Kari Rippetoe
Charlottesville, VA
- 34 comments
- 10 likes given
- 18 likes received
Social Media & Community Outreach Mgr - Tuvel Communications (@TuvelComms & tuvel.com) | New Media/Online Marketing Lover | Foodie & Coffee Geek | Rock Chick
@AmyMccTobin sxc.hu is a good one. I also like stock photo sites like istockphoto that allow you to buy credits for $20 or $30, and the images are great.I'd also like to point out with using sites like Flickr - even when you use a CC photo, make sure to credit it. Just out in a simple caption that says "Photo credit" and the name of the person linking back to their profile.
@ginidietrich OK, here's my two cents (or, since we're talking about the London Olympics, 2p):
There was probably some lowly account manager at Twitter involved with the NBC "account" (I'm calling it that because no doubt it's a service provider/client relationship there) who was monitoring Olympic tweets and was tasked with alerting higher-ups if anything out of the ordinary was tweeted. As a result, that account manager did what I'm sure he/she was supposed to do when this tweet surfaced - essentially "following orders" to preserve the lucrative relationship with NBC.
I'm not saying that what transpired was right. Yes, everything that NBC is doing with regards to the Olympics sucks (tape delay, censorship, crap commentary, not to mention cutting out an entire portion of the opening ceremonies for an inane interview with Michael Phelps). But, Twitter has a (I'm sure, paid) partnership with NBC and feels obligated to work within those parameters. And I'm sure there was some strong-arming on NBC's part, too.
I too would've loved to be a fly on the wall during that meeting at Twitter, deciding what to do about Guy's tweet. Perhaps there was some discussion about censorship before making the decision to do what they thought was right for the partnership. We may never know.
@snouraini I think it's difficult for many companies to embrace the "Unicorns and Rainbows", because they feel like they can't track the warm and fuzzy part of social media. How do they know how many of those new customers bought their product because of something they saw on Twitter or Facebook? They hold promotions exactly for this reason - they tie a special discount code to it and track the promotion through a special app or platform. Bam - instant ROI.
I'm not saying there aren't other ways to track return on social media efforts, I'm just saying it's very difficult to convince many of the short-sighted executives you mention that building a passionate, praise-singing social media community over time without easily-trackable promotions can work. Especially when you're trying to reach a short-term marketing goal.
@Ari Herzog Very good point. We really need a pretty exact definition of a "promotion." There are lots of brands out there that are "being" social with their fans and followers, but it's all towards promoting themselves. Doesn't matter if those brands are posting articles, polls or coupons.
Personally, I don't Like or follow a brand to have conversations with them. I want more out of that relationship than just the occasional "hi, how'ya doin'". Sure, I Like or follow them because I enjoy the products or services they offer; but I also enjoy receiving some additional value from the social media relationship. Although I wouldn't call it a "preference" over other forms of communication, perhaps I'm just part of that 5%.
Great post, Maggie - and I've experienced these same issues ("what do you mean 'no large images found'? The image is right there!"). Hopefully Pinterest is listening.
The fact that there isn't messaging might make it difficult to hold contests or promotions on Pinterest. How will you notify the winner if they have no website or Twitter account attached to their profile? I guess choose another winner who does, but then that bends the bias ever so slightly towards those Pinterest users.
It would also be nice to open individual boards up to the general public to pin images to, rather than having to add people to a board one by one.
Waiting for the day when Pinterest offers "brand" pages with additional features for brands.
I agree with you that "engagement" is completely overused, but I also think social media brought about a new way for brands to communicate with customers and prospects. "Engaging" with them is more than just broadcasting, and while many brands are totally guilty of doing that in social media, many others are truly engaging in conversations through social media (and gaining a lot of valuable insights from it that they can use to improve products and processes). You can't argue with that, right?
But, if we were to exile the word "engagement" to a deep, dark room somewhere, what word would you use to replace it?
BTW, glad to be a part of your "community", Daniel! ;-)
I'm trying to work on the first tip you mention myself, both personally and professionally. Turning negatives into positives, basically. I'm always concerned about misleading clients and promising more than what we can deliver, though. The challenge is to manage clients' expectations in a way that sets a positive tone and lets them talk through their idea, but if the idea really isn't right, making sure they don't come away thinking we're totally on board with it.
I also think it's important to listen to our clients' insights. While we as consultants may have been hired because we have certain expertise that the client doesn't necessarily have, we have to realize that they know more about their customers/members/supporters than we do. Their insight is worth its weight in gold, and we need to take the time to listen to them rather than assume we know everything we need to know.
Wow. Just...wow.
Marijean It's done wonders for traffic. Plus it just LOOKS so much more professional to have "www.company.com/blog" rather than "company.wordpress.com".
