social media

There's a disconcerting trend among companies now to hire a social media or community manager via a contest. People can seek nominations from friends or put their own name forward in an attempt to prove that they're the most popular choice for the position.

In my 2 years on Twitter, I've found it to be an incredible networking tool, resource and place to vent. And in the past months, it's become even better - brands are proactively reaching out to answer questions I have. How? A variety of ways, but many are using a tool called Twitter Search.

I work just north of Addison Circle, and it's nice sometimes to go out and walk around and not look at a computer for a few minutes. However, I've found that Addison Circle is a complete failure of usability, especially for first time users. Here's how:

Tonight, I'm watching the Oscars. And I'm watching it in a way I haven't in the past several years: live. I DVR everything - I DVR'ed the Olympics, I record baseball and I couldn't even tell you what night my favorite show airs. But tonight, I'm sitting through what seems like hours of commercials for one reason - Twitter. For me, to watch the Oscars on a delay would mean turning of Twitter and Facebook for the night - the humanity!

Broadcast networks have taken Twitter integration to different levels. For Fox, it involved invasive "live tweets" from show stars. For NBC, it's apparently a token integration to appease both their audience and the athletes taking part in this year's Winter Olympics.

I read a recent post by Alan Wolk, and his conclusion really stood out to me:

"I’ll leave you with this quote from a smart young guy named Matt Daniels 'Marketing has a bell curve–most companies create average marketing and achieve average results.' Why did we think social media was going to be any different?"

Today, museums, organizations, visitors and enthusiasts around the world celebrated the first #followamuseum day. Organized by Jim Richardson of the blog Museum Marketing (UK), the campaign asked Twitter users to share their favorite museums to follow and discover new ones as well.

Social media is about conversation, relationships and transparency. Where traditional media broadcasts, new media interacts. Yet, there are several foundational elements these two forms of marketing have in common. One of those is design.

I've been taking part in the Social Media Challenge for just over a week. During that time, other participants have shared interesting blogs and intriguing posts, and my Google Reader reading list has doubled.

"Have the intern do it" - it's a phrase often uttered in nonprofits, and is perfectly fine in most cases. However, those 5 words should never be associated with your organization's social media campaign, and here's why: