Report or Comment? When a Journalist Retweets, it’s Hard to Tell

by Dan Ward

I returned from a meeting this afternoon and saw this in my twitter feed:

“@JebBush a flip-flop-flip on immigration? Wow. I fashioned you more of a baseball player than a gymnast. My bad. #notsurprisedatall”

The tweet was authored by Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, so the partisan tone is to be expected.

But I don’t follow Rep. Wasserman-Shultz. I saw her message because it was retweeted with no additional comment by Tampa Bay Times Political Editor Adam Smith, who I do follow.

Now, if you read Smith’s twitter profile, you will see the message, “Retweets are not endorsements,” but that is only clear if you take it upon yourself to look at his profile. My first thought upon seeing the tweet was, “wow, that’s quite a partisan message for an objective journalist to forward on to his followers.”

Based on the disclaimer in Smith’s profile, I understand that he retweets comments as part of his journalistic responsibility to share information, rather than as endorsements, but I do wonder whether a disclaimer on a profile goes far enough.

Is it my responsibility as a follower to determine whether I’m looking at a report rather than an editorial comment, or is it the responsibility of the reporter/editor to ensure his followers know the difference?

Facebook Trumps Faces

by Heather Keroes

Are you good at remembering faces, but perhaps not so good at remembering names?  You may eventually change your tune to “I’m good at remembering Facebook posts, but not so great with faces.”

According to research recently reported in the journal Memory and Cognition, Facebook status updates are two-and-a-half times more memorable than the faces of strangers.  The experiments conducted suggested that memory of Facebook posts is enhanced due to Facebook’s “social elaboration.”  Facebook posts were also found to be more memorable than lines from books.

Read more here.  Hopefully, you’ll remember it.

Can Social Media Save Education?

by Kim Taylor

When you see statistics like this, you can understand why many feel there’s an urgent need for change.  But, perhaps those same folks are wondering how they can help.  Enter, UNDROPPABLE.

If you follow @Jason_Pollock on Twitter (100,000+ do), you may’ve already seen the # UNDROPPABLE hashtag.   Pollock—known for his documentary following four teens on their quest for public office—is behind the social campaign to shine a positive light on students who have succeeded in the face of great adversity.

The campaign is building steam with more than 75 videos on its YouTube channel, nearly 2,000 followers to the @UNDROPPABLE Twitter account, close to 1,000 likes on Facebook and media mentions from heavy hitters like Time, Mashable.com, USA Today and Fast Company.

Given the powerful impact social media has had on issues across the world, do you think a campaign like UNDROPPABLE can save education?

Shazam: Not Just for Music Anymore

by Kim Taylor

A few days ago I spotted a familiar logo on the TV screen during a Home Depot commercial.  No, not the Home Depot logo—the Shazam logo.  You’ve heard of Shazam, right?  Let’s say you hear a song while you’re in the aisle at Publix, but can’t remember who sings it or what the name is.  Launch the Shazam app on your phone and seconds later you have the info … if you ask me, that alone is pretty nifty technology.

Why stop at music, though? Shazam is now pairing up with brands to make TV more interactive, too. Enter Home Depot. When consumers see that little blue logo on the screen, they can “Shazam it” which takes them directly to Home Depot’s YouTube Channel complete with DIY videos and home improvement tips and tricks.

Who’s the smarty here:  Shazam for creating this brilliant technology or brands like Home Depot that are savvy enough to integrate it into their marketing?  I declare a tie, but would argue that the consumer wins, too.

Apparently it works on your favorite TV shows, too.  Will you give it a try?

Solutionism

by Roger Pynn

I so wish I had coined Dow Chemical’s word “Solutionism.”  Dow’s “Solutionism. The New Optimism.” makes for brilliant positioning and each new effort to build the company’s brand as one providing solutions just seems to get better.

As a worldwide Olympics partner, Dow created a fun and meaningful commercial titled “Hopeful” just for the Olympics as part of its ongoing campaign to tell the story of how the company provides solutions for agriculture, energy, infrastructure & transportation and consumers and their lifestyles.

The full campaign is great storytelling.  It is inspiring and clearly aimed at the public’s aspirations.  Sometimes a theme just resonates broadly across society and I think this one does.  This blogger for a Kansas City home renovations company saw some of her work in Dow’s tag line and “began smiling.”

Advertising Age raved about this spot that tells the story of a transportation solution.  In fact, you’ll find links to Dow solutionism stories all over the Web.

This isn’t just about advertising or PR.  It really is about rebranding.  Dow will always be a chemical company, and chemicals aren’t necessarily something we all like or relate to … but solutions are something else.

Are You Making These Five Twitter Mistakes?

by Kim Taylor

If you begin a tweet with @username—that’s a reply—which is only seen by the person you’re replying to and those followers shared between both you and that user. If you mean for it to be shared in the public stream, either re-phrase the tweet so the @username isn’t first, or use a period just before it.

Syncing your Facebook and Twitter can work, but if you tweet, “Like this post if cupcakes are your favorite treat,” your users know that information isn’t meant for them. If you’re syncing your accounts, be sure your messages work for both platforms.

