis) is their business and it should be their identity, and it should be what they should innovate. And this includes how this news is delivered.
Chunk it
For example, I am an RSS subscriber to the Expressen (Sweden's second tabloid) football news, which should tell them more than enough about my football interest. I have never received a single message through that feed. No ads. Nothing.
Somewhere I read about Expressen producing a weekly football magazine, something I'd love to pay for and get news about. With a direct link to people interested in football – why isn't this used? I am aware this is a tiny part of what future business models should look like, but is it really that hard to implement?
The web is being chunked in smaller bits and the news papers' strength is quality content. Chunk it up and serve it the way users want it, while monetizing it. The adtribution model where ads are embedded in the news looks like a great way to do exactly this (via @Hampus).
The City of Stockholm Goes Web Tech Bonanza
Rumours have it that the City of Stockholm has a new guy on the web staff. It certainly looks that way, with comments, share functions and Ubiquity commands.
The share functions let me tweet all articles from the site, for example if I feel the urge to tell the world about cancelling my son's child care.
Ubiquity commands... that is some serious web tech bonanza. If I need to search stockholm.se all I need to do now is fire up Ubiquity (alt+space), activate the stockholm.se command and then search for for example Norra länken (an enormous tunnel being dug north of the city).
Below you can see the different results from the site on the right. I am seriously impressed.
Hat tip to @svenbergvall
Measurement is Cool - Take the Survey
Picked this up from KDPaine's brilliant measurement blog.
What Are Your Thoughts About PR Measurement?
An international group of PR scholars and measurement experts is in the process of conducting a global survey measuring best practices in public relations measurement and management. The survey takes between six and 12 minutes to complete depending on how extensive answers are. Those interested in PR measurement are encouraged to participate. Replies are anonymous and confidential and neither individual participants nor their companies will be identified in any way. Results will be presented at the First AMEC Summit on Measurement in Berlin, Germany, in June. The user-friendly survey is available at: www.benchpoint.com/measure.html
Go take that survey now!
Using Twitter for Customer Support
Photo: Yo no me llamo Javier
Mashable posted a good piece about how to use Twitter for customer support. The most important learnings according to me are:
- Customer support is powerful and cost efficient
- Track your brand and products
- Respond quickly and transparent
- Be personal and authentic
I felt urged to comment adding two steps to the six Mashable steps. Below is my comment.
We are conducting a Twitter+blog+forum customer support project right now for a global client, and I'd say all of the above applies to our learnings.
I would like to add two steps though:
Step 7. Don't be afraid
Lots of companies fear new channels and personal conversations (you know "losing the control of the message") making them hesitate with e.g. Twitter. Don't! Rather than staying away due to fear, you should dare making mistakes - as long as you are transparent and authentic it will be received positively.
Step 8. Be ready to adapt
Your experiences on Twitter or any other channel including personal conversations will give you new learnings. Make sure you listen to these and pass these on within the organisation. This will develop your company in many ways.
What do you say – are there steps 9 and 10?
Becoming a Google Reader Ninja – The Advanced Course
Photo: Stéfan
My last post on how to become a Google Reader Ninja covered some basic tips and tricks such as double tagging and time management. Today I'll focus on the tags/folder structure.
The diagnose
Are your feeds beginning to pile up? Do you feel anxiety when opening or merely thinking about your Google Reader? Well my friend, you've been diagnosed with having a case of an Unstructured RSS Reader.
The main purpose of an RSS reader is to make your news consumtion more efficient, enabling you to spend less time reading more stuff that's important to you. But it is also really important that it is inspiring. The only way to feel inspired every single time you visit your reader is to keep a tight folder structure and to keep it that way.
Because the truth is that – just like a ninja – you need to keep that footwork going all the time, moving feeds up or down in importance, creating new folders or deleting them. If you at any time feel you don't want to open your reader or a folder – you know that's your cue to make a change.
Step 1: How to structure your reader
While you need to find a structure that suits you, I'll explain how I do it to give you a reference.
Always is the folder that I start with when logging on to Google Reader. When it is emptied I consider myself quite updated on what is going on around the social media industry.
Maybe is a folder that I usually read extensively/headers only, but when time allows it I spend as much time in it as in Always.
Dispensable is the folder where I can click Mark all as read without feeling anxiety about having missed something important.
Step 2: Learn to move like a ninja
A skilled Google Reader Ninja longs for logging on to the reader, since any unread item is important, inspiring or at least easy to delete. This is achieved through a constantly ongoing adding, moving, splitting or deleting of feeds and folders. A common GR user mistake is to get attached to feeds, not wanting to move a blog or news source that seemed super important a year or so ago.
This is why it is so important to keep a folder structure which signals importance. If you at any time open your folder named Super Important and identify a feed that doesn't anymore feel Super Important – move it down a notch. At first it feels hard to let go, but soon you will get that feeling of freedom.
Step 3: Never ever delete a feed
One of my most important folders in Google Reader is my Database folder. It is a folder I never read but always click Mark all as read. In Database I put every single source of information that I find even remotely interesting or important. By doing this I create my own miniature search engine, to use for datamining information.
This function has proven to be of great importance over and over again. When conducting any kind of research or reporting job, I know I can rely on my own news database to get hits from the sources I trust. Over time this has saved me hours of research time.
Conclusion
1. Create a structure. 2. Re-structure. 3. Even if you never read it – don't unsubscribe, move it to your database.
Thoughts? Input?
Software Updates as Marketing
Photo: blakespot
Sure, customer support is the new marketing. People want brands to care, answer questions and to fix whatever is wrong. This is a great – if not one of the best uses for social media today. Support via Twitter and in blogs makes a difference through engaging in one-to-one communication.
Another way for technology brands to show they care about their customer is by showing they care about their products. By updating it. Some might say an update is only needed if the product is not complete when sold. I personally don't think a technology product will ever be finished.
A product that isn't updated for months gives me a sense of being forgotten by the company. Lots of Internet start-ups push updates once or even twice a week (also including user feedback in the process). While I know not all companies should use this kind of frequency, updates should be viewed as something more than simple bug fixing and adding features.
A product update tells me that this thing is still getting the attention by the company. That I should look out for what's going on with this product. And this company.
At the Top of the Danish Appstore
Some time ago Jung's programmer/AD, Einar Andersson, developed an iPhone application for the Swedish part of Danish/Swedish dairy producer Arla, on behalf of an idea by media agency Carat. Recently, Einar developed the same application to the Danish part of the company.
Right now it is at the top of the download list of free apps, with a 4/5 rating. A great example of how a traditionally analogue behaviour can be combined with a modern platform.
These 3 Articles Were Worth Reading During the Weekend
How to filter your online life (Lifehacker)
Learn how to mute noisy friends on the Book of Faces, use RSS feeds rather than surf all those social networks you signed up to, and set up e-mail alerts to the social network updates you really care about.
Twitter has a new interface (Mashable)
The new Twitter interface adds search and trends from inside your Twitter page. I am still amazed that a script created by a fan develops Twitter into a completely new service (how about nested replies and inline preview of Youtube vids and Flickr pics). Shouldn't Twitter simply get acquired by Google or another giant to get the development muscles we all want.
Friendfeed will be on the same level as IM and e-mail (ReadWriteWeb)
Paul Buchheit, the creator of Google, says "The open, realtime discussions that occur on FriendFeed, are going to become a major new communication medium on the same level as email, IM and blogging." I believe it when I see it...