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Two Case Studies Demonstrating the Power and Speed of Social Networks

April 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment

As a marketing professional, I quickly understood the potential of social networking platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, and blogs. However, many friends, family and professionals still find it difficult to fully grasp their power, capabilities or uses.

For those who don’t “get it,” I have two practical and personal case studies that shed light on the speed, reliability and benefits of social networks:

Case Study No. 1 // Earthquake – Friday morning (April 18), shortly before 4:40 a.m., my wife and I suddenly awoke to our entire house shaking! The walls, bed and dressers were all rattling and continued to shake for a good five seconds after I was fully awake.

I quickly turned on the alarm clock radio, which was set to WGN 720 AM.

No news.

Being from the Chicago suburbs where tornadoes are the natural disaster of Mother Nature’s choice, I never suspected earthquake, so I leaped out of bed and circled the house looking for what caused the shaking. I thought the house was about to blow up!

By 4:50 a.m., I was in front of my computer checking news sites. Still nothing. I turned on WGN’s streaming radio and still nothing. I remembered Matt Dickman’s Micromedia presentation and how he referenced the quick Twitter responses to the Minnesota bridge collapse, so I checked Twitter, a free social networking and micro-blogging service. So, I checked Twitter.

Sure enough… the first message I read was from a St. Louis user who exclaimed EARTHQUAKE!?

A quick search found dozens of Twitter messages already posted about the earthquake - the first I could find was from @safetyguy1656 at 4:40 a.m. CST, only three minutes after the quake was officially documented by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Adding reliability, many of the twitter posts (”tweets”) included links to the United States Geological Survey website with information about a then-reported 5.4 magnitude tremor (later confirmed 5.2). My wife and I were both glued to Twitter for the next 20 minutes, exchanging messages with fellow members to get the latest info and “eye witness” reports. here are what some of the messages looked like:

As we read Twitter, WGN finally reported the quake. Twitter had scooped Chicago’s “superstation”… and by nearly 10 minutes! According to fellow Twitterer (a Twit?) @badgergravling, Twitter and Wikipedia had scooped mainstream media (MSM) for a recent UK earthquake, Heath Ledger, etc. And, according to Matt Dickman, Twitter announced the Minnesota bridge collapse almost 45 minutes before MSM.

Thanks to the instant emergency information gratification of Twitter, I’m hooked.

Case Study No. 2 // Tricia – A few weeks ago, my family was shocked to hear that my sister, Tricia, was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer. We knew it was serious when the doctors immediately scheduled her for bilateral mastectomy surgery.

With no history of cancer, this hit Tricia and our entire family hard… and with absolutely no warning. Needless to say, it was and still is very scary.

Days after the diagnosis, friends and family asked how they could help. With Tricia’s permission, I created 4tricia.com to give people ideas and help raise a few extra dollars to offset the giant costs associated with battling breast cancer (i.e., medical expenses related to surgery, hospital care, doctors visits, prescriptions as well as wigs/headwraps, travel, lost work time, etc.). As a blog, 4tricia.com also serves as a therapeutic writing outlet for Tricia to share her progress and feelings.

With the family in a state of emergency, I asked Tricia if she wanted me to share her story with my network of blogger friends. I explained it would reach thousands of altruistic people around the globe. She agreed as she thought it was more important to share her story and raise awareness than keep private. Plus, the fact that it hit a young, 30-something with no family history of cancer may help open some eyes and push people get get more regular check-ups.

Two days before Tricia’s double mastectomy, I sent out a distress signal via toddand.com and a personal email to several friends and family.

“I’m asking for your thoughts and prayers this weekend,” I said. “And if you have a dollar or two to spare, your contributions would be greatly (greatly) appreciated.”

I posted the message and sent the email just around midnight, just before I went to bed. When I woke up six hours later, the signal had been heard by many and echoed across Twitter and several other blogs.

Within 10 hours of launching the website and sending an email, we had 10 donations.

Within 72 hours, we had more than 60 contributors and about $6,000 had been raised! Donation amounts ranged from $5 to $500!

The prayers, well-wishes and donations came from all over the world – Australia, Iceland, Belgium, England, Canada and across the United States.

What made this outpouring of support unique and so completely amazing to my entire family was that 1) it was so unbelievably quick and generous, and 2) it came from people we had never met face to face. I explained to my family that, by blogging, I am part of a close-knit community of like-minded professionals who are willing to help fellow bloggers at a moment’s notice.

