Fine Print

The title of today’s blog post is a reference to the popular TV show, Beverley Hills 90210 and the popular micro-blogging platform, Twitter. One is a hotbed of gossip, relationships and being part of the in-crowd — and the other is a TV show.

Julia Roy — herself known for being all over the social media scene — posts (late) today about Twitter Tip Tuesday, and the ethics of following and being followed on Twitter, and why you should unfollow someone. You can read it yourself, but this statement stood out for me: “Before you go and find more people to follow, get rid of those that did not follow you in return. Unless the person who did not reciprocate the follow is an influencer you admire or some other big personality, unfollow them. Don’t receive updates from those that do not receive yours.”

I can see where Roy is coming from; trim your list to make it tight and relevant, but (as I commented) and will repeat here for the record: “I don’t think it’s a popularity contest on Twitter. To me, there’s more value in following people than being followed — I have so much great info flowing across my Twitter screen from social media influencers. It’s gold, especially in my PR role.” It’s a ticker tape of knowledge coming from people, some of whom could charge hundreds of bucks for their time. (Same for the Q&A section of LinkedIn, but that’s another whole area of interaction altogether. Very underused in my opinion.)

So, if the worst does happen, how can you track who has unfollowed you? One of the commenters mentions Twitterless and I also found Qwitter. (I am testing out the latter so will see how popular my next lot of tweets are by who leaves me. *sniff*)

And, while we’re on the subject of popularity, one man very much in demand right now is Peter Shankman and his HARO. Mentioned it before here on the blog, but today we got a hit and saw a mention for GCI in an article on social media. Hip hip HARO!

Have a great weekend.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Ran across this post by Jason Baer (hat tip: Larissa Fair). Apart from the always-useful “scowling Pulp Fiction-style monkey with a gun” photo, Baer dissects some misconceptions that people have about social media, how to do it and what can be achieved.

To save space, I’ll just list his top six picks (all FALSE in Baer’s opinion) and answer on my own.

1. Social Media is Inexpensive — FALSE
2. Social Media is Fast — TRUE
3. Social Media is “Viral Marketing” — FALSE
4. Social Media results can’t be measured — TRUE
5. Social Media is Optional — FALSE
6. Social media is Hard — FALSE

For (2) I would argue that, depending on how niche the community is that you’re trying to engage, good results can be achieved in days, if not hours. For (4) I would argue that (not from a technical, software-monitoring option) social media results can’t really be measured. Baer does concede that to a point: “Can those results be tied back directly to sales, and therefore ROI? Probably not yet …” [I still prefer the term ROE — Return On Engagement.]

I think that the dangerous part of social media is that it is becoming a catch-all phrase; something that people who don’t really understand it think that it can guarantee results, cheaply, without much effort and because … well … “everyone else is doing it, right?”

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Over at the excellent ReadWriteWeb (RRW) they’ve been asking the top bloggers and social media gurus what they earn. Might be a rude question, but the answers are anonymous, and it makes for an interesting survey — especially with the current financial climate looming large.

So … for bloggers, it ranged from $10 to $80 for a single blog post. RRW reckons that some of the full-time bloggers are pulling in six figures, which is probably true if you check out TechCrunch, Mashable and the Gawker Media Network. All very successful, opinionated and influential.

And the big $$$? “Social media consultants, expert practitioners with multiple years of success in the kinds of positions discussed above and in some cases in traditional marketing jobs, are the ones making the most money. No one we surveyed named an hourly consulting rate below $150 per hour. $300 per hour was the most common rate named.”

I am guessing all the survey respondents were from the U.S. Curious, too, as to how they pitch their services? Do they quote one fee for the advice they offer, and hope the client is happy with the results? Or — braver still in social media — guarantee certain elements of success for their fee, and collect on proven results?

Along with coverage in the dailies and a breakfast television slot, does the PR checklist now have “50 blog mentions” and “25 new Twitter followers” on it’s to-do list as a successful campaign?

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

First, please read this article by CNET’s Caroline McCarthy, then, discuss …

Gartner analyst Adam Sarner projects that 50 per cent of social media campaigns will flop. Picking out a few choice quotes from the article, here’s some personal thoughts:

” … over 75 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies with websites will have undertaken some kind of online social networking initiative for marketing or customer relations purposes.”
That “75 per cent” stat sounds pretty high. Maybe 55-60 per cent may be closer?

