From ethnographers to movie mavens – fun, funny, smart, interesting people to follow on Twitter
NOTE: There’s not the usual song-on-video for today’s #SocialSong Saturday (the #FF alternative)… this week, I’m trying a slightly different musical tribute, and a little fun with Vine.
I got to interview Tribber founder@DinoDogan a month or so ago, and his contention that the “mid level” bloggers are where real influence is to be had rang true then and keeps ringing, not only relative to bloggers but to anyone participating in social media. Oh, it’s not that I don’t enjoy following many people on Twitter who have legions of followers, friends, fans, etcetera. I feel more of a connection – or perhaps its just easier to literally connect with– people whose follower count isn’t anywhere near five or six figures. This week’s cases in point:
@kato42 Kate O’Rouke calls herself a communications generalist, but I especially like the enthographer in her. In fact, she handles PR for @EMACnetwork, the “ethnography-media-arts-culture network.” All of us who present ourselves as brand storytellers might do well to pursue a closer association with those who specialize in understanding humanity through in-depth listening to its stories.
@AimeelWest I’m jumping on the Aimee West bandwagon here. She was the subject of yesterday’s #FollowFriday feature in Spin Sucks. She’s a great example of how you can have a terrific business impact via social media and content marketing without having (I’m guessing here, so I hope I give no offense) a terrific budget. Get the whole scoop on Spin Sucks.
L-R: Kate O’Rourke, Aimee West, Jayne Cherneski, Molly Dedham
@jaynecharneskiJayne Charneski is one of those folks on Twitter who may intrigue me based on just a single tweet, one that suggests a kindred sensibility that makes me follow along. Here’s the tweet that got me (if you haven’t red this Onion piece, it’s a sadly hilarious explanation of why branding ain’t about the logo):
@MollyDedham Molly Dedham is all about movies, so that’s an immediate reason to follow as far as I’m concerned. Here’s a fun little mini-conversation we had on Twitter this week.
I encourage you all to give ‘em a follow and see what you discover, too. Pleas tune in again next week… given the sorry state of my Vine chops, I think we’ll be going back to regular video.
Mother’s Day chokes me up – so I asked a couple of Twitter friends for a little help this week.
As a mama’s boy whose Mama is no longer here – and as the husband of a fabulous mother – Mother’s Day can get to me a bit. To avoid going all weepy on you this week (well actually, I indulge myself a bit at the end of this post), I asked two Twitter friends – Kat Gordon and Tom Pick – for suggestions of favorite tweeps who also happen to be great moms on Twitter. (In case you don’t know them, @TomPick runs the blog Webbiquity, where he’s made a name for himself helping people make themselves ubiquitous on the web; @KatGordon, heads the mom-centric agency Maternal Instinct and is a driving force behind @3percentconf.) Here are two suggestions from each (Tom’s first, then Kat’s) of marvelous moms on Twitter:
@esegar Elise Sagar is a Partner at Digital Clarity – and, I’m guessing, a bit like me (the work-at-home Dad) in that she describes herself as “taxi driver and silly mom of 3.” Multi-tasking on the move must be the order of the day.
@MarketingMama Missy Berggren is strategic planner and apparently a very ambitious mom – she’s raising an entire state full of bloggers as the founder and director of the Minnesota Bloggers Conference.
L-R: Elise Segar, Missy Berggren, Randi Zuckerberg, Patty Lennon
@randizuckerberg Randi Zuckerberg, late of Facebook, is founder of Zuckerberg Media and editor of the “wired lifestyle newsletter” @DotComplicated, ,which just posted a piece on tech company TV spots about Moms.
@momgetsalifePatty Lennon – founder of the Mom Gets a Business Conference –isn’t out to be a power mom, but an empowering one. According to here website, she started the become-and-entrepreneur organization to “ answer to the greatest need a woman with children has today – to create wealth with flexibility and freedom.”
This Mother’s Day, give your favorite moms flowers and follows.
Now about that aforementioned bit of mama’s boy self-indulgence. While I was recording this week’s #SocialSong Saturday, I decided to pay homage to a Mom who never sent a single tweet: mine. Happy Mother’s Day to all the great moms out there!