Thank you to those who quickly wrote about or pointed to Tricia’s website and helped raise prayers and dollars: Todd Defren, Kami Huyse, Shannon Whitley, Connie Reece, Melissa, Scott Baradell, Leo Bottary, Drew McLellan, Kristie Wells, Gavin Heaton, Steve Woodruff, Susan Reynolds, Lani Anglin-Rosales, Joel Postman, Karl Long, Karen Swim, Dan Mosqueda, Brendan Cooper, Sally Whittle, Brian Solis, Scott Monty, Douglas Karr, Bob Mertz, etc.

As Tricia said in an update post, “Your unending prayers, words of support and encouragement, and generosity are what keep me going and have touched me in a way words cannot express. To simply say ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem like near enough.”

While my family probably still doesn’t fully comprehend social networking and blogs, they are now completely aware of the power and responsiveness of the community. Whereas before my parents would have likely just smiled-off any mention of “blogging,” now their ears perk up with keen interest at any mention of the word. For instance, my dad recently clipped and gave me a magazine article about blogging.

To incentivize the 4tricia.com fundraising (which clearly wasn’t needed), I said I’d raffle off four prizes to those who donated more than $1 in the first week. Those winners are: Leigh Householder (Power 150 t-shirt), Scott Baradell (4tricia t-shirt), Merredith Branscombe (Power 150 pen) and Brendan Cooper ($25 iTunes gift card). Please email me your snail mail addresses and I’ll get the prizes in the mail asap. Thanks!

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Posted by toddand | Filed Under Blogging, Educational, Marketing, Media, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategies+Tactics, Technology

Social Is The New Search

April 16, 2008 | 4 Comments

Popular Mechanics has an interesting article titled “How Social Networking Could Kill Web Search as We Know It.“

According to the venture capitalist friend of reporter Glenn Derene, “search, as we know it, is dead.”

In a nutshell: As we continue to populate our Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, building bonds with like-minded users, people will turn to their networks rather than search algorithms for information. According to the article, “the people in your online social network should know you better than a mathematical equation, right?”

Check out the whole article, but here is one noteworthy paragraph:

But what may turn out to be the strongest signal of all is the footprint you make with your online identity. Consider how much information you voluntarily provide on your Facebook profile. Now imagine if you could combine that with your Netflix renting and Amazon buying habits. Then throw in the suggestions of your friends and the pages you visit the most often. All those various sources of information about you are currently stored in different locations—on your computer’s browser history, on your Facebook page, on the servers for Netflix and Amazon—but just imagine how accurate a search could be if every time you had a query, the mass of data about you that exists on the Internet could inform the results. (Google and Yahoo already do this to a limited extent by tracking your search history to refine results, and surely startups will try.)

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Posted by toddand | Filed Under Advertising, Blogging, Educational, Management, Marketing, Media, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategies+Tactics, Technology

Ad Age Power 150 Roundtable

April 14, 2008 | 4 Comments

To kick off Blogger Social 2008 and take advantage of so many marketing bloggers being in NYC, Advertising Age Editor Jonah Bloom hosted a Power 150 roundtable discussion, which the magazine covered in this week’s issue with an article titled Separating Brilliance from Blabber. In addition to the edited transcript, Ad Age also ran a related story on corporate blogging and the chief blogger role.

As David Armano writes, Ad Age is engaging new voices and broadening its editorial net to include alternative sources of information.

Along with myself, list manager Charlie Moran and Jonah, the marketing bloggers (along with today’s Power 150 rank) who participated in the roundtable included:

1. David Armano (Logic+Emotion) – P: 26
2. Rohit Bhargava (Influential Marketing Blog) – P: 44
3. Matt Dickman (Techno//Marketer) – P: 123
4. Anna Farmery (The Engaging Brand) – P: 107
5. Mark Goren (Transmission Content + Creative) – P: 236
6. Lewis Green (bizsolutionsplus) – P: 148
7. Ann Handley (Marketing Profs) – P: 57
8. Gavin Heaton (Servant of Chaos) – P: 97
9. Sean Howard (CrapHammer) – P: 138
10. Geoff Livingston (The Buzz Bin) – P: 76
11. Paul McEnany (Hee-Haw Marketing) – P: 198
12. Darryl Ohrt (Brand Flakes For Breakfast) – P: 115

Blog coverage of the roundtable:
Advertising Age Proves that Bloggers Can Sit at Large Tables (Hee-Haw Marketing)
darryl: too sexy for online adage (Brand Flakes for Breakfast)
Power 150 roundtable (Techno//Marketer)
The Chief of Blogs (Servant of Chaos)
Understand. Act. in that order (Blog’M)
Ad Age Summons Bloggers To The Table (AdPulp)
Ad Age Engages Industry Bloggers (Logic+Emotion)

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Posted by toddand | Filed Under Advertising, Blogging, Management, Marketing, Power Profiles, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategies+Tactics, Technology

Nominated as a Top Interviewer

April 1, 2008 | 4 Comments

Last week, Rohit Bhargava asked bloggers to “virtually interview” him about his new book, Personality Not Included. I asked what may be considered the two most important questions of the author: 1) how is your book different from the tidal wave of other “new marketing” books on the shelves now, and 2) what’s up with the wind-up chickens on your cover?

