Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 390

Can Social Media Be Trusted?

Have you ever asked a regular consumer where they get their information about your brands, products and services?

A lot of brands have done this, but push this question a little bit further: when consumers let you know where they first heard about your brands, products and services, why not ask they how much they trusted the information they got? Chris Brogan and Julien Smith wrote an amazing business book (and New York Times best-seller) titled, Trust Agents (which is now available in...

Brands Are Terrible At Twitter (Brands Are Terrific At Twitter)

If only 16% of all brand tweets on Twitter are conversational, would you say that brands are totally screwing it up?

BizReport just published a news item titled, Only 16% of brand Tweets are conversational. If you only read the title of the article, you probably had the same initial reaction I had: "Whoa, how badly do brands suck on Twitter?" Admit it, that's exactly what went through your brain. The news item goes on to say: "Does this mean that brands on Twitter need to converse more with...

Brands Are Terrible At Twitter (Brands Are Terrific At Twitter)

If only 16% of all brand tweets on Twitter are conversational, would you say that brands are totally screwing it up?

BizReport just published a news item titled, Only 16% of brand Tweets are conversational. If you only read the title of the article, you probably had the same initial reaction I had: "Whoa, how badly do brands suck on Twitter?" Admit it, that's exactly what went through your brain. The news item goes on to say: "Does this mean that brands on Twitter need to converse more with...

How To Beat The Competition

Personally, I've never been afraid of competition. Oscar Wilde once simply stated, "be you because others are already taken."

Seth Godin had a brilliant post (as he usually does) on competition: "The number one reason people give me for giving up on something great is, 'someone else is already doing that.'  Or, parsed another way, 'my idea is not brand new.' Or even, 'Oh no, now we'll have competition.'... Competition validates you. It creates a category. It permits the sale to be this or...

How To Beat The Competition

Personally, I've never been afraid of competition. Oscar Wilde once simply stated, "be you because others are already taken."

Seth Godin had a brilliant post (as he usually does) on competition: "The number one reason people give me for giving up on something great is, 'someone else is already doing that.'  Or, parsed another way, 'my idea is not brand new.' Or even, 'Oh no, now we'll have competition.'... Competition validates you. It creates a category. It permits the sale to be this or...

When Not Responding Online Is The Right Response

The common online rhetoric is to respond to everything that is being said about your brand. That could be a mistake.

With new Social Media monitoring tools - or just some careful snooping around - it has never been easier to figure out who are the people with a legitimate concern and who are the quacks just trying to feed their own need for attention. And yes, there are even those whose only goal is to push their own agenda forward by drawing attention to themselves. There's a known saying...

When Not Responding Online Is The Right Response

The common online rhetoric is to respond to everything that is being said about your brand. That could be a mistake.

With new Social Media monitoring tools - or just some careful snooping around - it has never been easier to figure out who are the people with a legitimate concern and who are the quacks just trying to feed their own need for attention. And yes, there are even those whose only goal is to push their own agenda forward by drawing attention to themselves. There's a known saying ...

The Great Ghost Blogging (And Ghost Tweeting) Debate (Again)

Episode #214 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

If there's one debate that never gets tired, it's the one about Ghost Blogging. We've come to this strange intersection with Social Media, where companies want to Blog, but they feel like their CEO (or others within the company) would best be served if that voice was created by a ghost writer. It's an issue that irritates me because I don't agree with it, but I do understand why...

The Great Ghost Blogging (And Ghost Tweeting) Debate (Again)

Episode #214 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

If there's one debate that never gets tired, it's the one about Ghost Blogging. We've come to this strange intersection with Social Media, where companies want to Blog, but they feel like their CEO (or others within the company) would best be served if that voice was created by a ghost writer. It's an issue that irritates me because I don't agree with it, but I do understand why...

The Real-Time Web Is A Big Problem For The Web

As we move closer and closer to the real-time Web, we are already encountering instances where the Web - as we know it - seems old and antiquated.

Here's the scenario: this past week, I received a breaking news tweet that a  plane had crashed near the airport in Phoenix. Immediately, I hopped over to CNN to get more details, but nothing. Nada. Zilch. We tend to forget that it takes a while for the producers of the website to gather the content (text, audio, images, video), get the piece...