Creative Traction

Event: Talk is Cheap 3.0

Duane Brown — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:33:26 +0000

Tonight Centennial College’s Corporate Communications & Public Relations Programis putting on a event called Talk is Cheap 3.0

“…third annual evening “unconference” examining trends in social media and public relations. Talk is Cheap is designed to bring together communications and marketing professionals, journalists, bloggers, students and anyone else interested in exploring how social media and online marketing are impacting corporate communications and PR.”

I’m not a public relations person but I got invited and decided to check it out tonight. Check out some of the panels and maybe I’ll see you there tonight.

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Ambassador vs Advocate: Which do you want for your company?

Duane Brown — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:00:53 +0000

I had a stimulating conversation this past week with a colleague about the difference between an ambassador and an advocate….. well more to the point if there was a difference. There are some who believe they are one and the same but I don’t believe there are. There is a subtle difference and that difference is important for a company to know.

Advocate: They are the people who defend a company against all odds. They can be considered the vocal few. Apple is a perfect example of a company that has many advocates working for the brand. Advocates love the brand, follow new product releases and general show their support for the brand. However, advocates are not sanctioned by the company as an official company spokesperson.

Ambassador: Are exactly the same as an advocate but are sanctioned by the company as an official company spokesperson. In a community there is the majority of the community, then advocates and then ambassadors and after that comes moderators/ director of community and finally the company.

To get back to the title of this post. I think a company needs a healthy balance of both in order to survive in this environment. Apple does seem to make it work with only advocates but Apple is a rare exception. I don’t think many company’s can operate like Apple does in this day and age.

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A Guerilla Experiment in Sentiment Analysis

Duane Brown — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:59:20 +0000

Syncapse, a digital technology agency, recently release a new whitepaper on Tuesday called A Guerilla Experiment in Sentiment Analysis

The summarization of large amounts of information into a single digestible Key Performance Indicator is a major problem in social media measurement. The dominant paradigm in social listening tools is to rate all content with a positive, neutral, or negative value. We call this the Generic Sentiment Score. A major source of dissatisfaction among marketers and PR professionals is the overall accuracy generated by this score and the machines that try to approximate this value. This experiment proves that there are many versions of truth among humans when asked to score the same content. The authors conclude that the Generic Sentiment Score is not enough and that a more comprehensive approach is required.

Read the report this week and it’s an interesting look at one aspect of social media monitoring that defiantly needs more work and research into.

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How Are Global Fortune 100 Companies Leveraging Social Media?

Duane Brown — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:51:48 +0000

That’s one big question trying to be answered in a new study put out by Burson-Marsteller. If you don’t want to read the report. Then check out this very cool infographic that came out today care of Flowtown.

65 percent of the Fortune Global 100 had active accounts on Twitter, 54 percent had a Facebook fan page, 50 percent had a YouTube channel, and 33 percent had corporate blogs.
Only 20 percent of the major international companies were utilizing all four platforms to engage with stakeholders.
Companies based in the United States and Europe were most likely to use Twitter (U.S.: 72 percent, Europe: 71 percent) or Facebook (U.S.: 69 percent, Europe: 52 percent) than they were to have corporate blogs (U.S.: 34 percent, Europe: 25 percent), while companies from Asia-Pacific were more likely to utilize corporate blogs (50 percent) than other forms of social media (Twitter: 40 percent, Facebook: 40 percent).
Companies using Twitter are following an average of 731 people each and 38 percent of companies are responding to people’s tweets

I found the new study to be helpful and even started using it in a new client deck today.

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Event: HST 101 for Business

Duane Brown — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:00:04 +0000

ING Direct Canada is hosting a seminar for business on HST, which is coming into affect July 1st, 2010.

Ready or not, the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) is coming and we want to help you get your business prepared for it.

Come and join our HST 101 for Business seminar to learn how the HST will affect your business and your clients. Find out how to collect and report it and hear how you can save more money.

It should be a good event and one I’m looking forward to attending.