They Were Preaching Passion at Social Slam Friday – But A Tennessee Preacher Summed it Up Best on Sunday
‘
I’ve been in marketing a long time (check my profile photo if you don’t believe me), yet I had not, until last week, attended any sort of marketing conference. In my big-brand-ad-guy days, we sort of looked down on them (my CCO had a sign in his office reading “If you can’t come up with the big idea, don’t criticize those who do,” so you can tell what kind of a self-satisfied Creative Olympus we thought ourselves to reign over divinely).
Because of my conference-averse past, I didn’t know quite what to expect from Social Slam 2013, the social media/content marketing confab held last Thursday and Friday in Knoxville, Tennessee. What I found was
A lot of good content, much of which, to be honest, was likely familiar to those who follow Social Slam and other social-content luminaries online.
A lot of genuine human warmth as I was greeted by people I’d previously known only online.
A lot of talk about passion: about needing to blog from it, wanting to create from, and trying to live out of it. As a natural cynic, I both agree with the sentiment and am suspicious of it. This was, after all, a marketing conference, the ultimate aim of which is to make us all better sales facilitators.
The passion talk didn’t quite hit home until Social Slam was over. I stayed in Knoxville to visit family, and went to church with my mother-in-law on Sunday. There I heard a terrific 10 minute sermon (which was unfortunately stretched to 40 minutes, as so many often are). The young preacher began by noting this nugget of wisdom from Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love:
“Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that really don’t matter.”
What I found that mattered at Social Slam was connecting person-to-person, human-to-human. The conference succeeded extremely well in that regard And where I find the notion of passion in content creation connecting with me today is in a desire to embrace a sense of freedom and fearlessness in my writing, and shoot for the things that matter, even if I only reach one other person with them.
It’s time to forget Content-in-a-Box and uncork the really good stuff
Quantity vs. quality (in a tired but tasty visual analogy; they may still have a bottle at Reed’s in Paris)
Last week I went to a local networking-learning event to a) get out of my virtual office and interact with live people and b) hopefully get some new insight into content creation, that being the speaker’s topic for the post-drinking-and-noshing time (and my current focus, as I look to make the trust-building-benefits of content marketing integral with all forms of brand communications).
I came away more disappointed than if I’d been served a box of Franzia, and then discovered that that was all I’d ever get to drink or serve again. Now, boxed wines have come along way, and many are perfectly potable. The truth, however, is that they exist for low-cost volume consumption. Such can be said for many content creation services, methodologies and philosophies.
My Two Cents About Cheap Content The speaker’s thrust was a practical one, aimed at non-writers who feel the need to create content: toss your ideas down on paper as often and quickly as possible, gather them up on a regular basis, and then hire a real writer to clean them up and flesh them out. Fair enough, it gets ones own thoughts out there in readable fashion, not unlike the CEO Blogging option we offer whereby we’ll interview a CEO or other too-busy-to-blog C-Suite type, and then create a range of related posts / articles containing their quotes and lines of thought.
No, it wasn’t the methodology that troubled me – it was the crowd reaction. Or specifically, the reaction of one digital marketing agency head present who couldn’t resist chiming in to answer the question, “How much does a good writer cost.” This fellow couldn’t wait to offer that he paid four cents per word, and “seven cents for the really good stuff,” when it came to creating content for his clients.
Silly me. And I thought that content farming, paying next to nothing to the itinerant workers carrying the real load, had been killed by the Panda-Penguin push toward quality. Silly me. Of course, that agency owner did own up to the fact that, for his own blog, he’ll pay $100 a post (still not a princely sum). I wonder if his clients notice the difference between his content and theirs.
Where do ideas come from? Face it – nobody knows where ideas come from. Yes, there are muses and inspirations and moments of “Aha!” Still, the leap from cogitation to conception of an original idea defies neat definition.
It also defies automation. I was amused/appalled by a clever new bit of link-bait mentioned on the ever-lively Spin Sucks blog: The Content Idea Generator from Portent. (See how they devilishly snagged another couple of links right there?) Simply plug in your topic and let it spit out back a series of random blog post headlines. “Spit out” is the operative phrase here, as that is exactly what one should do with the resulting flood of me-too headlines.
As someone who makes his living writing on behalf of “others” (if you’re willing to conceive of brands as entities with personalities, voices, etcetera) I have an obvious bias toward leaving content creation to the more creatively inclined. All the above, however, doesn’t worry me so much about my future as a writer or creative director as it does about the prospects for content creation to become an effective, enduring and essential form of marketing communication.