“‘(Businesses) will rush to the community and try to connect, but essentially they won’t have a mutual purpose, and they’ll fail,’ Sarner said. By a ‘mutual purpose,’ he means a way to serve both the company putting out the campaign and the audience interacting with it: finding that balance is not easy. The quirkiest and most addictive campaigns often provide little value for the company and turn out to be fads, whereas marketing efforts on the Web often don’t go over as well with the public.”
I believe that if your purpose is to serve the community that the campaign is aimed at, then the company will ultimately be served down the line. [A company being ’served’ doesn’t sound appropriate; maybe ‘respected’ is a better word?] If the most addictive campaigns are the ones picked up on by the customers, then how can that provide “little value” for the company too?

“The social network is ‘more for the community than it is for the bottom line’ …”
Agree with Sarner on that one.

“‘Are you discovering what’s going to be the new black next season?’ he suggested as an example of a trendspotting-focused strategy.”
If anyone reading this knows what will happen [re. social media] in 12 months, please tell us so we can all jump in get involved.

“When asked whether the faltering economy will mean that businesses are cutting back on this largely unproven field of social media for marketing or customer relations, Sarner said he didn’t think so, and that many businesses will turn to the Web to stay in touch with consumers during a difficult financial climate.”
Sarner seems to be in agreement with the stats that Mitch Joel picked out a few days ago.

In summary, my take from the sentiments expressed is that, yes, companies do want to get into social media strategies, but are looking for ways that will benefit themselves and their customers in equal measure. I can still sense the reluctance — a little — to let go.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

There’s a reason that Chris Brogan is in our blogroll and that’s because he knows what the hell he’s talking about when it comes to social media. This article is no exception, and I squirmed slightly when I read this sentence: “When talking with people about these technologies, never take that condescending air. As much as we feel excited to be part of this whole social media ‘thing,’ the people who don’t ‘get it’ have all kinds of skills on board that we may or may not have.”

Personally, I get so hyped up about social media and why companies should be involved in it that sometimes I need to take a step back, and realize the fact that it is still relatively new to PR. It’s easy to be astounded when people don’t “get it” as Brogan mentions, but they “get” other scenarios that I don’t, and need help on. No one is an expert in everything and we can all learn from each other. There’s a lot of skills out there that I “don’t get” so will try and learn from those who do!

So, if it reaches the point that someone does need to be in social media, the inevitable question arises of how much budget there is for that aspect of a communications strategy. Ford’s social media guy, Scott Monty, blogs about that here. He hits the nail on the head when he says it’s not free to do this stuff, it takes time and labour. Even with the plethora of automated tools out there, someone still has to sift through the results before the client gets them in a nice, tidy report.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Having met Christie Adams at the very informative Interactive Ontario event a few hours ago, she mentioned having spoken to Niall Cook, who is the guest speaker at Third Tuesday Toronto tonight — subject: Enterprise 2.0: How social media will change the future of work.

Here’s Adams’ blog article.

It was also nice to meet Mike Allan ( a.k.a. New Media Mike) too. Here’s his sum up of the event.

Here is Adams’ sum up of the event.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Mitch Joel crunched some numbers from a survey and reported that (Joel bolded it, and that’s good enough for me): 65% of Chief Marketing Officers and marketing executives said that because of the troubled economy more of their money will go toward digital/interactive marketing than before.

More stats from the same survey (PDF):

- Social computing (including word of mouth, social networking sites, viral advertising, etc.) was the most popular emerging channel with 42% of marketing executives expressing interest in adding it to their marketing mix;
- Blogs were the second-most-popular emerging channel, with 35% of marketers expressing desire to use them and 19% already using them;
- Almost one-third of CMOs mentioned podcasting as an area of interest, with 31% interested in adding it to their marketing mix and 18% already having done so;
- 29% are interested in Mobile Devices (phones/PDAs) and 22% have added them to their marketing mix.

[Italics are mine.]

The declarations of “interest” and “desire” are great, to a point, but it would be preferable to see some “planned” or “commitment” sprinkled in there too. Makes me wary that the CMOs are willing to experiment a bit with social media, because their hand has been forced by the economic climate, rather than the fact they believe it’s a firm strategy.