Scheduling tweets is a social media manager’s best friend. However, scheduling multiple tweets which result in inadvertently flooding your followers’ Twitter stream is a quick way to lose followers. Schedule wisely.

Stop the automatic direct messages. They are trite, useless and do nothing but make you look like a less savvy user.

Don’t treat Twitter as a one-way communication vehicle. If your Twitter strategy includes only retweeting what others say about you and promoting yourself or your product, you’re doing it wrong. Success on Twitter comes from two-way communication. Listening and sharing with intermittent promotion sprinkled in is a strategy for success.

Whoops. I Just Insulted The Internet.

by Heather Keroes

Last Friday, a young lady who recently graduated from the University of Iowa, was likely shocked when a story she wrote for NextGen Journal resulted in hundreds of comments on the not-so-well-known website.  Her article, “Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25,” drew the ire of social media professionals (most of them over the age of 25).

HARO founder Peter Shankman posted on Facebook about her article, encouraging marketing people “to have fun with this genius.”  In a way, she did ask for it … but I also felt bad for her when reading through the scores of negative comments.  When I saw the link to her story from the founder of HARO, I had to click it.  The headline was, well, very enticing to me as someone who is over the age of 25 and has worked as a social media manager and continues to advise clients on social media.

Since the controversial article was posted on Friday, NextGen Journal’s editors published a response article, as did one of the self-professed “social media old folks” incensed by her story.  But, we have yet to hear from the author, herself, who is likely hiding from all of the attention (note: she continues to post to her Twitter as if nothing has happened).

The last sentence of her article, pretty much sums up her opinion:

“The mere fact that my generation has been up close and personal with all these developments [social media] over the years should make clear enough that we are the ones who can best predict, execute, and utilize the finest developments to come.”

It’s a naive statement, by someone just out of school, and I don’t agree with it (but, then again, I am older than 25!). While I whole-heartedly agree with most of the criticisms of the article, and the right to post those comments, it was the personal attacks in the comments and on her social media pages that disturb me as borderline cyber-bullying. If we’re so older and wiser, we should respond with maturity, not name-calling and demeaning rants.

I could go on and on about this article and the general response to it, but need to get to the point for the sake of this blog.  An important fact has eluded this young writer.  Even if her story is removed from NextGen Journal, it will not disappear.  Trust me, I wish someone had told me years ago that the Aerosmith fan site I created for a desktop publishing class in college would still be up for years to come.  Thankfully it has not haunted my professional career (perhaps it has even helped J).  The best way she, or anyone else in her situation, can respond is to face the criticism head-on and maturely write another article (a sentiment shared by at least one “angry old guy”) that hopefully shows that she has learned from this experience and that there was no intent to offend the masses … you know, the ones that might employ her someday.

What if You Can’t Follow the Money?

by Roger Pynn

Virtually every reporter will be admonished by an editor to “follow the money.”  And if you’re a business reporter you’d better darned well be able to find the money in any story.  So when you see a story that says “but no money is expected to change hands between the two companies, according to The New York Times,” you have to conclude that the times are changing.

Any time Facebook does something these days it makes news … not always good.  When it plans to share content with NBCUniversal on coverage of the London Olympics “it draws a headline that says “Facebook, NBC reportedly going into a partnership during Olympics.” 

Do you remember when partnerships usually involved the exchange of assets?  It is indeed a strange new world.

When You Have 900 Million Users, Does Communication Matter?

by Kim Taylor

On Monday, the Internet was ablaze with user comments (mostly complaints) about Facebook’s quiet move to switch displayed email addresses on profiles to @facebook.com addresses.

Facebook’s spokesperson claims the move was to “add consistency to the site once every user was assigned an @facebook.com address.”  But also noted that, “in hindsight, the company probably should have better explained the email switchover.”

Pro Tip:  Whether you’re communicating to one user or 900 million, communication matters.

I wouldn’t expect much in the way of change from Facebook, though.  As Mashable so eloquently stated, Facebook is truly the honey badger of social media.

Feeling Sad? Microsoft’s Advertisers May Soon Know

by Julie Primrose

The fact that marketers track our online activity and use the collected data to target the messages we receive is not news.  Facebook, Google and plenty of other companies have based their businesses around that very public fact.  However, Microsoft is now taking its targeted marketing efforts a step further.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that Microsoft filed a patent in late 2010 for a technology that can be used to target advertising to customers based on their current emotional states.  The technology may eventually be used in smartphones, tablets and other personal devices but currently the most likely application is in Microsoft’s Kinect device for Xbox 360 and PCs.  Kinect is a motion-tracking device that allows users to interact with the game console or computers using just body movement and their voice.

With this new technology, combined with more traditional methods of data gathering such as search queries and social media, Microsoft can interpret users’ moods based on their facial expressions, speech patterns and body movements.  Microsoft’s patent application outlines several examples of how it will determine a user’s mood … for example, if a person with a Kinect device is yelling at their video game, it will assign him or her a negative mood and select the ads being shown accordingly.

Although this was merely a patent application and the technology may never actually be used by Microsoft, it is interesting that the technology exists.  I wonder if consumers will ever reach a level at which they are comfortable letting a company target them based on a factor as personal as their mood.  It will certainly be interesting to watch the implications if Microsoft does put this technology to use in any future products.