Klout, the Super Bowl, and Our Addiction to Shooting the Messenger

super bowl social 46

Two weeks ago, I received a Klout Perk to be part of the Social 46, a gathering of Indiana’s top social media influencers. According to the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee, Klout was used to help identify the participants, and the list was augmented manually with known local bloggers, gadflies, and connectors. I do not

The Awesome Power of Family in Social Media Storytelling

chompies

In honor of Thanksgiving, I wanted to write a post about the power of family in social media storytelling. And as you sit down to whatever celebration you embrace, think about the videos below and what they evoke within you. But first, remember that the goal isn’t to be good at social media. The goal

Our Dangerous Addiction to Social Media Case Studies

The Recalcitrant Social Media Cheerleader

The two most important words in social media should be “so what?” As Tom Webster eloquently put it in his recent Blogworld keynote, when research wears the cloak of content marketing, it’s a recipe for the incurious to pull a fast one on the masses, disguising pointless data as gospel. Tom was referring to data-dredging

Please Vote for the NOW Revolutionary of the Month

Bill Fisher

Real-time business is about capitalizing on opportunity. About keeping your antennae up and finding a way to engage with speed and context. Last month, Amber Naslund and I named our first NOW Revolutionary, someone who’s living the faster, smarter, and more social principles we wrote about in The NOW Revolution. Our first winner was NOW

Corporate Twitter Account Train Wreck! The 3 Types of Self-Destructive Tweets

twit happens

Twit happens. As more and more companies ramp up their Twitter presence, the likelihood that something off-message will slip by the digital goalie goes up considerably. The question is not whether your company will have to deal with self-destructive corporate Tweets, but what kind of tweet it will be, and by whom. There are 3

Are You Keeping Your Social Antenna Up?

Hotel Felix (9)

Sure, the instantaneous nature of the social Web can create business crises faster than you can say “Tiger Blood” and “Kenneth Cole is an Oaf”. But, that rapidity also creates unprecedented opportunities for marketers with their antenna up, scanning the real-time horizon for a chance to make a difference. George Jordan, the General Manager at

Using a Social FAQ to Kick Start Content Marketing

The Voyage Holiday World Social FAQ

If you conquered four words, you’d have a better social media program than 90% of all companies. If you just utilized “thank you” and “I’m sorry” appropriately and often, you’d be in pretty good shape. But getting to true sociability requires more than just replying to direct inquiry. You have to use content marketing to

What I Learned About Humanity From a Steakhouse

Myril Arch Placement

Last week, in the post “Why Your Special Offer Isn’t” we talked about the importance of humanization. Faced with an invitation avalanche, consumers will respond to the stories that resonate with them on a personal level. And those stories don’t just have to live in social media. Myril Arch’s Story — Humanizing a T-Bone Recently,

Threadless Shares 10 Years of Insights and Inspiration

Threadless book

Threadless – everyone’s favorite T-shirt purveyor and example of crowdsourcing and customer community success – recently published a terrific 10th anniversary book that combines company history with dozens of its best designs. It makes for very interesting reading, and the production values and design elements make it a suitable coffee table book, and an excellent

Are We Making Our Fans Work Too Hard?

Just because you CAN do something in social media, doesn’t mean you SHOULD. This point was driven home for me recently when reading an AdAge article about CKE Restaurants (Carl’s Jr. and Hardees) launching their own mobile loyalty cards via iPhone and Android app. “As far as we know, we’re the first quick-service restaurant to