29 Nov 08 Paid To Talk At The Cafe
I was just reading Chris Brogan’s interesting and engaging article about Cafe-Shaped Conversations
The major point he makes is this. Why should large corporations only want to talk to relatively small audiences via social media when they’ve already got their own networks in place to address millions?
One issue concerns me here. What is to stop these major corporations planting people within the social media networks to conduct subliminal advertising campaigns? I’m not talking along the lines of magpie style tweets or blatant pushing of a product – that will simply get such people quickly unfollowed.
I’m thinking here of something along the lines of a method I saw described recently, where a company will pay you to talk up a product to your friends and family. Now if this can bring results – i.e increased sales – in face to face situations, why wouldn’t it work online, within social media networks?
I am not for one moment suggesting this is a ‘good thing’ but I could see some larger businesses at least trying this kind of approach.
Would you be willing to write about products, and promote them in places such as Friendfeed, Facebook, and Twitter. Promoted in such a way that it looks like your truly a fan of them?
Personally, I think it’s totally unethical, and that one should declare ones interest, but, money talks.
Your comments, as always, would be most welcome
Tags: advertising campaigns, audiences, chris brogan, conversations, facebook, friends and family, issue concerns, large corporations, magpie, media networks, money talks, subliminal advertising, tweets, twitter
11 Aug 08 Calling Cards
It’s kind of crazy really. I’m the world’s worst at sending birthday and Christmas cards. I truly don’t care if I receive them or not either. I’m quite happy to get e-cards, after all it’s the thought that counts – but some still seem to see them as being a cheapskate. Well, having got friends and family all over the world, it’s darn expensive sending them out, particularly at Christmas time, and there’s always some that never arrive or get there in mid-January.
So what’s the crazy bit? Business cards that’s what!
I’ve got business cards for the IT/Web business; I’ve got business cards for the radio station; now I’ve got calling cards for me. It’s a resurrection of a Victorian idea really. Calling cards are non-business cards, and are a way of introducing yourself. Many of my friends and family already have my business details, and I thought this would be a nice way to say “Hey! this is me, not my business or anything else, but just me!”
You can find my personal email address on the card, and personal web site and blog URLS. I’ve chucked in my phone number, because, although I prefer to do business online where possible, it’s nice to have a chat on the phone with friends and family sometimes isn’t it?
Anyway, the only thing I have to remember now is to take some of the darn things with me when I go out!
Tags: blog, business cards, business details, business online, calling cards, cheapskate, christmas, christmas cards, christmas time, e cards, eyebee, Eyebeemania, friends and family, personal web site, phone number, radio station, resurrection, web business, wild cabbage
06 Aug 08 FriendFeed
I like FriendFeed. No, I really like FriendFeed. It’s been compared to Facebook, but it’s different in my opinion, way different.
How does it work?
Unlike Facebook, you don’t have to sign up to anything. You can simply go to FriendFeed, and search for people. If you know their FriendFeed name you’ll get a page come up with everything they’re doing.
It works by collating all the feeds from all the networks that they’ve addd to their FriendFeed account, so you can can see what video they posted on YouTube, the images they uploaded to Flickr, what they just posted on their blog, and so on. There’s no advertisments getting in the way.
You can join FriendFeed yourself, and add in all your social media networks too, and then folks can see what you’re doing by looking at your page. You can find mine here.
One big difference in the way I use FriendFeed to Facebook is how I define friends.
Facebook encourages you to add your ‘real’ friends and family. Ok, that’s nice, but lets be honest here, while some of them are very nice people, some of them are also very boring online. Do I really need to know what color socks my friend Igor is wearing this morning, or how long he had to wait for the bus? I don’t need, and don’t have time for 101 invitations to dig your ‘patch’. Ok, throwing sheep was fun for about five minutes, but it’s way past old now.
On FriendFeed, on the other hand, I ‘friend’ those that are writing stuff I find interesting, even if I don’t know them very well, or at all. I also, don’t expect them to return the compliment and follow me. A few folks seem to have an issue with that, but all I can say, is, get real!
It’s nice if some people do, as we all like to think we might be mildly interesting to at least a few folks in the world, but the high flying head of an SEO team that writes really useful stuff, probably doesn’t want to read about my relatively mundane existance.
Right now, I’m using FriendFeed a whole lot more than Facebook, for two reasons. Firstly, one click on a bookmark and I’m there. Secondly, there’s simply more interesting, easier to access stuff out there.
Of course who knows what’s around the corner, in the ever changing world of Social Media!
Tags: advertisments, blog, compliment, existance, facebook, fir, five minutes, friend feed, friendfeed, friends and family, images, invitations, media networks, nice people, opinion way, real friends, sheep, socks, whole lot