If they do decide to move ahead, here’s a handy tool to see if their brand name has already been taken on all the major social media hangouts.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Hectic day today — been on the phone with the media to fill the last seats for this event we’re sponsoring: http://www.interactiveontario.com/events/ilunch7. The response has been very enthusiastic; people really want to know where Canada’s digital media industry is heading. [Press — please contact me if you’d like to attend, or click the link above.]

There wasn’t a long lead time for this … in fact, we started inviting yesterday. I think these days people are so busy they make a snap decision as to whether they’re going to attend an event or not. Sure, there’s cool things happening in 2009 that we’ve all bookmarked, but the digital media workplace is in the “here and now,” the RSS ping, the tweet — the immediacy of the technology turns us (well, me anyway) into a voracious user of information that needs a fix.

OK, back to the phone. Have a great weekend.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

[This is a cool event being held by Interactive Ontario and sponsored by GCI Canada.] 

Canada’s Interactive Industry: The Knowledge-Based Economy Of Tomorrow?

Do you work in — or report on — Canada’s digital media industry? With the Canada New Media Fund being eliminated, do you wonder which parties will invest in Canadian new media? Can Canada make the leap from making car engines to making game engines? Join us for a complimentary lunch and panel discussion on October 7, 2008 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto to debate where Canada’s digital media industry is heading.
 
The theme for iLunch 7.01 is: Financing the Future: Raising Capital in Uncertain Times and we’ll examine the current financial crisis, private vs. public investment opportunities and the rapid growth of the interactive digital media sector. iLunch is a highly interactive discussion where attendees will be given the opportunity to plug into the conversation, ask questions and speak their minds — journalists, bloggers and broadcasters are all welcome!

Bring your laptops as there’s free Wi-Fi so you can tweet or blog live from the event.
 
Schedule:
 
11:30 Registration and Networking
12:00 Lunch
12:15 Introductory remarks
12:20 Case Study
12:35 Panel discussion: Charles Zamaria, Mark Bishop, Jody Shapiro (to be confirmed) and Trevor Fencott
13:30 Question and answer period for audience
13:55 Final remarks and post-event networking
14:00 One-on-one meetings with panelists (by appointment)

** Please click here to register and see bios of the speakers — space is limited for this event. **

Hope to meet a few of you there in person!

[Update: Just checked this Friday morning and it’s already at full capacity, that didn’t take long.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Chris Woodley has somehow managed to include a police mug shot of Frank Sinatra in a blog post about social media, and it is relevant, actually. (You’ll see the connection if you read it.)

He writes at Social Media Trader on the subject of social proof [from Wikipedia: Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior. Making the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation, they will deem the behavior of others as appropriate or better informed].

In other words, if you see a lot of people subscribing to a blogger, you probably will too, or follow them on Twitter. Is there value in that, or does blindly joining the sheeple give one a sense that they are not missing out on something important?

It can work both ways. I have personally added a ton of social media influencers to my RSS reader and will publicly admit to being excited when one of their names goes bold to indicate that they’ve updated their blog = means I will learn something. I’d say around 60% of those have been recommended to me, or I’ve checked out a “Top 20 Most Popular Social Media Bloggers” list or something similar.

The other 40% are people that I’ve found myself; niche specialists that concentrate on one area of social media, say, good causes, toy safety or cat lovers. (Client work.) They all have their own ways of doing things, some mainstream, some extremely inventive … and the great ones write about tangible results of what worked and what didn’t. It’s a gold mine of trends showing where social media is heading.

Woodley mentions the art of faking social proof — artificially inflating the amount of “fans” that bloggers have, and relates it to Frank Sinatra’s manager paying girls to scream for him at concerts. [I knew I’d get there in the end, thanks for sticking with it.]

Sinatra was the influencer of his day; things were simpler then, and it’s interesting to consider whether he’d be successful as a social media influencer today using the same tactics.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Mark Cregar has listed what he believes is the top five digital marketing cliches. He cites them as The Social Network Page, The Second Life Storefront, The Online Ad Contest, The Social Network and The Online Branded Entertainment Series.

In that case, I’m sure 99% of PR firms in social media have used a cliche, as the list runs the gamut of what a lot of companies are implementing in their campaigns. What’s new these days? When does something become so popular that it achieves cliche status?

