As marketers work around the clock to leverage the newest social media platform, I can’t help but reflect on my first uses of social media. I’m a firm believer that you can’t evolve or grow without knowing your roots and learning from your past—and I realize now that in my past, I was engaged in social media before there was such a thing as “social media.”
It was about 13 years ago when I created my first site—a “Power Rangers” fan [...]

“[Brands] need to realize that the conversation will extend beyond their control, so they should have a strong point of view and good, engaging content.” –Russ Lidstone, CEO of Euro RSCG London, in an article on UTalkMarketing
All the changes social media is bringing about now are accelerating, creating new ways for consumers and brands to interact with each other, based on these key characteristics: trust, transparency and humility.

“How Consumers Interact with Brands on Social Networks” on eMarketer
“Fickle [...]

It’s Internet Week NYC! (Dates are officially June 7-14, 2010.) So of course I had to check out the Mashable Media Summit on Tues., June 8. The summit had amazing speakers, ranging from executives from Yahoo!, Motorola and foursquare to recognizable personalities like Dr. Sanjay Gupta and actor Edward Norton, who may be most famous for his role in Fight Club (“The first rule of Mashable Media Summit is you don’t talk about Mashable Media Summit”…wonder how many times he’s [...]

Passion and greed. Those two words account for so much failure in new media, I can’t even begin to tell you. But I can tell you why, and you can fix it.
We’ve all been there. Sitting in the brainstorming meeting feeling the energy. Organizing ideas, turning ideas into goals and building plans to meet those goals. And it’s good: 500 Twitter followers, 750 Facebook friends and 1,000 blog readers by the third quarter of next year. Plans turn to implementation, and you slowly begin notice it. You [...]

I was looking forward to the Evan Williams keynote on Monday, March 15, at Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW). Williams, the CEO of Twitter and cofounder of Pyra Labs (creator of weblog-authoring software Blogger), was going to speak about the next generation of social media. I wasn’t alone. Multiple attendees were rushing to get a spot in the front row. This was the only session I attended where the room was filled and people were standing along the walls.
Moments [...]

The 50 pages of the latest Pew Internet & American Life Project’s update on American news consumption are full of intriguing information. When you realize that the creation and shaping of “news” is an integral part of marketing, the impact of this study on our work is quite significant.
According to the study:

37 percent of Internet users have actively contributed to the creation, commentary, or dissemination of news:
25 percent of Internet users have commented on an online news story or blog [...]

This is the first installment of a weekly list by Baptiste Limb, interactive art director at Euro RSCG 360 in Lyon, France, of social media links he finds interesting and relevant. “My vision is mostly that advertising strategy has to be more creative than ever,” he says. “Creative people can’t be just TV/print or Web, but on all current and future media.”

“Ideas Are Core to Enterprise 2.0” on Blogging Innovation

“The Top 5 Reasons Brands Fear Social Media” on Socialmedia.biz

“54% of [...]

Originally posted on lifestory2010.com.
Health-care professionals’ adoption and use of digital channels has been outpacing even that of health-care consumers over the past 12 to 18 months, and for a growing number of physicians, the Internet is quickly becoming their preferred resource for both education and promotional content.
Use in the clinical setting is growing, and now digital channels, whether websites, eDetailing or mobile content, are becoming part of physicians’ routine before, during and after patient consultations to find information and complete [...]

I’ve worked with bloggers for some time now, and I even discuss work with them during off-hours so I can constantly improve on my strategies. One thing I’ve noticed that many bloggers have in common: pet peeves having to do with PR professionals. Some are so common they shouldn’t even be occurring, but our industry will always have those who choose to not evolve. So here, gleaned from my research, is a list of eight PR pet peeves:
8. Proofreading, or [...]

In the PR business, we’re all constantly thinking about social marketing, social networks, the social Web and social media. But we don’t think as often as we should about what those terms actually mean. Where does one end and another begin?
As Trebor Scholz, assistant professor in the Department of Media Study at the New School, lays out in an info-packed online slide show, the roots of our collective digital society are long and tangled: from an e-mail progenitor in 1965, [...]