My own piece of the Internet
 
Category: <span>social networking</span>

Category: social networking

How Marketers can use Pinterest

Online pinboard, Pinterest has been reported in the tech and mainstream press as the coolest new social network on the block with amazing growth and an avid bunch of mostly female fans. In early April Expirian Hitwise flagged Pinterest as the number 3 social media website with 104 million visitors in March, and Shareaholic reported that Pinterest referred more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined. In Australia Pinterest is ranked one of the top 10 social media websites. These are some seriously impressive numbers and clearly marketers need to take notice. But before your head starts spinning about how you …

Why no one uses Google+

At the last count Google+ had 90 million registered users, 60% of whom “engage daily”. Whatever that means. The other 40% are wondering what the hell they can use Google+ for. Except of course the SEO bunnies who are using Google+ to jack up the rankings of websites. The jury is still out on both Google+ and the SEO benefits. So how could this happen? Google have been promoting Google+ heavily, they have linked it into their search pages, their lucrative ad network, and CEO Larry Page has been touting the platform in earnings calls as growing rapidly and one …

The social era

Collaborating with people through shared purpose creates advantage because it allows everyone to work towards a shared goal. When people know the purpose of an organization, they don’t need to check in or get permission to take the next step, they can just do it. When people know the purpose, they are not waiting to be told what to do. With shared purpose, alignment happens without coordination costs. Shared purpose makes customers and team-members more than transactions and payroll recipients. It allows us to “tear down that wall” between who is “in” or “outside” the firm creating a more permeable …

Build your team with blogging

A mate of mine was telling me that he blogs all his meetings to inform his team about what’s happening and what he is promising clients. He works in a large healthcare network with thousands of staff so stakeholder management, transparency, and cost control is very important. He told me that the blogging meant he didn’t have to repeat conversations and everyone was kept informed. I reckon this is a nifty way to use social media tools to manage a team. It’s inexpensive, easy to use, and easily allows for team engagement. Sure Basecamp works great for project management and …

Australian fashion brands and sports dominate Facebook

I was talking with a colleague about the BONDS Facebook page today admiring their 600K+ likes when she challenged me to find another Australian brand with a higher number of likes. I’m happy to say that I did. A few things stood out. Australian fashion brands dominated the rankings. Global surfing brands Quiksilver and Billabong led the charge with over 1 million likes, followed by BONDS. The NRL leads the AFL by around 30 thousand likes. Interestingly, the NRL fan site, my-nrl.com, has slightly more likes than the official NRL site. Holden has over 200K followers, no doubt on the back of …

What is Google+ really?

When Google+ was launched a few weeks ago I saw it as another Google Buzz writ large. Google Buzz was of course a lamentable failure after hype of dizzying proportions. Now I think Google+ may be different. In a little over 3 weeks the service has amassed 20  million users and seen the social media stars and blogger experts jump on board and make all sorts of wonderful claims. My favourites are: Personal blogs are no longer needed because Google+ allows maximum engagement; This will kill twitter and people are already bored by twitter; The 140 character limit is limiting twitter; This …

Poor old Malcom Gladwell

Malcom Gladwell must be wondering what went wrong. In October 2010 the award winning New Yorker writer penned a piece that tried to address the hyperbole about so-called twitter revolutions and suddenly he was the most hated man on twitter. The response was spectacular. Twitter erupted into outrage, Biz Stone co-founder of twitter responded with a thoughtful but dense piece in The Atlantic Monthly that promoted twitter as a force for fostering relationships and creating meaningful change. For Stone the power of twitter lies in its ability to empower people through communication. He finishes his defence with: Rudimentary communication among …

Why Facebook is still doomed.

Some time ago I wrote that Facebook was doomed because the business model relied on erecting billboards in parks. People were there to play, not be sold to. Since then, Facebook  has become bigger than many medium-sized countries and has been valued at more than $50 billion by investment bankers. Oh and my Dad who is 74, is now on Facebook. So if Facebook is bigger than most countries and worth a lot of money, how can I be right?  The answer is in comparing Facebook to Google.  Google has become uber-successful by opening advertising to the masses. Anyone with …

Entertain me

You see them everywhere – people with their heads down, supplicant hands, silent, staring at a mobile device. They are praying to the god of the Internet, requesting that the pipes and bytes entertain them, illuminate them and placate the boredom of being alive. Between 9pm and midnight around the world, the TV sits mute while people hover around the LCD monitor watching a rerun on hulu, or a cat doing backflips whilst wearing a tutu on YouTube. The Internet has simultaneously gone prime-time and become mobile and this is changing what people expect from their online experiences regardless of …

The anatomy of a #spill on twitter

Last night I was watching the ABC news and checking our twitter when I was some mention of an #alpspill. I searched for #spill, tweeted something inane and waited for the ABC to report something. It came in the 7.30 report and it amounted to guesswork by Kerry O’Brien about Julia Gillard being in Kevin Rudd’s office. Apart from the Twitter gossip there really wasn’t any news. Crikey was silent, The ABC was relatively silent, The SMage was relatively silent. Some “star tweeters” like @bernardkeane simply said “I can’t comment”. What there was on twitter though was a lot of …