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DICE 2010: The future of gaming

Duane Brown — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:10:10 +0000

Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell, dives into a world of game development which will emerge from the popular “Facebook Games” era.

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The future of social media monitoring

Duane Brown — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:24:35 +0000

This past week a report surfaced that only 50% of tweets are in English. The other 4 top languages are Japanese, Portuguese, Malay & Spanish. The release of this report got me thinking as more global firms get into monitoring their brand online and the implications for them by this report.

We already have many public relations, advertising and other agencies using more then one social media monitoring tool for a brand. The big reason for this is because every tool is different and using two tools increases your likely hood that you won’t miss anything online. Also, each tool is going to offer something different for each brand. I know a few friends at different advertising shops are really digging Sysomos right now. However, what happens when your team is based in North American or Europe and you want to monitor your brand in Asia.

Going Global
I know many of the leading social media monitoring tools have the ability to translate into different languages but I’m beginning to wonder how good of a job these tools do. There is something said for a firm like JamiQ who is based in Asia and understands the culture and language of that continent a lot better then a firm based in North American or Europe. It’s the subtle differences that are going to hopefully make a tool like JamiQ a lot better at monitoring your brand then a firm not based there. This starts to leave me with more questions then answers:

Should global brands being using a different social media monitoring tool for each continent?
Will teams need to start to be continent based?
Will the need for an agitator to combine each continents information into one dashboard exist?
Are global brands even beginning to think this way?

I’m not sure where we are headed but this is a trend that I’m going to continue to monitor as I see it effecting how we work. As more people jump into social media tools then this trend is only going to increase in 2010 and beyond. This post was spurred by a conversation I had with my friend Alex Conde and the team at Proximity on Wednesday.

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#CupCakeWednesday: another example of the power of Twitter

Duane Brown — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:19:04 +0000

All About The Cupcake
An innocent tweet last week has brought the joy of cupcakes to my door this afternoon. What started out as a conversation between two of my friends about cupcakes and Cinnabon launching their new cupcake line in the US this year. Got Cinnabon to not only connect with my two friends but help make their dream of bringing the goodness of #CupCakeWednesday to those lucky few in the downtown core today. Cinnabon didn’t have to join the conversation nor did they have to give my friends free product to share with their network around Toronto. But they understood that the economics are changing and they needs to nurture that new change in business.

All About The Benjamins
For my business readers who question the value of social media and building out your network with the right connections, let me just say this. My latest major client came from a connection on Twitter. I’m working on some important business that is key for my boss and the global agency he works for. I won’t say more then that as I’m a tight lipped person on new business and even if I had not signed an NDA. I still wouldn’t say anything as I’ve been telling everyone since last week when I started working on this business for Proximity.

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Custom Facebook Pages

Duane Brown — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:55:42 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of research the last week for a new project I’m working on. I’ve been researching options and possibilities for Facebook Pages as well as seeing what some of the biggest and not so bad brands on Facebook have been doing. As you can imagine, there is a wide spectrum of creative and great execution from different brands like H&M, The Free Press and Red Bull. However, there was a fan page that stood out to me and I really felt tried to being its personality to life:

Adidas

Really enjoying their “Your Area” tab. It mixes photos, video and helps fans locate stores (link to main Adidas site store finder)
What really makes the fan page stand out is the attempt at making an augmented reality app based around their sneakers
The fan page has the usually events listing, and YouTube channel integration

If you are on the hunt for examples of some custom Facebook Pages like me. Then check out Custom Facebook Pages. A few of the Facebook Pages have changed since they were added to the site, which is a great thing as we can see how the branding is changing on Facebook over time.

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Did You Know?

Duane Brown — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:19:15 +0000

I often watch this video with excitement as I think about what the future will hold as I take the next step in my life. However, the title of this video is also how I felt today. There was a lot I didn’t know or at least felt I didn’t. But come Monday… the gloves are coming off. It’s time to wow the client.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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