To be fair, Cregar does offer alternative angles to his top five that you may want to consider. It’s a good read.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Todd Defren posts about a practice that is just plain wrong: commenting on people’s blogs under a false name, with the intention of driving “traffic” back to a client’s own blog or website. I put the word traffic in “” because it can’t really be called that. It can be called a stream of pi**ed off people being deceived into visiting a brand, the reputation of which they will associate with these sleazy, cheap tactics.

Not smart.

So, the “SEO” guys get called out, and lo and behold, come back with this recommendation: “Instead of the blog spam, we could have our employees post anonymously on blogs about needing a service similar to your offering … and then return a day later, posing as a customer who’s been happy with your services.”

Shudder.

Three words that a social media campaign does not make: spam, anonymously and posing.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

[*Just Americans? More I expect, but it is a survey from an American strategy and communications agency.]

Still, it’s encouraging news: “According to the survey, 93 per cent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 per cent believe a company should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media. In fact, 56 per cent of American consumers feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.”

This part got me all a Twitter: “… of younger, hard-to-reach consumers (ages 18-34), one-third believe companies should actively market to them via social networks …”

So, is this the green light for PR companies to recommend building Facebook widgets, niche social networks and dedicated blogs on behalf of their clients to push their brands to the masses? I think it is, in the right circumstances. But don’t do it just because you can. Make sure it’s the right strategy for the right brand at the right time. Don’t set up a Facebook group or blog just because it’s the flavour of the month, and then watch it die a slow death. Someone has to manage it, engage people to use and interact with it, monitor what people are saying and respond to them in a timely manner. It needs a lot of effort and commitment if those 18-34ers are going to be receptive. Don’t use them to justify the budget, and then discard them. They’ll remember!

[Update to my thoughts above: Alex Hillman thinks along the same lines, although I’d disagree with him on the “Joining the conversation means you’re adding more noise …” statement. It’s about talking to each other.]

And if things don’t work out, it might be time to tweak your profile on LinkedIn. They seem to be doing well from the curent credit crunch landscape. [Hat tip: Jemima Kiss.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Here’s the latest Twitter listening tool with a weird name: Cherpa.

Anyone want to help me code an application that just repeats what other people are saying and call it Parrotr?

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Our GCI Canada business cards are very nice, always get a good response when handing them over. But you know the deal, right? You go to a lot of conferences, pitches, business meetings etc… and don’t want to carry a ton of cards to hand out.

Try Dropcard. It’s a very simple system. You simply text 41411 with a command like: “drop jcarson@gcicanada.com” and the recipient gets an e-mail with all your contact info and social networks. Sweet.

I like the founders’ philosophy too: “We’re three students who didn’t want to enter the business world armed with tools that were centuries old.  Not to mention the number of trees we’re saving by preventing the production of physical business cards.”

[Update. I asked co-founder Anton Bernstein about what happens to all the e-mails being sent by text: “We don’t harvest e-mails, nor do we sell e-mail addresses for marketing or anything like that. We make our money by selling premium versions of the basic free service. The only partners we work with are Textmarks (every SMS is processed through them and they don’t store any SMS content) and authSMTP, which processes our e-mails so that they don’t get stuck in spam. Otherwise, you can rest assured that we would never, ever give or sell our database of e-mail addresses to any entities outside of Dropcard.”]

Hat tip: Web Worker Daily.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

E-newsletters are still a great way to digest what’s going on out there if you need more info than just 140 characters.

An article by Rebecca Lieb (Vice-President & Editor-in-Chief, The ClickZ Network) popped into my inbox this morning, jostling for space among Google Alerts, Radian6 reports and other client-monitoring tools. Lieb talks about young bucks in the publishing industry moving into management positions, and quite rightly asking for digital tools they need to move the business forward, only to be met with a “Huh?” from the older guys. (I can say “older guys” by the way. I’m in my ’30s, yeah.)

Here’s a succinct quote from the article: “Clinging to Luddism and deliberate blindness in the face of the digital revolution (no understatement there!) may have been cute 10 years ago. Today, it’s inexcusable.”