Your thoughts?
Further reading: The “Crap” Slideshare presentation from Velocity Partners (Favorite phrase therein: “The Content Effluent Deluge.” Well put, Velocitites!)
Who to Follow on Twitter for Business (Even if They Don’t Follow You Back)
Happy Valentines Week – hope you and the ones you love most had a great day. What I enjoyed, second only to my time with my beautiful wife and daughters, was being asked to write a Valentines song for MarketingPros PRO. It was a hoot, at least for me (OK, I got some good comments, too).
Writing a love song from the Profs to their peeps got me to wondering, though – what about the flip side of Valentine’s Day, the unrequited love? It seems an especially important question for the Twitter-centric, given the lust after famous (or at least well-followed) members of the Twitter elite.
Twitter Isn’t Exactly Like Middle School – But It Can Come Close
As a relative newbie (less than a year) on Twitter, I admit some frustration at not getting all The Notable Ones to take note of me. I’m rather late to the game, so it’s a bit like when I changed schools in middle of, shudder, middle school. I was so desperate to make friends and break into well-established social circles that I started buying gum and handing it out before school. I felt a bit the same when I first joined Twitter and caught myself gratuitously mentioning, retweeting, etcetera.
Hey, Some of the Popular Kids Like Me – Why Don’t You?
I will admit to getting excited by my assumed “validation” of being followed by social and content leaders on Twitter. OK, so they’re sharing their love with tens of thousands of others – it’s ME they really lust after, right? And then I get to thinking, “Hey, if the likes of Jay Baer, Liz Strauss and Glen Gilmore can follow me, why can’t you, Mr. or Ms. Bigshot?” I also read the occasional post from the well-followed as to the boorish, clueless behavior of those desperately seeking social attention. I hear some go so far at to serenade their inamorta or inamorato outside of virtual windows…
I Want to Be The Taylor Swift of Twitter for Business
At first I thought I might go all Taylor Swifton the unreachable – you know, how every time some guy breaks her heart she writes a song to get even? But rather than being immature and trying to musically shame people into following me, I thought that my Unrequited Twitter Love song should give a shout out to some of the notables on my followers list.
Not all mentioned today are in five or six digits when it comes to followers… but all are admirable, aspirational models of what it means to share, connect and provoke thought on Twitter. Their other common thread is that I have been introduced to many by some of my unofficial Twitter and social media mentors, particularly Mark Schaefer and Gini Dietrich, through whom I’ve discovered Amy Howell,Sean McGinnisand Ian Cleary from today’s song.
So sit back, grab a beer and get ready to cry in it, ‘cause it’s time for The Unrequited Twitter Love Song!
Forget #FF – try the musical tribute to the people sharing the really good stuff on Twitter
Happy almost Chinese New Year to all! Of course, if you’re in China, it’s already the New Year – I got a call from my friend Huaai in Nanning this morning, which set me off on a round of CNY greetings, but put me behind a bit on today’s post. So, let’s finally get to it. This week I’m singing the praises of:
@michaelgass If you’re in the ad agency business, you probably already know of Michael and his new business blog Fuellines. Of course, if you’re in the ad agency business, you’re less likely to be using social media, and Michael is a leading force in getting agency folks to see the social light. He’s also an inspiration as a blogger. I particularly like his powerfully simple approach to keywords in headlines. Look at most of his posts and you’ll see some “ad agency new business” in the head. Then google “ad agency new business.” Guess who pops up at the top? Like me, he’s also a Dad with daughters, and he joined in briefly at the #adwomensb13 Super Bowl chat this week, started by @katgordon (see below).
@agencysevenis a pretty impressive content agency out of London. At least, the judges at the International Content Marketing Awards thought so when they awarded them their most recent Grand Prix prize. I’m actually not a big awards show fan, but perhaps content marketing awards will be more reflective of marketplace effectiveness than are the traditional advertising self-love fests. In any case, Seven caught my eye this week with a tweet on the “oddly downbeat view” of content in the U.S., as reflected in anAd Age article. I think that’s likely more true for the traditional Ad Age audience than for all U.S. marketers – any thoughts out there?
