Social Media Week 2012: Love, Personalization and the Death of Serendipity

February 14, 2012 Leave a comment


Ah, love. Each February 14 we celebrate all things love in remembrance of St. Valentine, a priest who (literally) lost his head over the emotion.  And so, by the powers of the Roman god Cupid; the Greek god Eros; and the consumer goods god Hallmark, we enjoy love found, curse love lost and are hopeful for love to come.

The logo for Love@AOL

Love@AOL - one of the first online dating sites

For me, it also brings back memories of my first “real” job in social media, as a Community Manager at AOL for one of its largest channels, Love@AOL. Launched as a Valentine;s Day special feature in 1996, it did so well that it became a permanent channel, with (at the time) the largest collection of online dating profiles featuring the newest innovation of the day — photos! Simply put, people — even online —  expressed a need to connect, to be social.

Fast forward to yesterday in New York City at the Third Annual Social Media Week New York. In his keynote speech titled ‘Top 2012 Trends in Social,  JWT CEO David Eastman pointed out that four key operators own almost all of the information about you  online. He called them “GAFA” (pronounced “gaffa”), they are: Read more of this post

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Social Media Week 2011: SUXORZ

February 11, 2011 4 Comments

When looking over the Social Media Week NYC offerings, there were many having to do with how to do social media right. So, it was only natural to register for the one that promised to lambaste those who failed — and failed spectacularly:

SUXORZ*: The Worst Social Media Advertising of 2010, Hosted by Blogads

* – SUXORZ: Leet-speak (hacker talk) for something that sucks, a lot. Opposite of ROXORZ.

Panelists at the Feb 10 event at the Gershwin Hotel were: Jessica Amason, ThisIsWhyYoureFat; Brian Clark, GMDstudios; Brian Morrissey, Ad Week; and BL Ochman, Proof IC with moderator Henry Copeland, Blogads.com. Entrants were grouped into five categories, and the winners, err, losers of each going for the Biggest Loser title. Here are the categories, with the winner in bold.

Meme Purgatory: Trying, but failing, to create viral characters
Cisco’s “Ted from Accounting” – trying to emulate Old Spice’s “Smell Like a Man” icon
Dell’s “Dr. Ashley”
Smirnoff’s “Bros Icing Bros”
Volkswagen’s “Sluggy Patterson”

Missed Connections: What you would typically label a #FAIL
CVS’s Community Manager having a protected Twitter account
Denny’s pointing to a Twitter account (Twitter.com/Dennys) which actually belongs to a Taiwanese guy
Leo Burnett Worldwide’s Introduction to Humankind video
Starbuck’s getting Facebook to blitz an existing Community page that had 3,000 members — in Hungary — when they launched their “official” Hungarian page

Mean People Suck: There’s a way to soothe the savage social media beast (sic) – and then there are these:
Dr. Pepper taking over fans’ Facebook status updates to post outrageous entries
Mercedes requiring Facebook sign-up for a Twitter contest
Nestle’s inability to deal with the social media backlash spurred by Greenpeace
Price Chopper contacting a customer’s employer and requesting disciplinary action for posting a negative tweet

You’re So Vain: Just because your PR team makes you do social media doesn’t mean you get it
Fast Company’s Influence Project, where popularity equals influence (it doesn’t!)
Kenneth Cole’s Coptic co-opting of the unrest in Egypt to tweet about his fashion line
Kim Kardashian led Digital Death campaign to forgo social media until a ransom was paid (see my related entry Quitting Twitter for Charity Doesn’t Make Cent$)
Lebron James joining Twitter just before his big announcement, then abandoning it

People’s Choice: New media failures that ticked people off
BP’s response (or lack thereof) to social media sturm-und-drang regarding the oil spill
Charmin’s ‘TP-A-Friend’ Facebook app
Facebook’s Stories that turns your posts into ads
TSA’s handling of the full-body peep show security scanner

Worst of the Worst:
Cisco’s “Ted from Accounting”
Denny’s Taiwanese guy Twitter account
Price Chopper negative tweet retribution demand
Kim Kardashian Digital Death campaign
 BP’s response (or lack thereof) to sturm-und-drang

The biggest loser is:  Price Chopper! For the most unsocial social media response.

A well deserved #EPICFAIL

Filed under media, Memes, PR, social media, social media week, web2.0 Tagged with , ,

Live Tweeting: Social Media Week IABC

February 9, 2011 Leave a comment

Last night (Feb. 8 ), as part of New York Social Media Week* I attended a panel discussion sponsored by the New York chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators at my old stomping grounds, the McGraw-Hill building, titled:

When Publicly-Held Companies’ Free-Wheeling Social Media
Collides with Disclosure Policies

When employees in a publicly-held company disclose “material information” via Social Media, the risks and ramifications are enormous.  It could even result in the Securities and Exchange Commission investigating your firm or imposing a fine – all because they found out through the wrong channel.

The panelists were:

  • Standard & Poor’s, Alice Cherry, Senior Director of Social Media
  • Pfizer, Kate Bird, Director, Corporate Internet Communications
  • AT&T, Paul Dalessio, Vice President at Fleishman Hillard (agency)
  • Definition 6, Gil Wolchock, Group Account Director [Moderator]

The spin on this discussion was it involved companies that operate under strict regulatory guidelines in addition to normal corporate concerns over social media use. Here are my tweets broadcast from the event (in chronological order): Read more of this post

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