It seems that the PR world has leapfrogged publishing. Traditional press releases are soooo 2007. The digital editors and reporters of Today 2008 need to be pitched more directly, thoughtfully and in a timely manner. They don’t want to be scooped by a competitor who happened to check their Twitter followers five minutes sooner.

End quote from Lieb: “Because friends can no longer allow friends to remain digitally illiterate.” Yes! It’s not a competition. Encourage your colleagues, contacts, sources, and online network to dip their toe into the digital world. It’s very cool, makes the job a whole lot easier and will move the media industry forward in big ways.

[Update: Just ran across this quote. Very interesting. “Of course there’s no doubt that our generation is taking advantage of the Web 2.0 craze — with countless social networks, start-ups, application developments and a million other projects that are making young little geeks rich quick. However as savvy as we may be, it is the chronologically advanced who are especially successful at solving the problems we increasing — and desperately — need solved. In other words, the high tech future may belong to the over 30-set.” Source.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I thought this video was a spoof viral attempt when I first watched it. But no, it’s for a real law firm who have seen the social media angle that can be taken when advising fathers in their custody battle for their children.

As the guy in the video says: “You have to do this investigation on the down low; you have to keep quiet about it, otherwise it’s pointless. Within a matter of minutes the MySpace or Facebook page can be changed or shut down or made private. So keep your mouth shut if you’re doing this type of investigation.”

So, what I believe is being advised here, is find your ex-wife’s social network, take some screenshots of her getting drunk and friending a lot of weird people, and then you have some evidence for the custody battle. No?

Hat tip: Social Times.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

It’s Canadian National Digital Media Day in Canada, and there’s a lot of cool things happening around the country for those who work in the digital space.

Details here.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Technorati released its State of the Blogosphere report yesterday and I took a look at the stats. From a social media PR perspective, I found this paragraph interesting:

—

Brands Permeate the Blogosphere

Whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the blogosphere. Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate). Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers. Companies are already reaching out to bloggers. One-third of bloggers have been approached to be brand advocates.

—

Here’s my translation for the real world:

—

Brands Permeate the Blogosphere [Brands Realise They Are Now The Customer]

Whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the blogosphere. [By being criticized for its poor customer service by disgruntled consumers who don’t like waiting 45 minutes on the phone and then being cut off after being passed to three different departments.] Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. [Because they feel that is the only way to be heard these days, by discussing the problems with their peers.] 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate). [Mainly hate. It’s easy to vent on the Internet, especially anonymously.] Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers. [Old news.] Companies are already reaching out to bloggers. [”Wow, that was a harsh blog post. How can we get you on our side?”] One-third of bloggers have been approached to be brand advocates. [”Try our camera for a few weeks, you don’t have to blog about it — really. Be nice if you did though.”]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

The guys at blogTO have put together a nifty little diagram showing who owns who in Toronto’s media scene.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

So, it’s happening — mompreneurs are taking it away from the blogs and into specialized Twitter social networks. Twittermoms is only 15 days old and already has over 5,000 members.

More info.

As Amit Bhawani says in the comments, “This shows there is a good future for twittergals.com , twitterguys.com , twittercousins.com, seniortwitters.com, twittergays.com and more.” Maybe this will be the new URL gold rush? [I just checked and they’re all still available, apart from one. Get in there quick!]

It seems an ironic concept to me; joining a social network to chat about what you’re chatting about on Twitter. Seems like an extra step. Ah well, who am I to guess the future — would be a billionaire if it was that easy.

And talking of billionaires, here’s Sergey Brin’s new (and very personal) blog.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Been following these guys for a while — especially StartupNorth.ca — so thought I’d give a mention to their latest venture, StartupNation. Being an entrepreneur at heart, it’s great to see these type of conferences come along in Canada.

Here’s the deets.

[There’s no social media point to this post, but today’s startup could be tomorrow’s Twitter. (So, well, there is a social media point I suppose.)]

[Update: Rebranding.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Great question, David Cushman, who asked it via LinkedIn today, and is now inviting answers.

“ROI can’t come down to increased traffic. Traffic is just eyeballs — it’s just the page impression number. ROI has to get closer to and be more comfortable with the smaller, but more important numbers, of engagement,” he writes. Nearly a perfect answer.

In my opinion … some companies do want increased traffic. To them, a page impression is a successful ROI for their purposes. I don’t understand why; it just means they pay more for hosting costs, but if that’s their measure of success, then good for them.