@katgordon First, my apologies if I am wrong in singing her name as “Kate.” Secondly, thanks to Kat for hosting #adwomensb2013, a Super Bowl Twitter chat that invited female ad creative to live tweet about the ads during the big game. As a Dad of daughters, I’ve been following an organization she founded – the 3 Percent Conference– which works to raise the profile of and prospects for female creative directors in the still-male dominated ad biz. It’s a subject close to my heart as I have a talented 16-year-old daughter who’s just now looking at colleges of art and design, and I am hopeful that advertising (or what’s left of it by the time she graduates) will be a more welcoming option for her than it has sometimes been for women to date. (You’ll find @3percentconf featured in an earlier #SocialSong Saturday.)
@gricke Gary Ricke is a creatively visionary digital communicator who is currently pouring heart and soul (and other considerable resources) into a strikingly simple and beautiful CMS called seed. I encourage you to follow him and follow seed’s development, as the whole point is to provide marketers with a platform so simple that, as Gary likes to put it, they can spend 99% of their time and money on creating amazing content and 1% on building and maintain their website. It’s a terrific, mobile-first design; follow Gary to watch how it develops (or better yet give him a shout so you can be among the first to use it).
Thanks for stopping by – and Happy Chinese New Year to all! See you next week.
This week’s Twitter love song: meta reviews, video metrics, trippy talk and the real heart of social influence.
I keep saying that Follow Friday just isn’t enough to thank the folks sharing the really good content. Now I’ve come to the conclusion that #SocialSong Saturday has been too much – at least, I’ve tried to pack too much, and too many people, in to each song. So, in the interest of giving these terrific Tweeps their proper due, I’m limiting each song to just a few – specifically four – people I’m following.
@dberkowitz I confess that it was a blog post book review by David Berkowitz, rather than one of his tweets, that caught my attention this week. Reading David’s forthright assessment of Return on Relationship by Ted Rubin (ranked the #1 CMO on Twitter), I was struck by how straightforward, detailed and, well, useful it was, and how different that is from what often seem to be pandering, platitudinous and mutually self-aggrandizing “reviews” of social media books by established members of the social media club. So I reviewed his review in a blog post of my own, contrasting it with another review by Drew Neisser. After tweeting about it, I got rapid responses from all three men mentioned, and the announcement that David would blog about it the following day, which he did in “A Meta Review of My Meta Review of my Review of Return on Influence.” Now, this is where I see using Twitter for business really getting fun/interesting, where one stirs the proverbial pot and the original cooks toss in more ingredients of their own and (hopefully) we all begin to create something more nourishing that we could have without each other.
@unrulymedia I got acquainted with the wonderfully named Unruly Media this week as I researched a series of articles, for Branding Magazine, on the Super Bowl. Unruly (as you can tell, I like the faux-familiarity of using first names) claims to have “delivered, tracked and audited 1.65 billion video views across 2,000+ successful social video campaigns for over 400 brands since 2007.” They offer insights into what makes social video work, as in their Social Video Advertising Playbook, and this week they weighed in on what should make an effective Super Bowl ad. Perhaps it was just the adolescent boy in me who was already being manipulated by Kate Upton et all in the video foreplay to the Super Bowl, but it seemed to make sense to me that Unruly’s good Doctor Karen Nelson-Field would try to parse the phenomenon of ad recall in terms of arousal:
“It seems our measure of quality content (highly arousing content) is linked to better recall. We find that videos that evoke high arousal emotions are the most remembered, in fact more than 3 times more. Overall of all high arousal videos seen – 70% were recalled. Overall of all low arousal videos seen – 18% were recalled.”
Of course, this begs the entire issue of what is being recalled, that is, if any of the original messages, traditionally long on gratuitous entertainment and short on strategic substance, provided any bottom line impact even if noticed and remembered. I also took note of Unruly’s new tool for “predictable creativity” (my oxymoron, not theirs): ShareRank, which claims to be able to predict a video’s potential for sharing before you launch it. On the one hand, it reminds me of old communications testing that was used as a crutch by ad agencies, and often produced the most regrettable of commercials. On the other hand, any disciplined input in an undisciplined world is welcome, and worth a look.
