Recently in Social Media Category

"Customers have always had a voice, drove peer-to-peer influence, and leveraged paths to talk directly to companies. They simply used the tools of time. And, the more savvy customers used traditional PR and the very mediums many companies employed to reach them in order garner attention, public support, and solutions. Certain companies listened, others did not…and still don’t."

My Creative Team, with whom I work on a large number of projects, recently completed a content marketing piece for client Pet Sitters International, an 8,000 member professional organization.  I wrote an article for MCT's most recent newsletter, THINK that talks about "The Buzz Factory: Marketing Tools for the Serious Pet Sitter," a series of how-to pdf's for the groups' membership that covers event planning, media relations and social media marketing.

Harry Hoover and the folks at My Creative Team have published an excellent, concise article on 11 ways to promote your website. The bottom line:  to receive you must give.  Share ideas, thoughts, words, articles, anything you've got that's germane to what you do and you'll receive legitimate attention.

As in many cases, the few are impacting the many when it comes to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and del.ic.ious. The Brand Autopsy blog notes that 30 of Digg's 300,000 users are responsible for 33 percent of the posting submissions.  These 30 people are on a mission, obviously.  The question is, what exactly is it?

In quick and visual fashion, David Armano shows how to use Widgetbox to link your static website to your related blog. That done, the challange becomes remaining true to your blog's mission all the while knowing your entries are now filling your homepage. An interesting system of checks and balances for your overall online strategy.

Yes, we're all created equal and have the same shot at the grammar and rhetoric books, but some of us blog, youtube, flickr and myspace better than others. All social media is not media, contrary to what Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion writes. Social media is largely opinion, feedback, blog riffs, product reviews, etc. Now, some of it is very good, awesome, better than "professional content"; I'll give you that. But don't get hung up on the "social" part of the term. Think about it this way for a second: social media is an opportunity to create something useful for someone else. Is social media important? No doubt. It keeps us marketers honest. It keeps the mainstream media honest. It's democracy in action. But that's just the good stuff. I bought a carpet steamer from the Target website based on the review of some person I don't even know because she could spin an articulate assessment of an appliance. But, I've also figuratively stomped out of the iTunes store after reading a music review that started, "The only reason I give this one five stars is because I see way too many people are giving it two or three stars..." So, is four stars his real vote? Too much math. That guy's messing up the Utopia with his arbitrary star-giving! He just wasted an opportunity.