Out of 55 interviews, Rohit picked the top 12 for you to vote on and pick the best interview. My interview is one of the lucky 12 so I’d love your vote! Today through Friday, you can vote in two separate locations - so click over to this link and this one, and vote twice! The top five vote getters will get signed copies of the book, and the blogger with the most votes will get a $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com.

Since I already have a copy of the book, I’ll give my extra copy away to anyone who comments on this post (if more than one person comments on this post, I’ll pick a name out of a hat). Thank you for voting!

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Posted by toddand | Filed Under Authors+Books, Blogging, Random, Social Media, Strategies+Tactics

Future Trends in Advertising

March 23, 2008 | 5 Comments

Nod: Neil Perkin

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Posted by toddand | Filed Under Advertising, Blogging, Design, Educational, Management, Marketing, Media, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategies+Tactics, Technology, Video

New Todd And Feature for Authors and Their Books

March 23, 2008 | 1 Comment

UPDATE: Click here to access the new authors + books section.

Since launching this blog in July of 2006, dozens of authors and publishers have asked me to promote their books. While I am all about promoting a good book, I just don’t have the time to read that many books from cover to cover.

In an effort to support authors and give my readers a glimpse of new marketing and media books, I am launching an “authors + books” series. The series will feature guest-written posts by authors of new or recently-published marketing and media books. Starting today, authors wanting to participate in my promotional series can email me a short pitch.

The guest author submissions, preferably 300 to 700 words, can either be 1) an edited excerpt, so that it can stand alone, from the forthcoming or recently-published book, or 2) an original byline column not previously published anywhere else. When I say “not previously published,” I mean not verbatim. You can still use previously-published ideas, concepts and topics, but the content should be somewhat unique from any other previously-published version.

The only other requirement is that your book and post must relate to marketing, media or one of the other categories in the left sidebar of my blog. Not all author pitches will be accepted - they must fit appropriately with the theme and content of this blog.

If your pitch is approved, please submit your post with a short biographical byline (no more than three sentences) as well as front cover artwork and a head shot. Your guest posts will be archived in a new category on my blog called “authors+books.”

Lastly, I will ask that you send me a physical copy of your book, so that I can also read it when/if I have time and perhaps add some of my own commentary down the road (no guarantees). It will also become a part of my ever-growing library of marketing and media books that I keep at work for me and my colleagues to read and reference.

According to my server stats, my blog - toddand.com - currently gets 93,000 hits per month, of which almost half are unique visitors. My visitors include many of the world’s top marketing agencies, media companies, corporations and educational institutions.

Thanks for your interest in Todd And = Marketing + Media, and I look forward to your pitch.

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Posted by toddand | Filed Under Advertising, Authors+Books, Blogging, Educational, Management, Marketing, Media, News, Personal Finance, Public Relations, Random, Social Media, Strategies+Tactics

Crystal Ball 2.0

March 17, 2008 | 3 Comments

Advertising Age asked a handful of the Power 150 bloggers “what technology marketers should be paying most attention to in 2008?” Click here for Crystal Ball 2.0.

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Posted by toddand | Filed Under Advertising, Blogging, Educational, Management, Marketing, Media, Power Profiles, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategies+Tactics, Technology

The Next Big, Small Thing

March 9, 2008 | 4 Comments

I’m a big fan of Matt Dickman because I learn a ton from him and his blog. In fact, I just called him up last week with a question about online video players. He brought TubeMogul to my attention. At TubeMogul, you upload one video and it automatically codes and distributes the video to all the web’s top video sharing sites (i.e., YouTube, Revver, Yahoo, Blip.tv, Google, etc.).

Even better, according to TubeMogul.com, its analytic technology aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers improved understanding of when, where and how often videos are watched, track and compare what’s hot and what’s not, measure the impact of marketing campaigns, gather competitive intelligence, and share the data with colleagues or friends.