@michelletripp Sometimes, it’s simply the voice, the personality that comes across in a tweet that makes me go “Oh, she sounds like fun to follow.” Such was the case this week with Michelle Tripp, who used the trippy old phrase “Right on” when RT-ing one of my tweets. I’ve followed her for a bit, but looking more closely this week I see I’m hardly the first to take note. Webbiquity, from @TomPick, includes her in a “Nifty 50″ list of women to follow, citing a primary qualification of just being cool. Good enough for me. I also like that she spans worlds that don’t always seem to get each other: branding, advertising and social media. Oh, and she’s a creative director of the conceptual sort, and social media, ever more fond of tactics, can sorely use an infusion of honest-to-goodness creative “ahas!”
That’s it for this week. If, like me, Follow Friday just seems too #FF-ing facile, please tune in again next week for #SocialSong Saturday!
Top Blogs, Top Social Media Dogs Get the Twitter Love Song Treatment
Welcome to the eighth edition of SocialSong, the more meaningful musical alternative to Facile Friday, er, Follow Friday, and a good place to learn who to follow on Twitter for business (especially if you want to learn about social media and content marketing).
This week the Twitter Love Song goes out to:
@ckburgess OK, so I’m not exactly discovering an unknown here, but I am encouraging you, along with me, to pay closer attention to just how Cheryl Burgess blogs. MarketingSherpa named her’s the best Social Media blog of 2012. I generally don’t care for marketing awards, because I come out of traditional advertising, where the awards are plentiful and almost uniformly unrelated to results. But I admit this one got me to take notice, both of her clear, practical posts. and her incredibly long list of other awards. Color me jealous, but also appreciative.
@stellar247 I have this odd, almost emotional attachment to Kelly Mirabella. I started listening to her podcast Mastering Social Businesswhen I was making weekly three hour round trips to visit my elderly mom. Kelly’s fun, upbeat, easy-to-understand banter with co-host Paul Serwin was welcome both as early education and a relief from the heaviness of those sandwich-generation days. Since my mom’s been gone, I’m not on the road as much, so I listen less… but I can heartily recommend the show, and I enjoy following Kelly on Twitter.
@nickwestergard Face it; I just like people from Iowa (I was born there). I find them to be reasonable, helpful and smart, without an I’m-so-much-smarter-than-you edge. That’s how Nick Westergard strikes me. He’s a professor-digital-marketing-maven-podcaster in the Iowa City area, and he caught me with his post “Writing is Selling: Why Content Creation is Worth the Time,” a straightforward pitch for the bottom line benefit of all this word wrangling. Send it to those recalcitrant clients.
@cspenn Christopher Penn is one of those guys that gets around way too much and will forever make the rest of us look bad: author, speaker, blogger, podcaster (and co-creator of PodCamp with Chris Brogan), professor and martial artist. He’s also good at sharing, as with a post from CSI (Customer Service Investigator) about how the big brands do, or don’t, respond to tweets.
@brennermichael Michael Brenner would be even more well known to all if he simply put his name at the end of every B2Community post (he co-founded the community). He’s also a big-time marketer (SAP), blogger (B2BMKTGInsider) and, from the looks of his Twitter background pic, a devoted Dad (I’m always a sucker for a kindred spirit in that department). He’s at a level where people pay attention when he publishes a list, like his tally of top B2B influencers (companies and individuals).
@marketingprofs The ubiquitous Ann Handley finally got me to cough up some dough and go PRO with Marketing Profs. It’s actually all the fault of that damn @jasonkonopinski, who tweeted about his dependence on it for his own continuing education. Jason-wannabe that I am, I obviously had not choice but to sign up. It still remains to be seen if I will routinely schedule the requisite learning time to make my investment worthwhile, or if MarketingProfs will (through on fault of its own) be simply my latest social media gym membership… intended to get me in shape, but ultimately wasted.
@smcknox If I understand correctly, Social Media Club of Knoxville is the hosting organization, along with Mark Schaefer, ofSocial Slam, an annual, up-close-and-personal social media conferencein Knoxville, Tennessee. I will be a first-time attendee this year, and am eager to rub SM elbows (ooh, sorry.. that sounds a trifle untoward, doesn’t it?) with many of the folks I follow on Twitter.