So, how do you convince the disconnected that they need to engage, not just look at the bottom line? You have to scare them a little. Spend an hour — that’s all it takes — to do some monitoring. Find 10 disgruntled customers who are criticizing their products or customer service. Who feel unheard. Do a trackback search to those posts, and see who is linking to those 10 non-advocates. Find out who those people are, and who their audience is. Repeat until the client gets depressed.

But! All is not lost! Ask for their trust … go in on their behalf, contact those original 10 people as fast as you can, and ask if you can help them with their problem. In probably 60% of those cases, it may be too late. Mr. Disgruntled has already made his mind up and is off to spend his $$$ elsewhere. So, by simple math, that leaves the other 40% who do appreciate the feedback. Shocked even that Corporation X has bothered to take the time away from the boardroom, and is actually talking to them, the customer, the person that has put $$$ into Corporation X’s piggy bank.

Those 40% are now, with the right engagement, happy that their problem has been solved — maybe with some tech advice, a free coupon, a personal e-mail out of the blue — and will possibly blog about their positive experience.

Maybe social media will do away with the cold term ROI, and it will become ROE — return on engagement?

[These people get it.]

[A quick and dirty way to track a lot of stuff at the same time.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Chris Brogan is hosting a free webinar today; see you there!

- How some of the world’s leading organizations are successfully leveraging social media for their marketing programs.
- Case studies and real life examples of successful social media programs.
- The strategies and tactics behind social media initiatives.
- How to implement a solid social media strategy in your company.
- 5 ways you can begin using social media in your company tomorrow!

Register here.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

A large part of my job here is to monitor the Internet for what people are saying about a certain subject, brand or client. That intel is then compiled and compared to assess whether the trends are positive or negative, good or bad, going up or going down. It’s normally 50/50 — it’s rare to see someone blog/tweet, “Hmm, I’m so undecided about this product … check back tomorrow to see whether I like it or not.”

It’s relatively easy to check a handful of key sites and services, and get a snapshot of the online community’s sentiment about something.

My colleague Stephanie blogged yesterday about being surprised by someone commenting on her blog who is working on the Marilyn Churley campaign. These days, it’s surprising not to be tracked, I believe. Assume what you blog about is being read by someone affiliated to that company, name, service or product.

I won’t list names here for fear of being accused of linkbait — and certain people know I’ve communicated to them about their blogs via private e-mail (weird … unjoining the conversation) — but a simple look at the blog stats and you know who’s reading, what company they’re checking from and how many posts they read. People say you should tailor your posts to who’s reading, but I tend to disagree. You can’t please all the people all the time, so write what you think is interesting in your subject matter and visitors will come back.

This post actually veered off the track of what I intended to cover: blog monitoring, but for clients. As mentioned, there are tools out there to take the donkey work out of it for you, bots that scurry around the Internet looking for a combination of keywords, and then ranking those results based on different criteria (depending on what tool you’re using) of number of comments, incoming links, mention of the keyword, who is actually talking about that keyword (influencer) and a host of other options.

That’s all great. It’s a good starting point then for the real work of a human being to sift through those results, and separate the wheat from the chaff. Spam bots are always advancing, and it’s easy to get taken in by a link that looks very authentic, even to the extent of having a regular template wrapped around it, but once you examine the page you notice the odd “viagra” or “ebay” slipped into the body of the text that is totally nonsensical.

So, you have to read most of it, check the ads around it, click on some of the links in the fake blogroll and so on to actually determine if that is a real “mention” that is valuable to the client, or something that needs to be weeded out. You can rush through the results and erroneously include worthless ones, or you can take your time and examine them to make sure they really are relevant to the outreach you are trying to achieve.

As it says on the top, this is a post about blog viagra monitoring.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I have been e-mailing back and forth with a well-known social media news website, and they asked me to fill them in on the scene and what’s happening in Toronto/GTA right now. Having suggested they stop off in Toronto on their annual summer tour, they asked what start-ups and established companies are based here? It’s an exciting question, and one I will start to research.

Need some help though from the community – please e-mail me your contact details and/or website link if you are a recent start-up or have been around a few years; blog about social media; work in social media; organize meet-ups (online or offline); are in your basement inventing a Twitter-killer app; or just feel like Toronto’s social media passion needs more of a boost on a worldwide stage.

