Applying Twitter: How It Works For Business

Twitter — an online presence application that has been called anything and everything from microblog and social network to the ultimate time waster — describes itself a "real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices." The latter is about right.Of course, I've also likened this presence application to non-linear chat (in that you can respond to people in real-time or several hours after...

Understanding ROI: U.S. Vets

While many social media experts and communicators tend to think "sales" anytime someone mentions return on investment (ROI), serving as a state commissioner for Nevada Volunteers (formerly Nevada Commission for National & Community Service, Inc.), provides a different perspective. Return on investment doesn't always mean profit margins; it means outcomes.U.S. Vets On Veterans Day U.S. Vets, one of several AmeriCorps-supported...

Communicating Need: Bloggers Unite For Refugees

In Iraq, it’s people like 29-year-old television producer Alaa, who covered the trial of Saddam Hussein and was then forced to flee his country and escape to Stockholm, Sweden. He is one of the more fortunate. More than 2 million Iraqis have left Iraq since 2003 and more than 1.6 million are still displaced in their own country with fears that the United States will pull out too soon. In the Democratic Republic of Congo,...

Forgetting Image: Reputation Beats Rock Star

When Don King first decided to tease his hair up to make a crown fitting for his infectious smile, booming laugh, and inimitable vocabulary, he quickly became globally recognizable as a universal boxing promoter. But while his flamboyant style is the stuff of legend, he never forgot that he came from a hardcore Cleveland ghetto nor did he mistake his larger-than-life-image for anything other than a recognizable badge...

Blending Post Structures: AIDA Additives

Especially for business blogs, modeling posts after an inverted pyramid-structured news story or news release works well enough. The structure is especially useful for search engines and social networks that tend to preview the first few lines of content.However, there are other structuring methods that writers can blend into their blog posts, including AIDA (or ADICA that I learned years ago) employed by marketers and...

Losing Truth: When Astroturf Wins

While the nation celebrates the victory of President-elect Barack Obama, Nevada is already lamenting the unintended consequences that came with his victory. Two respected state senators, one of which I worked with this cycle, lost their seats to campaigns best described by the only paper to endorse those who benefited.“Don’t look to Allison Copening, who defeated Beers, or Shirley Breeden, who defeated Heck, to become...

Voting In America: What Matters

It matters less who you vote for than it does that you voted, responsibly. It matters less which party wins than you have chosen the best representative. It matters less what they have promised to do than what The United States Constitution promises they will not do. “Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the...

Revealing Substance: Bad Communication

The quickest way to kill a good company is bad communication. And if the company is already struggling, you'll kill it twice as fast. Some recent comments on several posts reinforce the fact that spin only provides a short-term win, assuming it does at all.SteornIn August 2006, all the buzz was about an Ireland-based company called Steorn after it used an advertisement in The Economist to invite the world's scientists...

Considering Audience: Speaking On Social Media

I frequently tell people that social media is not a cookie-cutter operation, but it doesn't always resonate without context. Generally, each business and industry might consider any number of qualities — the strategic objectives of the company, intended publics, corporate culture, and available resources, among other things — to determine the best approach for their business. While this sometimes means the answer to...

Eclipsing Nevada Day: Everything

Today is Nevada Day, but most Nevadans barely know it. Nevada was the 36th state and admitted to the Union on Oct. 31, 1864, rushed in by President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. It became a state only eight days prior to the presidential election to help ensure Lincoln's reelection on Nov. 8. The only real reminder for some citizens is the phrase "Battle Born," which resides above a single star on our...

Avoiding Echoes: Beware The Bubble

"My idea is fabulous!""Your idea is fabulous!""He said her idea is fabulous!""She said he said her idea is fabulous!" "See ... they all said my idea is fabulous!"Yes, yes, but what if it's not? What if the idea isn't so fabulous as is often the case in politics, public relations, public perception, and social media? After all, echo chambers sometimes promote the silliest of notions, especially when it starts from its...

Shifting Concepts: Newspapers Need To Look At TV

And so it begins. The Christian Science Monitor has become the first national newspaper to abandon print and move its daily content online. While the publication will print a weekend magazine, the move represents a shift that many other national dailies will eventually follow. “Everybody’s talking about new models,” John Yemma, editor of The Monitor said. “This is a new model.”According to The New York Times, smaller...

Killing Blogs: Wired Likes Linkbait

Ever since Wired magazine saw some success by declaring newspapers dead, it seems to have developed an appetite for declaring everything dead. The latest victims? Blogs. Yep, Paul Boutin says blogs are dead. "The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge," wrote Boutin, who also writes for Valleywag. "Cut-rate journalists and underground...

Talking About Social Media: Solutions Stars Video

Geoff Livingston released a sneak peak of NetworkSolutions' upcoming Solutions Stars Video, a 45-minute video that compiles an overview of social media for small businesses from the viewpoint of several pros across nine different topics:• Building Web Presence• The Social Opportunity• Start with Listening• Strategy Drives Outreach• You Need Social Networks• To Blog or Not to Blog• Visibility Through Search• Rising Above the Noise• Time DemandsThe video will be released online at 1 p.m. this Wednesday, Oct. 29. It will also be...