@shellykramer Shelly Kramer is an influential blogger based on, of course, her content. But here’s my superficial confession: I just like her profile picture. Somehow, it exudes that combination of friendliness and seriousness that a) make me want to trust her and b) fancy that she could be a professional friend. Or maybe she’s a jerk… but I doubt it. She consistently tweets, and blogs, about interesting things of value. What more can I ask? The latest example that captured my attention: “What CEOs Think of Social Media”
A review of ROI: Return on Influence, by Mark W. Schaefer
Orson Welles’ classic movieCitizen Kane tells of a once neglected and discarded child who grows to great influence as a king of content, but who fails to find lasting happiness. Reading Mark Schaefer’sdescription of Citizen Influencers in his book ROI: Return on Influence, I couldn’t help but wonder if, in a world where clout for a few is reportedly giving way to Klout for the masses, we aren’t all going to be gasping “Rosebud” with our last breath, devastated by the inevitable drop in our Klout score once our 15 minutes of self-induced online “fame” is over?
OK, so, like the movie, I’m being a bit dramatic here, but all to make a point. Online influence measurement, as with Klout, Kredand PeerIndex, is generating real love-it-or-loathe it reactions, and Schaefer’s book makes a reasonable case as to why we should learn to, if not love it, at least live with the trend and leverage it.
Social Scoring: The Creation of a New Social Caste System? Schaefer contends that “We are at the dawn of the creation of a new social media caste system determined by how and when you tweet, connect, share and comment.” [page xvii] Lest you think this is merely another social media guru rushing to gush over the latest shiny object, Schaefer also takes pains throughout the book to examine the inherent failings of current social scoring systems and the potential downsides (“The trappings of social proof implied by the number of Twitter followers or Facebook “like” may be more important signs of accomplishments to many people than a lifetime of real accomplishments.”)
The first part of the book is an overview of social scoring: what it is, how it’s developing, who the players are. The second part of the book is all about the dominate player in the space, Klout, and, while not quite intended as a “how to” book in the manner of his popular mini-manual “The Tao of Twitter,” it gives Schaefer’s typically concise, practical take on how to use Klout, that is., how to boost one’s score, how to earn Klout perks, etcetera.
Influencer Marketing, or Marketing to Humans? I’m glad to see Schaefer emphasize some of his favorite themes here, particularly the encouragement to “Be real, be honest…” (and yes, he uses the “authenticity” word, which I have lately attempted to pronounce dead for marketing use… but at least he is good enough to define what he means by this beaten-to-death buzzword). He also describes how Klout et al can be gamed, but makes the following case as to why and how social scoring can nonetheless be an important indicator and tool:
“Although badges can be gamed, humanity cannot. Building social proof is important, but nurturing true authority through authenticity, meaningful content and an engaged group of followers will lead to lasting influence and business benefits.”
I’d Have Reservations about Social Scoring (But My Klout Score May Not Be High Enough to Get Me Good Reservations for Anything) My Little-Luddite-Within must confess: I cringe when I hear folks like Jeremiah Owyang predict (on Six Pixels of Separation) that one day, when we all wear Google Glass, we’ll be able to see someone’s (everyone’s) Klout score above their head… and, given human nature, accept or reject them before any more personal impression can be made.
And it worries me that, after reading both of Schaefer’s books, I was able to nearly double my Klout score, to a high of 57, almost exclusively by dint of aggressive tweeting. Or perhaps it worries me more that, as I tweet less incessantly, my Klout score has dropped several points, even as I proceed to make more meaningful relationships via my social and other media activities, and reach larger audiences via my Branding magazine articles, which Klout does not factor in.
Whether you are on the love or loathe side of the Klout fence, ROI: Return on Influence is a worthwhile read on a subject of increasing importance and no little controversy. Of course, for all of you who aspire to be Citizen +K I also recommend watching Citizen Kane as a primer on how not to play your part in this unfolding drama.
Suggestions for additional reading, from multiple viewpoints:
#FF is So Yesterday – #SocialSong Saturday helps you find people who know how to do business (and have fun) on Twitter
This Twitter Love song includes an invitation to sing along and possibly appear in an upcoming edition of #SocialSong Saturday – details are at the end of this post. First, however, I’d like to sing the praises of:
@brandingmagBranding Magazine is the brainchild of some very bright ,young next-gen thinkers in Europe. It features daily stories from contributing authors (yes, such as yours truly) from across Europe and North America. My favorite personal contribution to date is the article “2013: The Year Branding Marries Content?”
