Chris Webb's Publishing Blog » web2.0

No Bacn for Me, Please. Thanks.

Chris — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:21:29 +0000

I’m with Mike Gunderloy on this one.

Bacn? Seriously?

I first saw the term earlier today when I read a Tweet from Chris Brogan and it seems to be growing like a virus. See? It has already spread to this blog!

This is meme run amok. We don’t need a new word for email that’s sort of important. It’s not quite spam, but not something I can just delete right now – it’s Bacn?

Come on. This is not serious is it? Really?

Moving on…

Photo credit, Lucid_Nightmare

Your PR and Marketing Colleagues Don’t Understand Social Media

Chris — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:56:26 +0000

Do you feel this way? Then point them to this amazing article by Brian Solis. In his Manifesto for Integrating Social Media into Marketing, Brian covers the range of social media concepts and makes the case for engaging customers and participating in conversations using tools such as blogs, social networks, wikis, lifestreams ala Twitter and Jaiku, video, livecasts such as Veodia and ustream.tv, news aggregators such as Digg and Reddit, social media releases, videos, and podcasts.

Here are a few quick checks to get a feel for how much your company really understands what is happening in social media:

Is your company blogging? I don’t mean employee blogs about what their kids are doing (and yes, I have one of those too) but is someone really speaking openly and honestly to customers via a blog. Does your CEO blog?
Still pushing stodgy Press Releases or have you adopted a strategy for Social Media Releases?
Does your company think that their customers are not a part of the social media landscape – that its just a small percentage of people on the fringes of the Internet?
Does your company have a YouTube Channel?
Do you have a Social Media Newsroom?

If none of this sounds familiar, you owe it to yourself to read Brian’s excellent summary of the future of PR and Marketing.

Forrester’s Take on Social Media Activity

Chris — Tue, 01 May 2007 20:40:57 +0000

Over on the FASTForward Blog, Joe McKendrick has posted some brief thoughts on a new report from Forrester on Social participation on the web. Based on a survey of nearly 10,000 adults and youth in late 2006:

“Creators” (13%): Publish Web pages, publish blogs, upload video to sites like You Tube

“Critics” (19%): Comment on blogs, posting ratings and reviews.

“Collectors” (15%): Use RSS, tag Web pages

“Joiners” (19%): Use social networking sites

“Spectators” (23%): Read blogs, watch peer-generated video, listen to podcasts

“Inactives” (52%): Yeah, the rest of the world.

It’s encouraging to see that nearly half of the respondants are utilizing at least some form of social activity online. The key is focusing on each segment and determining how best to engage the participants. Here’s one possible (obvious) scenario:

Your message is seeded to the “Creators” and “Joiners” who can help spread the word.
The message is picked up by the “Collectors” (Digg, delic.io.us) who further the conversation
“Spectators” pick up on the message
Everyone becomes “Critics” and joins the conversation

I would be interested to know how many of those active in one or more aspects of online social activity also consider themselves “connectors” – people who enable members of the “Inactives” to become part of the conversation.