E-mail: jcarson @ gcigroup DOT com

Twitter: johncarson

Thanks in advance! This could be very cool.

[Update: Thanks to Maggie Fox for the reply.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I heard about Yammer, been trying it out today with my work colleague Stephanie, tweeted about it just now and a few minutes later was being followed by Present.ly — seems like they are monitoring their competitors in real time.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

The guys at Bad Pitch Blog waxed lyrical yesterday on whether old journalism (read: traditional media) is dead. I touched on that in a roundabout way in this post a couple of weeks ago. [Disclaimer, I have worked as a journalist in the U.K. and Canada, so it’s a subject close to my heart.]

The author of the post, Richard Laermer, lists a slew of venerable publications that have laid off staff or cut costs by closing office space. My colleagues and I were discussing the art of pitching recently and the fact that the beat reporter is a dying breed, so it pays to keep up-to-date contact lists.

I disagree with Laermer on this point: “You need to look for every other place but the print media to pitch, because ink-stained pages are only picked up if you step on them after they are dropped in public places.” There’s still value in seeing a client’s name in print; it’s what they expect, and we’re not doing our jobs if we don’t strive for that.

I agree with Laermer on this point: “PR practitioners have to go for newfangled online sources. If you’re (still?!?) spending all day pitching old media, you are soon going to be stuck with very little to do.” Blogs, online outlets, microblogging platforms, social networks, forums — these are all just as important in a PR pro’s arsenal of getting coverage, boosting a brand and maintaining a client’s good reputation. The work actually takes up most of my day, so it’s a very valid strategy, and it works. The ROI is not immediate, but once people get it, the effects can be clearly seen.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

BusinessWeek had a story last Saturday about how companies are using Twitter to monitor themselves online, find out who is tweeting about them, and then jumping into the conversation to address those (usually negative) issues. “Is this a creepy trend?” asks the article.

No! Is my resounding answer. It’s about time companies started listening to their customers for a change instead of selling to them. The ROI will come in time; people like to be respected.

The story mentions Jonathan Fields’ experience of spotting William Shatner waiting to board a JetBlue flight. Fields wrote about it on Twitter, and within 10 seconds (I find that part hard to believe, it’s an ultra-fast response!) was being “followed” by JetBlue.

[cut] “It totally startled me,” says the 42-year-old author, who initially worried that JetBlue might be monitoring his use of the Wi-Fi connection. JetBlue employee Morgan Johnston quickly explained that wasn’t the case. JetBlue keeps tabs on what Twitter users say about it, using a scanning tool, to find customers who might need information, say, on flight delays or cancellations, Johnston said. [paste]

If users of these microblogging services realise that anything they put out there is in the public domain, searchable and fair game for comment, then the element of being surprised — if a company or person chooses to pick it up and run with it, or follow them, or link to them, or lambast them, or refer them to others — … on and on … — is totally gone.

In fact, these days, if someone doesn’t react to what you’ve said, then, that is surprising. It’s turning 180 and customers better get used to it and get excited by it.

[Hat tip for the lead to Laura Fitton.]

So, if you’re now prepared and comfortable with being “followed,” you better learn about personal branding. This could be the best 15 pages you’ll read today on that front.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I am constantly blown away by the pace at which the world of digital media is changing. Just when you begin to think you know enough and have learnt enough about a new media tool like, say, Twitter, something new is already on its way to becoming the new buzzword in the social mediascape. And while everyone scrambles to learn the new way, get heard, seen and noticed in this new virtual world, the impact on traditional media is becoming more and more visible.

Sometime ago I came across this Flash video that was created by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson for the Museum of Media History. They named it Epic 2014. It’s a short film attempting to capture the history of the Internet, the evolving mediascape and its impact on traditional media like newspapers.

The film unveils a hypothetical future of the media with extreme personalization of content (which is already a reality). The makers of Epic 2014 have also posted a new updated vision of the future with another film Epic 2015.

Though the films are a little out there with the implausible future they propose … I can’t help but think these might just be the reality given the fast and crazy pace of change we are living with everyday. Watch the films and make up your own minds.

 ~ Akshata Kalyanpur, Consultant, GCI Canada