@steveolenskiSteve Olenski is a prolific social media and marketing writer, not onlyfor his own blog but also for the likes of Forbes.com and Advertising Age. He caught my eye this week with his Branding Magazine article on the use of music in advertising – specifically, how Walgreens is putting Credence Clearwater Revival’s old hit “Down on the Corner” to use in their campaign “At the corner of happy and healthy.” Anybody who appreciates the power of music is all right by me.
@leaderswest In a social media world that often swings between gung-ho, shiny-object booster-ism and sensationalistic doom-saying, Jim Dougherty strikes me as a reasonable and well-reasoned voice. This week’s example: “Should people quit social media altogether?” I look forward to following Jim more closely.
@contentSTHLM One aspect of Twitter that I appreciate is the ability to get acquainted with business people from around the world. Well, I almost get acquainted – in the case of contentSTHLM, the Twitter profile only reveals that he (if one believes the cartoon profile picture) is a content and brand strategist from Stockholm… and a Phillies fan. That would be off-putting, save for the consistently interesting and sometimes amusing content he shares, such as The Diary of a Content Strategist.
@KMueller62 If you’re interested in learning about social media and inbound marketing, there are any number of reasons to follow Ken Mueller, as many more notable than I already do. My favorite reason to date: the Weekend Music game, just introduced yesterday. It’s sort of like being in the Social Media Dorm and hanging out on a Friday afternoon, telling each other about the top five tunes or artists on your playlist. Stop on by… you can still play. (BTW, he makes a big deal about working on a porch… well Ken, I’ll see your porch and raise you a Canine Copywriter.)
Global HQ for Creative on Call, Summer Office, with Dexter the Canine Copywriter
@tompick I have been technically following Tom Pick for a while, but it wasn’t until this week – when I decided to see who one of my favorite bloggers closely follows – that I started to delve into Tom more thoroughly. One early favorite gem told me just how wrong all of my writing is: “17 Tragically Common Copywriting Mistakes to Avoid.” Thanks, J-P De Clerck, for letting me rummage through your Chat & Watch List and rediscover Tom.
@fietstweets Dan Fietsam is Chief Creative Officer of EnergyBBDO, and the only person mentioned today who I have had the pleasure to meet and work with in person (how quaint, I know). While these days Twitter seems mostly used for the over-sharing of others content, Dan uses it sparingly as an actual microblogging platform, a blog I guess you would call #todaysmilliondollaridea. As a guy who makes his living creating or inspiring others to create “the big idea,” he uses this hashtag to share ideas that, on any given day, may be absurd, insightful, funny… or which may fall flat, depending on that eye-of-the-beholder thing (hey, if you’re going to shoot for the big idea, you can’t worry about missing once in a while). Refreshingly simple… as I think Twitter was meant to be. Stop by and pick up your million bucks.
Now about that big idea that Andrew Davis, @TPLDrew, suggested…
Andrew, author of Brandscaping: Unleashing the Power of Partnerships, observed that #SocialSong Saturday is its own example of Brandscaping, as with the Twitter Love Song I essentially partner with all of the personal/professional brands above. While interviewing me for an upcoming article, he suggested opening up #SocialSong Saturday for everyone to join in, so that’s what we’re going to try.
HOW TO JOIN IN #SOCIALSONG SATURDAY
Step 1: Plug in your headphones and play this week’s Twitter Love song
Step 2: Use your computer’s video camera to record yourself singing along to the chorus (VIDEO 101: please make sure you have enough light on your face… at the end of your singing, please tell me your name and Twitter handle, spelled out, just so we I get it correctly)
Step 3: Send me your video clip; you can click here to email me a DropBox or USendIt link… or if the clip isn’t too big, you can try to tweet it too me @creativeoncall (I’m sure Twitter will love that; also be aware that your performance will be “out there” for public view should you decide to go that route). Please do not email me your video clips. If you do send a clip, be sure to read this first, as those are the terms of use to which you agree by the act of uploading a file.
If I get enough video clips that work, we’ll edit them into a future #SocialSong. I can guarantee that you’ll be in good company, as Andrew has promised to participate.
Happy #SocialSong Saturday – the most fun you can having finding who to follow on Twitter!