Standing On Grammar: Sacramento, Calif.

A recent post by Asylum, which features 50 signs with errors, reminded me of the photo I took in Sacramento a few weeks ago. The sign was posted in several areas inside an airport shuttle. No Standees In Raised AreaI couldn't help but wonder if that made me a "sittee" since there was plenty of seating. Or maybe it was meant to segregate select breakfast diners from Chicago. Or maybe the mass transit system in California...

Spotting Convergence: Wall Street Journal

With the Newspaper Association of America (NNA) expecting newspaper advertising to drop another 11 percent this year, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post are already looking to evolve. Both publications are training journalists to shoot video while reporting. "We've put dozens of cameras out in the hands of reporters," Alan Murray, deputy managing editor of the The Wall Street Journal, said in a brief online...

Twittering Works: And Then Things Spread

Ryan Anderson recently did something remarkable. He wrote a post, but it wasn't just any post to me.He wrote a post a few days after sending me a check for $60, money that was never meant to be paid back. Since the check was unexpected and unnecessary, I donated it in his name to the Arthritis Foundation where it will do the most good. After I did that, he wrote a post that talks about how this $60 will go a long way...

Branding Inside Out: Ketchum's Global Food & Nutrition

"A brand isn't what you say about it, it's what other people say about it." — Linda Eatherton, partner and director of Ketchum's Global Food & Nutrition Practice.At least that is what Eatherton told Marketing Daily on the heels of a study that reveals: branding lags well behind taste, quality, and price when consumers choose food. While there is no doubt that Eatherton's statement might be music to some people's...

Astroturfing: Las Vegas Police Protective Association

In one of the most fierce and costly state senate races in the history of Nevada, dishonesty has reached epic proportions as The Las Vegas Police Protective Agency (LVPPA) risks losing all credibility as an endorser. In the LVPPA's latest mailing to discredit Sen. Bob Beers, the association calls the state senator's law enforcement endorsement false, even though it is undeniably true. Sen. Bob Beers posted a copy of...

Blogging Right: Bloggers Unite

About six months ago, BlogCatalog members, together with Amnesty International USA and Copywrite, Ink., asked bloggers from around the world to Blog for Human Rights. On May 15, they did.Although BlogCatalog has been the epicenter for several such events, no one expected what happened next. By 6 a.m., CNN had tracked 1.2 million blog posts ranging from heartfelt posts about Darfur to Myanmar. And then?If you read some...

Allowing Anonymous: Communicators Divided

Ragan recently released the results of a poll that asked a series of questions regarding anonymous comments. More than 1,000 communicators responded. Highlights: How Organizations View Anonymous Comments• 46 percent of their organizations do not allow anonymous comments.• 46 percent of their organizations do not allow comments of any kind.• 14 percent of their organizations do allow anonymous comments.Highlights: How...

Advertising Negatives: From Soup To Nuts

Almost every editorial on the final debate between U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. John McCain leads the same way. It only took 20 minutes before both candidates forgot about the issues and shifted toward political campaign ads.They were kidding, right?No, no, I suppose not. While the last reason I would elect a president is based on the prowess of their television production teams, most political talk seems to...

Discussing Poverty: Blog Action Day

There were blue tickets and there were red tickets.Blue tickets for the kids whose families could afford a 30-cent lunch. Red for those who could not. My ticket was red. And as red ticket holders, usually kids with large patches on secondhand pants, we lined up last as if a class system somehow existed within our public schools. Maybe it did. After lunch, most of us red ticket holders were ushered off to portable classrooms...

Campaigning For A Weak Economy: $100 Million

Kearsarge Global Advisors (KGA), a government affairs and communications firm based in Washington D.C., calculates that nearly $100 million has been spent in negative messages about the economy. To put that number into perspective, it is the same amount Ford spent marketing the 2008 Chevy Malibu, Microsoft spent marketing Windows 2000, and Gillette spent marketing the MACH3 razor. And, of course, none of these products had the benefit of daily earned media and a few million blogs. "As businesses and government seek to build...

Editing: One Class At A Time

"Is it me or does there seem to be an epidemic of illiteracy and/or carelessness in campaign materials this cycle? Candidates who don't know the basic rules of grammar or spelling are legion." — Jon Ralston, Las Vegas SunNo, Jon, it is not you.While I cannot preach from the pulpit of good grammar without admitting an error or two or three on this blog or in the comments section where they occur too frequently (especially...

Pushing Vendetta: When Past Clients Go Bad

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from one of our clients with a rather cryptic lead. And, as it turned out, it wouldn’t be the last e-mail I received from other concerned parties.“I think she got it wrong about which company decided to change.”Scrolling down, it became all too clear what she was referring to. One of our accounts, an image consultant we resigned several months ago (before sending her to collection), had...