Entries Tagged 'General' ↓

Steve Baker, a notable Business Week journalist, has just published a story about the growth, trend, usage and consumption of Twitter by journalists and brands. The interesting thing was his approach to developing the story and finding participants for the facts/insights for his article. We saw via twitter that he was drafting a story and reached out to him to contribute. Using Twitter for PR outreach as well as for participant insight collection is novel and something to watch. The article discusses how some brands such as Dell are recognizing revenue/ROI through Twitter/Tweeting. Look for much more conversations about how the Twitter channel continues to grow and moves more into the mainstream.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

Just arriving in Sonoma for the start of a three day conference organized by the Society of New Communications Research. Attending the advisory board meeting that is comprised of Fellows, Board Members, and Researchers as we speak. An incredible collection of individuals involved in this association. I am really looking forward to contributing at the conference and being part of the board. A shout out to Jen McClure who manages this organization, connects everyone, and pulled this event together for another year.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

PBS’s two-part documentary this week on the war in Iraq was one of the most compelling pieces of journalism I have seen in years. Bush’s War is five hours pieced together from more than 400 interviews that explain in amazing detail the events starting with 9/11 and ending with the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld.

Be prepared. Your opinion of the government and particularly the Bush Administration may never be the same after watching. It’s a stunning indictment of our involvement in the Middle East. The show can still be caught on TV in most markets or downloaded online. And, of course afterward I’m sure you’ll be compelled to join the discussion on the PBS Web site.

On a related war note, the National Archives has launched the Interactive Vietnam Veterans Memorial - a site that allows anyone to look up the more than 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam and listed on the famous wall in Washington D.C. Virtual visitors can learn about each veteran and leave tributes.

Mike Spataro

Dave Balter and his hive of BzzAgents have published a white paper to trigger some thought provoking discussion around ROI models for social media and word-of-mouth.

Called “Valuing Advertising’s Original Medium: The Conversation,” the Bzz team tries to make a case for assigning value to word-of-mouth in a CPM environment, arguing that while advertisers recognize the benefits of consumer-generated media they really don’t know how to calculate a value to the medium. That’s not easy to do.

It’s an intriguing idea, especially when you consider the team’s methodology resulted in a whopping $300 CPM for word of mouth campaigns. BzzAgent does great work and like many in social media circles today, the need for better measurement models and tools remains very high.

If you don’t like the paper you can at least check out why Dave has the coolest CEO photo on the Web.

Two of the world’s largest PR agencies - Edelman and Ketchum - have released comprehensive studies that contain numerous insights related to social media and a variety of other worldwide corporate and media trends.

Edelman’s “8th Annual Trust Barometer” takes a global look at corporate trust and credibility. Some of the more interesting findings from my perspective include:

• More people in Brazil, Russia, India and China use social media for company information than here in the states;
• Google is moving up the ranks as one of the most trusted sources for corporate information, right up there with CNN and the BBC;
• Social networks ranks among the lowest in providing credible information about a brand in the minds of most consumers; and,
• young people seem to show higher levels of trust in business than older influential consumers.

Ketchum’s Report, “Media Myths and Realities” focused more on media usage than corporate trust. It’s key findings included:

• the way professionals communicate is out of sync with the way consumers use media;
• communicators need to include focusing on connecting with individuals in addition to mass media channels;
• consumers in emerging markets are setting the pace for media use; and,
• social networking sites lag far behind other established media channels and sites in overall usage by consumers.

It’s good to see these agencies and others including social media analysis in these annual reports.

Mike Spataro