G'day! Thanks for returning!
A quick interview with ABC Local Radio Darwin in which I answer the question raised by the title of this post.
Does Second Life still exist? Is anyone still using it? Who?
Answers to these questions and more await ye…
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One of the delights of this new communication landscape is how easy and quick it is to set up and use the tools.
Equally, one of the dangers of this new communication landscape is how easy and quick it is to set up and use the tools – it can be all too easy to shoot one’s own career or one’s client/employer in the foot/head.
In this video I explain why thinking through your strategy *before* you start using the tools is so important.
The video was shot at the beautiful St Vincent’s Marina, Wirrina Cove, at sunset on a very windy day, when talking was hampered by not being able to get the words out the wind was so strong.
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JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.
There are now 2.5 billion photos uploaded to Facebook every month, YouTube serves 1 billion videos per day, the average person watches 182 online videos per month and there are 200 billion spam emails sent every day 
[which is why I use a spam filter like SpamArrest]
Enjoy the video!
A tip of the digital akubra to DigitalBuzzBlog
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I’m toying with the idea as I need some new business cards printed, but some daily poll stats over on the DigitalBuzzBlog are making me wonder if they are a waste of time.
Telstra have released an iPhone app and they were early adopters (as they always are) of them, but I certainly haven’t seen too many of them on bus shelter posters recently here in Adelaide – is anyone else seeing them?
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I’ve long held that For Immediate Release is the best (by far) podcast for business communicators; indeed, I was a very early foreign correspondent until work pressures meant I could no longer commit to my regular audio article.
You can listen to FIR (as it is known and loved) via the FIR website, iTunes and via apps like the one that sits on my website.
But now you can get the latest FIR goodness beamed directly to your iPhone or iPod Touch, or the Android OS! Cool!
As Fir hosts Shel and Neville say,
If you have an iPhone, an iPod Touch or a device running the Android OS, there’s now an even easier way to get your podcast episodes with the new FIR app, now available in the iTunes App Store and the Android Market. There’s currently no cost – the app is free to download and use.
For the iPhone, etc, you can find the FIR app in the App Store. But the easiest way to find, download and install it is of course by doing everything via your iPhone or iPod Touch:
1. Load the App Store on your device.
2. Tap the Search button and type FIR.
3. The FIR app should* be the first result you get – as the screenshot shows.
4. Tap the listing, tap the word ‘free’ and then ‘install.’
There you have it – the FIR app installed on your device, ready to go!
Go get ‘em, tigers!
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Courtesy of that Canadian chanteuse and Torontonian interrogator Donna Papacosta comes word that Tod Maffin (Gen Y consultant) is compiling a database of tactical case studies in social media use, cunningly titled ‘Case Studies Online’.
As Donna says,
I like the feature that allows you to search by demographic or industry or tactic. As this site evolves, it could become the go-to resource for marketers and others using social media.
Me too.
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 Natascha Dowsett in Japan, earlier this week |
The social media/social networking space is full of interesting developments.
Why, just the other day a lady contacted me with news of her personal campaign to land a job with a digital agency here in Adelaide. Here’s how it pans out:
Adelaide marketing company, Fnuky, has decided to hire through Facebook rather than through traditional avenues and they’ve started a group on Facebook called “Finding Fnuky” to that end.
Local girl Natascha Dowsett saw the job advertisement on Seek.com.au, took the personality test and then decided to take a leaf out of Fnuky’s book and try something completely different in the hopes that it would grab their attention; she started a Facebook group called “Dinner my shout, if you help Fnuky find me”
Natascha has explained that she will give someone a great dinner at her expense if they come up with the nicest and most creative comment about her and post it on her page. Not an onerous task, but one fraught with potential for embarrassment, and all based on the hope Fnuky will take notice and give her a job. As I write this over 200 people have joined the group and apparently at least 11 people are in the running for a free dinner.
 Natascha Dowsett just outside the BetterComms Towers office lift, yesterday afternoon |
Natascha’s foray into digital marketing is of course tremendously exciting for her and the future of job seeking. Equally, it is a risky proposition.
Watch Natascha’s group page to see each step of the saga unfold – one to watch to see how it pans out for everyone involved, methinks.
 Natascha Dowsett and |
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The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council invites you to be part of their in-depth assessment of marketing performance in 2009 and the plans, priorities and projections for 2010.
‘Marketing Outlook’ is one of, if not the most, downloaded product each year from the Council’s website.
Take the survey: http://www.cmocouncil.org/programs/surveys/mo_10/
The CMO Council’s fourth-annual Marketing Outlook study is a valuable and reliable barometer of media and marketing spend, as well as a sound indicator of where and how marketers expect to drive campaign effectiveness, efficiency and yield in the months ahead. With CMO Council members controlling over $150 billion in annual marketing spend, you will find their latest Marketing Outlook report a vital and essential tool for planning and decision-making in 2010
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Traditional market research is conducted in a very uni-directional manner; the agency asks all sorts of questions of the public, the public in turn responds, but little or no interactivity occurs.
Therefore, important–nay essential–nuances of psychology, language, colour and design are potentially missed elements of feedback. A huge loss to the researching organisation and their client.
But wait! Thankfully someone has finally realised the importance of this missing data and done something about it.
Jennie Beattie and her colleagues over at the Digital Democracy are able to offer the ‘Your Say Cafe’, a online community area where market research can be conducted and interactions can take place using all manner of methods and tools.
“Huzzah!”
If you are involved with market research you owe it to yourself to nip over to the Digital Democracy’s post on the matter and find out more.
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Tactical Transparency by Shel Holtz and John Havens.
A belter of a book and a 'must read' addition to any communicator's bedside reading table if they are serious about introducing social media into their communication plans. It includes a fabulous chapter on transparency and business (hint: you want to photocopy it and give it to your CEO!)
Qualitative Communication Research Methods by Thomas Lindlof and Bryan Taylor.
Not just a book for academics, it's chock-full of great ideas on how to effectively and efficiently research your employees, customers, the marketplace and other stakeholders
The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein.
A fabulous book that gives a clear, clean overview of what Twitter is and WHY you should be engaging with it. THEN it goes into depth with so many tips and ideas that they should have sold the book for twice the price!
Practical SEO Copywriting: a ‘must get’ book. My mate Glenn Murray has written a bottler of a new book on search engines and copywriting.
In a cunning twist of bizarre nomenclature, he’s titled it Practical SEO Copywriting. The cheeky little fox! It’s a DIY guide to writing online copy for both human readers AND for that 400kg gorilla we lovingly call ‘Google’.
The danger, Glenn quite rightly …err …writes is that focusing too much attention on all of the supposed SEO ‘tricks of the trade’ will make your copy all but unreadable by the human brain. You know, all that stuff bandied about by the so-called SEO (search engine optimisation) experts: keyword frequency, exact string versus individual words scattered across the page, page length, alt tags, header tags, and so on.
Not that this stuff isn’t important – it all is, and more besides – but Glenn argues persuasively that by far more important is the ability to write copy that people will actually want to read – and link to!
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