Facebook Ups the Ante with new Comment-by email functionality

As I've mentioned before, I've been writing for a blog called Social Media Marketing. The following is the first bit from a piece I wrote last week. To read the full article, check it out here.

Many of us have come to depend on Facebook for daily entertainment, connecting with old friends, or communication to pass the time. Since it’s launch in early 2004, the site has evolved greatly from the small, relatively exclusive site with an emphasis placed on what individuals put out there for others to see. As time went on and poking (thankfully) fell out of fashion, the way we communicated with each other on Facebook changed drastically. We started with messages, sent directly and privately from sender to recipient. When the wall was launched, most folks took their conversations public, but those conversations always ran the risk of being deleted by others who wanted to claim more space on the page. Anyone else remember those early day free-for-alls? Oh, how things have changed.

OMG, SM is totes sweet! Avoiding a Communication Breakdown

In the days of Facebook status updates and 140-character tweets, the language we use has been getting more and more concise, though not necessarily simpler (as those of us not familiar with “1337 $p34k” and the TXTing language the youth population can attest.) For businesses utilizing social media platforms, this has been both a blessing and a curse: it has forced us to quite literally consider the language of our consumers and learn how to interact with them, but it has also forces our hand a bit. The brevity of our social media interactions means we have little time to make an impression. Therefore, there is more importance placed on the crafting of those messages. Social media is often viewed as being more casual, but that doesn’t mean that all convention can go to the wayside;spelling, grammar, and clarity are still crucial to successful communication.

Want to read more? Check it out on my page at the Social Media Marketing blog.

Oh how embarrassing, my laziness is showing...

If you haven't already read enough new year resolution-based promise posts, for all practical purposes, you can add this one to the list. I have no set goal, and it wasn't brought on by the coming of 2010, but I'm coming back. Time to recommit to spending time doing the stuff I love.

Though I'll be making a conscious effort to post here more regularly, if you'd like a little variety, you can come check me out on Causecast, read my weekly post for Social Media Marketing, or follow me on Twitter (but no promises that'll be anything worthwhile.)

Looking forward to getting this conversation going again.

Lessons from Les Paul

Story has it that when Les Paul was in a severe car accident in 1948, he asked his doctor to set his arm permanently in the guitar-playing position. He did this out of admirable dedication and passion for his craft, and it served him well as he continued to play guitar into his 90's.

(It's striking how little has changed)

Is your brand prepared to make a permanent stance in the market? Is your product ready to be synonymous with its unique purpose? If not, it might be time to re-evaluate what you stand for.

Come Together: Community Musings

"It is not enough to create a flag. You must have a nation willing to follow it."- Patrick Hanlon, Primal Branding

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Good Ideas Salon on community management. There we heard from Matt Stinchcomb of Etsy, Jen Burton of Digg, and Heather Champ of Flickr, moderated by Mia Quagliarello of YouTube.

Much of the conversation reminded me of Hanlon's quote. Matt said that your community may very well be your brand, so you must make it magnetic. Jen of Digg also spoke to this point, noting that the people are the product. As a result, you have to look at all of the different behaviors of your community. For example, visitors to Etsy may be there to shop, browse, sell, or communicate. Visitors to Flickr may be there for inspiration, to learn, or to get help.

There are many online communities (and brands) that could do well to think of reaching out to the folks who participate on their site in some of these different ways. For example, while you can go to a certain artist's page on Etsy, as a browser or purchaser, you can't promote your favorite artists, share your "wishlist," or create a gallery of your purchases. For all practical purposes, these users are outside of the community. Some of your passionate consumers will then try to create the conversation without the brand; Lauren Puglia of Undercurrent recently posted about her purchases from new favorite artists on her blog, but was not able to share that instantly with the Etsy community. While Lauren still helped promote those artists, she wasn't given the platform to have a voice in that community. Matt had mentioned that you must give your community the tools they need to self-organize, and speaking to him after the panel, he did say that personal space on the site, or profiles, are on the list of innovations to come.

So what can your site or brand do to expand the community and grow as a product? Definitely an interesting exercise in self-inventory.

Other great takeaways from the panel:

_ the first 48 hours after a change likely won't be the ultimate feeling of the community, nor their ultimate attitude toward the change, and there will always be people who don't like change (Heather)

_ early adopters are fickle and you have to let them go--it's their nature (Jen)

_ treat your members as ambassadors and invite them to bring their existing communities to your site (Heather)

_ when trying to pave the way for involvement, think about how you can make your community more like a book club than a bar...no one can get anywhere if they try to shout to an entire bar, but they'll want to share and will be more likely to have meaningful conversation at a book club (Jen)

Brands as Discography

I was thinking last week about guilty pleasure music. Not necessarily the artists you wish you had hidden in an alternative iTunes library when someone's looking through your music, but the songs by the bands you love that just aren't the typical. Maybe it's when they come out with a record that just isn't quite as powerful as previous ones. Maybe it's when they try a concept album, against their better judgement. Whatever it is, we often stand by our favorite artists even when they go for something simple, pop-y, or just fun for the sake of being fun.

Really, this makes a lot of sense. We often appreciate music by an artist based on the emotional connection we have with them. As a result, we appreciate the journey, the deviation from the usual. These pieces might not always stand alone, or even fairly represent the overall discography, but we appreciate them all the same. (Um, "Honey Pie"? We love it because we feel like we’re seeing new sides of the people we already love, cherish, and admire.)

The same goes for brands, and this is a big discovery for me personally. I always like the cleanliness, the centric nature of brands that stick to their pillars of truth. I have a hard time accepting ad campaigns built purely on “joy” or “goodwill” for the company. To me, strategy has always been essential, and every piece has to be on the same dart board as your brand truth. But like our favorite diversions from the typical in our music, I’m suddenly floored by the idea that that’s what I might love about individual campaigns, and our consumers have some of these same reactions.

I know I'm probably late to the game on this one, but I've always heard the arguments without understanding. Hopefully this helps a few of you out there as well.

What do my contextual ads say about me?

You'd think with all the information one could get on me through my internet usage, it would have been clear that I'm a gal. The placement with this story is just too perfect to ignore.