Easy to understand social media guidelines
Posted on 05. Nov, 2009 by Cat in Content and Copy, Marketing
Mark Scott, the managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), outlined the public television’s digital media plan at new media conference.
What I particularly liked is that they have created social media guidelines that are easy to understand and balance responsibility with acceptance of the use of these new channels.
He says that staff should apply four standards when using social media:
- do not mix professional and personal in ways likely to bring [the company] into disrepute
- do not undermine your effectiveness at work
- do not imply [the company's] endorsement on personal views
- do not disclose confidential information obtained at work
I’ve removed the reference to the ABC as I think these four standards would make a good starting point for a policy document for employee use of social media.
And this wasn’t the only thing that the broadcaster had to say which was interesting.
Next week the ABC will also launch the first in a series of widgets, called My ABC Widget, which will allow people to add ABC content to their own websites, blogs and other online spaces… By giving individuals the ability to add ABC news stories to their life on the web, we improve the ease with which they can access our content – it’s another example of providing content to audiences in a format they want.
Can’t wait to see what widgets they’ll be offering!
10 Conversations to Monitor
Posted on 26. Oct, 2009 by Cat in Marketing
I wrote about Stevel Rubel’s presentation at the New Media Academic Summit. He mentioned that they published a paper “chock full of with actionable insights for businesses”. You can directly download the PDF.
I found particularly useful a list of 10 conversations for companies to monitor and I’ve added some of my own thoughts.
It’s very easy with current technology to set up automatic alerts to track mentions of your company’s brand name, website and key personnel (for example set up a Google Alert) – but the paper suggests this is not enough, you need to be looking for particular conversations and you should be treating different types of conversations differently. Some of these conversations may never even mention your brand (at least at first).
1. The Point of Need: If you can meet people at their point of need, you are not interrupting or pitching, you are helping and responding to an expressed need
Three Trends for the Future of PR and Marketing
Posted on 21. Oct, 2009 by Cat in Marketing
Steve Rubel has a great blog called Micro Persuasion (it’s well worth sticking on your reading list for his interesting and insightful comments). He works for a firm called Edelman and they along with PR Week hosted the New Media Academic Summit 2008.
Even though it was a year ago, these trends show no sign of waning.
From the Summit, he sumed up what he sees as the Trends That Will Help Define the Future of PR and Marketing and identifies three main trends:
The Attention Crash (more…)
Will it Blend?
Posted on 21. Sep, 2009 by Cat in Marketing
When you type “Blender” into Google, in the first handful of results (and the first result that involves an actual blending machine) you will find Will it Blend?
Blendtec make blenders but they also make wikedly successful viral videos showing their blenders blend all manner of things you wouldn’t normally blend. Their videos on blending an iPhone and and iPod had 5,430,656 and 5,466,711 views respectively. While this says something about the virability of stuff associated with Apple, most of their other blending videos reguarly get over 100,000 views with many hitting half a million or more.
Being in Australia, I’d never heard of the brand before but after seeing them pulverise garden hoses to hot soup (including the container), I’m now convinced of its superior blending power. It tops my list of blender desirability – I soooo want one! All because of some clever videos.
Because I can’t bear to watch an iPod or iPod being destroyed, here’s one of a sneaker being turned to dust:
Adoption as a Business Model (and Marketing Idea)
Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by Catherine in Business Ideas, Marketing
No I’m not suggesting that you go out and start doing something illegal – I’m talking about how virtual adoption can be a really great idea to connect people with your product or service (and donate funds!).
While Miro (a pretty cool video service that is definitely worth checking out) claims to be the first to allow “adopting” code – this is hardly a new business model – you see it a lot in charities like environmental groups that allow you to adopt a tree that you don’t actually physically own but you’ve sponsored; or aid groups that let you sponsor a child and be able to send letters to them.
Through beautifully rendered graphics charting the anthropomorphised growth of your code, Miro creates a real sense of connection between you and what effectively is a bunch of characters.
Remember how successful Cabbage Patch Kids were in the 1980s? Yes, they were adorable – but the killer marketing move was in giving each Kid its own birth certificate – it was no longer just a doll, it was your child. Miro gives you an adoption certificate that you can even post on your blog and “watch yours grow”.
And one day, your code will grow up to be “a little buddy like these”…
This has a place outside charities and open source software like Miro, I’ve seen apple farmers let you sponsor an apple tree for a year and you get all the apples it produces sent to you.
Can you think of something in your business that can be “adopted”?
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