My exploration of social media
Social Media
What Men Hate About Facebook
Jul 25th
This is a great short clip I came acrross that Mike Bracco shared on Friend Feed. It highlights some of the differences men and women have when using Facebook…. and it made me laugh. Good stuff – so check it out.
Social Media Example – Farm.TV and LRC open House
Jul 21st
Farm.TV is a Canadian based social media site for the farming industry. It is perhaps not as glamorous as celebrities and stars using social media, or even the big social networks, but it is a great example of just what can be done with the web using social media.
I personally became aware of Farm.TV through my father Brian Freeze, the Director at Agriculture and Agra-Food Canada’s Lethbridge Research Center. Yesterday on Farm.TV they highlighted an upcoming open house at the research center. So check out my Dad, and if you’re in the Lethbridge Alberta area check out the open house – the LRC is quite a cool place, I worked there a few summers as a teen and loved it.
Social Media’s Contribution to Customer Service – “United Breaks Guitars”
Jul 17th
United Breaks Guitars is a great example of what social media can do for customer service. David Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell, illustrate with this song and video just what can be done when social media is used to express grievances. Today when I first saw this video – having seen it posted by a friend of mine, Jason Crawford, on Facebook, already had over 3 million views and over 15 thousand comments. News channels and web pages are reporting on in today all over the place so I expect the number to just increase. United has already responded to David about the incident and has tried to make amends… the damage is done though and perhaps they will make some changes due to the incident. (Click here for more information from David)
My point in posting this though is to highlight the change that is happening in business due to social media. Social media makes it so any one’s voice can be heard by millions. You do not have to be famous or clever, or even a good song writer like Carroll. All you need is just a little on line presence to make your voice heard through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or whatever and you can make an impact. For business this means they can no longer sluff you off and ignore treating you right. Customer service is key in this world today thanks to social media; some like Zappos.com get it, others like United do not. It also means that business need to understand this change in dynamic or they could get burned… Just like United.
From Building43 – Innovaion and the Web… and Video on the Web
Jul 14th
From Building43 – Robert Scoble interviews John Kao, the San Francisco strategist and author of, Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back. One of the great points I liked was the conversation Robert and John had on the use of video over the Internet. With the great advancements that are being made every day in video, I agree with them that the conversations in business and with customers will continue to get better and better. Here’s to great video… just like this video interview – it communicates so much more than just text.
the San Francisco strategist and author of Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back.
Layar – The Worlds First Mobile Augmented Reality Browser
Jun 16th
Layar is a cool new browser application to launch soon, first in the Netherlands in July and then hopefully world wide later. It will give the user the ability to use an Android (Google) phone to interact with the world around them – using their camera, screen and GPS to target layers of information on the surroundings. Check out the video and their web site: Layar.eu
Magpie – Twitter Embedded Ads
Jun 10th
I recently came across Magpie for Twitter ads and found the idea interesting. I am not completely sold on the idea but it is definitely worth taking a look at. Here is a small video on what they do:
Magpie – Join the Conversation from Magpie & Friends Ltd. on Vimeo.
I singed up my Family Nester Twitter account to start using the service as a twitterer to get paid for the Magpie tweets that get put out from my account. I set mine to send out a Magpie Tweet no more than 1 for every 10 of my regular tweets. I also set it so I have to approve my tweets before they go out.
What I am hoping for with the Family Nester account is that the Magpie tweets will be specific to family life such that they still provide value to my readers – something that is of value to them. I do not want my account to appear like spam and drive away readers.
Let me know what you think about the concept. Should I use it or not?
3D Twitter With Minish
Jun 1st
Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to interact with Twitter in 3D, well that is what the folks at Minish are doing. Minish gives each Twitter account a fish, who’s size apparently depends on your Twitter Status and visualize the tweeters as fish in 3D. Check out their promo video:
Currently they are not accepting new fish but as of July 13 they will begin their second Alpha testing and are adding 1000 new fish. To sign up you need to follow @Minishdotnet to reserve your fish – I did this and am still waiting for confirmation on my spot. I am assuming some time after the alpha we will get a chance to see
I came across Minish on Friend Feed (I love Friend Feed) from Brad Williamson who posted a bit on it there.
Google Friend Connect – Come be My Friend
May 30th
I have added Google Friend Connect to my blog as a way to connect with my visitors here – currently I am trying it out but as of now, since I just added it, I am a bit friendless. So this is a self serving plea to all of you, especially my friends and family, to come and join my site through Google Friend Connect. To do it you just have to click join and if you already us a Google service like Gmail or Blogger you can just sign in with that. You can also add it to your blogs and we can all get interconnected.
So why did i do this? Part for the reasons listed above and part per Robert Scoble’s request. When he added it a couple weeks back his main issue was having to FTP a couple files to his his server. For the masses a plugin for the feature would be best but it still was not hard to install on my site. I had to put two html files on my server via FTP, then I pasted the code Google had generated for me on my sidebar file using the Wordpress appearance editor. I also added the Social Bar on the bottom of my site which was also just a bit of code pasting here and there, again, for this feature a plugin would be better for most.
So check it out, join my site, and let me know how it goes.
Sudar’s Post to Friend Feed Plugin – Testing
May 29th
SudarMuthu.com
I have installed Sudar’s updated Post to Friend Feed Plug-in here on RobertFreeze.com. The newest version came from some chatting on Friend Feed asking for the ability to send post images and a summary as the first comment. I have been wanting something like this so I have disabled my Twitter Tools Plug-in and turned this one on along with the requisite FriendFeed API Core Plugin and we will see how well it works.
Here is what the plug-in looks like int the Add New Post page – You can see I am adding Sudar’s avatar as one of the images to test it out.
Why Your Business Needs to Twitter
May 27th
Twitter has been around now for a few years – early on the numbers were small. Now twitter is starting to be widely adopted – more and more people are hopping on. Your business needs to be there, and here’s why:
People are looking for you. More and more of the people you are trying to reach with your business are on twitter and looking for people, products and groups in areas they are interested in. If you’re not there, you’ll miss the opportunity.
Bring traffic to your Site. Twitter is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site. In your tweets you can post links to news, articles, promotions or whatever on your site and automatically drive traffic to that page on your site. This is extremely valuable whether you have just a blog or a large corporate site. The more followers you have the more you will have come, and within seconds of your tweet.
Keep your customers informed. Once you have your targeted following, twitter can help you to keep your customers informed on upcoming events, products, changes or company news. If you have a blog, you can link twitter to your blog to send out a tweet each time there is a new post – once it goes out you immediately get readers, just make sure that title is catchy enough.
Put a face to the company name. More and more value is being seen by having a company with a human face behind it. What better way to humanize your company than to have tweets from the owner available for both employees and customers to follow. Followers can respond to what you are doing and build a connection with you that may not have existed otherwise, thus building brand loyalty and happy customers and employees.
Respond real-time to news. Twitter can also give you the ability to respond quickly to news about your Business – good or bad. If it is good news, you can hop on twitter to spread the joy with everyone. If it is bad or false, you can respond quickly and get your side of the story out, or correct misinformation.
Find new opportunities. Twitter is also a great way to connect with other business and people. Each person or business is sharing ideas and experiences that they are having. It can give you a better idea of where you can provide new services or products that your public are demanding. Watching their tweets can also give you ideas on where you can improve upon current services and products.
As you get out there, and start tweeting, you will surly see some benefits I have not listed, these are just a few.
Some additional things I don’t mention here but will be writing on in the future are: how best to start using Twitter for a business, how to grow your followers the right way, and Twitter best practices.