Anyway, Matt’s blog is loaded with cool widgets, video interviews, presentations and more. I noticed his most recent presentation — Micromedia: The Next Big, Small Thing — a few weeks ago, but just today realized it includes an audio walk-through (nod to Adam). Personally, I’m hesitant about Twitter and its practical B2B marketing applications. I’m starting to recognize its B2C and personal uses thanks, in part, to Matt’s presentation, but I can’t seem to keep my own Twitter experiment going. So, for those questioning Twitter and other similar micromedia apps, this presentation is a great 14 minutes of your time (just hit play):

| View | Upload your own

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Posted by toddand | Filed Under Blogging, Educational, Marketing, Media, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategies+Tactics, Technology

Should “Off The Record” be Respected by Journalists?

March 8, 2008 | 15 Comments

Click here for the full video interview.

“She is a monster, too –- that is off the record –- she is stooping to anything,” said Obama campaign advisor Samantha Power during an interview with Britain’s Gerri Peev of The Scotsman. According to the full video interview above, it sounded like the comment was made as part of some light, introductory “small talk.” Still, Gerri Peev used that quick off-the-record comment as the crux of her article.

HILLARY Clinton has been branded a “monster” by one of Barack Obama’s top advisers, as the gloves come off in the race to win the Democrat nomination.

The article resulted in huge backlash from the Hillary Clinton campaign and ultimately resulted in Power’s resignation. And check out the 560 passionate comments already posted to Peev’s March 7 article.

Why would this journalist take it upon herself to print an off the record statement when the interview was meant to discuss Power’s new book? Was it merely a media culture clash? Was it just bad timing because Power said “off the record” after the statement instead of before? Was it the reporter’s selfish attempt to capture some attention? Was it because the journalist saw no value in maintaining a relationship with Power and, therefore, had no reason to respect the request? What do you think?

For non-PR professionals, “off the record” is a classic media relations tactic used to privately provide context and new story angles or leads to journalists. Think attorney-client privilege for journalists and their sources. Similar to other popular media relations tactics like the embargo and exclusive, “off the record” has the potential to backfire because the agreement is only as strong as the reporter’s word.

Having done a ton of media relations work on both the agency and client sides, I’ve heard a variety of opinions on using “off the record.” Some media trainers instruct clients that everything is on the record and to never use the tactic. Others swear by it as a way to build reporter relationships and source opportunities. I’ve managed dozens of interviews where the “off the record” request has come up - including instances where it was said before and after the “off” statement. I’ve also facilitated entire 40-minute conversations that were off the record. Fortunately, every reporter respected the requests and no crisis management was necessary.

In my opinion, journalists are smart to respect them as long as they value the source. I’ve heard a handful of off-the-record-gone-bad stories to know some journalists will still print everything you say. As always, proceed with caution. Probably the safest rule of thumb is to only use “off the record” with reporters you know and trust. Otherwise, maintain the “everything is on the record” approach to interviews.

What do you think? On this subject matter, I’d love to hear from some PR bloggers on both sides of the pond, such as Neville, Defren, Geoff, Scott, Kami, David, Stephen, Kevin, Gerry, Brendan, Ben, Brian, Lee, Richard, etc.

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Posted by toddand | Filed Under Educational, Management, Media, Politics, Public Relations, Strategies+Tactics

67% View Traditional Journalism as “Out of Touch”

March 1, 2008 | 2 Comments

This isn’t news to most of us, but a We Media/Zogby Interactive poll recently found that most Americans view traditional journalism as “out of touch.” And while blogs aren’t the most trusted source of news, 60% of Americans see them as significant to the future of journalism. Here are some of the most interesting nuggets from the survey:

Internet is the top source of news for nearly half of Americans.

Two thirds of Americans (67%) believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.

Two thirds (64%) of Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities.

Nearly half of respondents (48%) said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, an increase from 40% who said the same a year ago.

Overall, 29% said television is their main source of news, while fewer said they turn to radio (11%) and newspapers (10%) for most of their news and information.

Just 7% of those age 18 to 29 said they get most of their news from newspapers.

Very few Americans (1%) consider blogs their most trusted source of news, or their primary source of news (1%).

Three in four (75%) believe the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.

Although the vast majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism (64%), overall satisfaction with journalism has increased to 35% in this survey from 27% who said the same in 2007.

Both traditional and new media are viewed as important for the future of journalism - 87% believe professional journalism has a vital role to play in journalism’s future, although citizen journalism (77%) and blogging (59%) are also seen as significant by most Americans.

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