WTG, Marijean! We managed to do the same - quadruple unique visits, increase the percentage of returning visitors, increase the time spent on the site and triple pageviews. One of the ways we did this was to move the blog onto our company domain (it used to be on a completely different domain). We blog regularly and point people back to other blog posts and relevant website content (like case studies and services).
ACanadianFoodie That's just it - NO one really understands Klout's algorithm for determining influence. It's supposedly takes into consideration your activity on whatever social media outposts you tie to it - your Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, Facebook profile, blog (Wordpress.com, Tumblr), etc. The inner workings of how they come to a score (and what affects your score day-to-day) is not disclosed, so it's difficult for any of us to really understand. This is exactly what has caused so much of an uproar.
deleted_91832_Sean McGinnis I never thought much about my score either - it's other people I'm concerned about. The industry you an I are in puts a lot of emphasis on the concepts of influence and engagement. It scares me to think that someone might look at a person's score when deciding to hire them for a social media, marketing or PR position (or hiring an agency or consultant for a contract) and then make arbitrary decisions about their abilities based on that. We have no control over that (unless we opt out of Klout).
You know, the gamification aspect of Klout doesn't bother me as much as how seriously people and organizations take Klout scores. Just like Google PR did, Klout scores have become a major business decision-making factor. Companies and agencies lose out on business, people lose out on getting hired for jobs, dogs and cats living together (mass hysteria!). Seriously though, we're talking major impacts on livelihoods, all based on this one number. This ain't a credit score, people. THAT's what bothers me most.
And webby2001 is right - the score is what gets people to participate. BUT, what if the score was removed and the focus was put on how a person is influential - their topics, circles of influence, engagement levels, etc. You could still see how that person is influential without having to assign a number to it, and people might still be interested in participating.
ginidietrich I agree, and not only can they be held accountable, they ARE being held accountable.
There's also this traditional vs. non-traditional (new) media debate. We recently worked on a campaign with a "traditional" PR firm who brought us on to identify new media publishers (i.e. bloggers, other social media "influencers"). They had a rudimentary understanding of what "new media" encompassed, but didn't know what to look for or how to approach them. I think, though, that there will always be a need for both traditional and non-traditional; but PR needs to understand that there are different ways to work with each.
These all seemed like common sense to me, but mainly because I'm a marketer approaching PR from that perspective. The lines are blurring more and more, and you're absolutely right about integration. Not just integrating search with social and social with email, etc., but integrating roles and processes.
You're also right about measuring results. I've seen traditional PR firms fired because they couldn't demonstrate any solid results of their efforts - meaning those tied to business goals. Again, as a marketer, common sense to me because we're always expected to do this. How is it that PR got away with it for so long?
You know, this is the second article I've read this week about the perpetuation of negative stereotypes in women. The other article I read was about women being regarded as "crazy", "overly emotional/sensitive", etc. - referred to by the (male) author as "gaslighting." This is something I'm more familiar with and it resonates with me on a personal level. Here's the article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/yashar-hedayat/a-message-to-women-from-a_1_b_958859.html
I think that women can be just as guilty of gaslighting toward other women as men are. ginidietrich , the video you include has many examples of this - especially at the beginning with the female news reporter saying Hillary looked "haggard" and "92." Comments like those perpetuate insecurity in women - about their looks, intelligence and emotional stability. And documentaries like this are great for bringing the issue to light, but you're right that change has to start with us. Acting like victims and not making efforts to change ourselves, as well as the perception of people around us, is not going to do us any good.
BTW - I found out about the article I referenced above through an AWESOME group of very supportive women in the Washington, DC area called DC Web Women. I shared your article with them as well! :-)
I love it, especially the JC speech bubbles!
BdotW Good point! He was usually catching me when I did it in the same way as your second example - the period ended the whole sentence rather than the quoted part. So I've been right all along!
I love reading posts like this one. Not that I'm completely free of guilt on some of these (like "less" vs. "fewer"), but when I see people using the wrong form of a word (like their/there/they're), it drives me insane!
Something I see WAY too much is use of the word "loose" instead of "lose" (i.e. "Let's look at the map so we don't loose our way"). HATE that!
Here's an error that was once pointed out to me by a former boss, which I still make frequently: periods go inside of quotes rather than outside.
Wow, Danny Brown - you're really on a tear about Klout lately, aren't you? ;-)
I used to be totally into the idea of Klout. On paper, it is kind of a good idea. But the whole thing is becoming more and more convoluted, and I'm just getting more and more disillusioned with it. Our scores depend on an algorithm, and algorithms are by no means perfect. There are lots subtle nuances of influence that just can't be quantified.
Most of our scores have dropped quite a bit today, and I fear that too many decision-makers are going to put all their eggs in the Klout-influence basket and someone won't get hired for something as a result. We're talking about a life-changing event hanging on an imperfect score! Joe Fernandez out to think about that and focus on developing an easy opt-out process - rather than on fixing an algorithm that's always going to be broken.