Fully Loded

Social CSI VII

theburritoking — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:02:45 +0000

Ad Age Digital discussed Social CSI and the privacy concerns of social media taking over SXSW. We couldn’t agree more, now let’s take a swab to get your DNA and tweet about your blood type, mother’s maiden name, social security number, credit card info and that you are fsqrd on vacation and your house is all alone…..Thanks for writing you saved us a little time

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=142892

Social CSI VI

theburritoking — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:39:11 +0000

The NY Times and MIT has caught up with our Lodestone’s Social CSI. Maybe we can license the name to them

In an article from the NY Times today here is a few of our favorite quotes:

“Technology has rendered the conventional definition of personally identifiable information obsolete, you can find out who an individual is without it.”

“Personal privacy is no longer an individual thing, In today’s online world, what your mother told you is true, only more so: people really can judge you by your friends.”

“When you’re doing stuff online, you should behave as if you’re doing it in public — because increasingly, it is.”

Check out the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/technology/17privacy.html

SXSWi Recap

theburritoking — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:23:23 +0000

Well it has been awhile since our last post. We have been busy magnetizing brands and had to neglect our company blog but not our personal twitter accounts, flickr and more. That would be impossible

We got a chance to take a break from the mess and attend our favorite SXSW Interactive this year in Austin. Here is what we like most:

Best Party: All Hat 2 – not because our boss is a founding member but because it is one of the few places you can get outside, hear people talk and meet cool people that aren’t trying to pitch you from a podium. Check it out: photos http://bit.ly/bb3RC7

Best Brand Integration at SXSW – Chevy Volt. Yep the electric car had a cool Recharge Lounge and with all th tweeting, foursquaring, pictures, videos, etc. our phones died quick…..Plus they are doing some cool stuff with QR Codes. And they announced spending 30% of their marketing budget on digital. Yeah Chevy.

What we didn’t like was the continuing stream of everyone checking in on foursquare or mentioning who they were at dinner with. Way too many tweets….We heard foursquare is going to offer a checkout function which may mean twice the clutter next year. Don’t get us wrong we like Foursquare but it was a lot during SXSWi.

Well now onto the SXSW music and movie festival where we just get to have a little fun instead of work.

Cheers!

Social CSI V

theburritoking — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:11:20 +0000

This will be a short episode of Social CSI but I found these two articles to be interesting reads about how social media is impacting your life and how one should think before they post.

First is an interesting article on how social media can increase identity theft. Dan Nystedt http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20091012/tc_pcworld/researchersadvisecyberselfdefenseinthecloud

The second is how a poor girl lost her waitress job after twittering about an actor who stiffed her. So now a person is getting fired for telling the truth….check out the story at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/06/jane-adams-waiter-jon-bar_n_310783.html?page=2&show_comment_id=32354015#comment_32354015

Look out the social Laurence Fishburne may be hiding around your next tweet.

Who is Jim Rogan?

theburritoking — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 02:21:50 +0000

I recently learned a former Warner Bros. colleague passed away suddenly.

A friend did a great tribute website to him and after watching this it helped put a hard day into perspective.

Jim always had a great story on his tongue and a ‘Roganism’ for all occasions. Somehow, no matter how tough a day or hard of a time you were going through, he would always make you smile.

As a good friend and boss once told me “you’re only selling frozen burritos Mark, relax”

In the face of all the struggles you may have with work remember the work is only part of it. It is the people at work that become friends, people to learn from, lean on and laugh with that counts. The rest is just frozen burritos….

RIP Jim Rogan, you’ll be missed.

Mark Drosos

Social CSI IV

theburritoking — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:46:54 +0000

Another snafu from the stream of consciousness we call twitter/blogging. In a recent post/twit by Jeremiah Owyang a Forrester Research analyst he posted “Mzinga is having financial difficulties. They need to brief me immediately.” He also suggested that Mzinga clients and prospects “stall any additional movement till they brief me”

These types of comments were made without even speaking with the client to identify what the potential problem may be.

Not the best action for a research analyst but in today’s social media frenzy to share your every thought and day’s activity to show how smart we all are and that we can use the new social media tools I can understand how he might have posted this with little thought of the action.

The post prompted nearly 100 comments, mostly negative about the post and of course from Mzinga employees all the way up to the chairman.

On the following day, Jeremiah issued a public apology “I posted without complete enough information, which was a mistake on my part.”

In the end there was some news that Mzinga needed to layoff some employees and a couple executives left. This is nothing unusual in this market or in the marketing world. But the post unfortunately causing a negative stir for Mzinga and a small black eye for Forrester and Jeremiah.

This is just another reminder of how Social CSI can find you….

Social CSI III

theburritoking — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:18:50 +0000

In another case of how broadcasting your thoughts, pics, where you are at and more may land you in trouble consider the recent exposure a James Andrews from Ketchum Interactive.

The summary: while on a trip to client FedEx in Memphis James twittered and bagged on Memphis saying “I would die if I had to live here” well that got around to FedEx execs. after a FedEx person saw the twit.

And now poor James is out of a job or at least that is the rumors. But I have heard that Ketchum is not letting him go. Eitherway social marketing tools are good for business, networking, holding yourself out as an expert, PR and more but it is equally as dangerous.

I am pretty sure James is a good guy and who know the contextof the twit and yes this is way blown out of proportion so I wish him all the best that this blows over quickly.

So be aware Gill Grisom is everywhere and the Social CSI team may see what you are doing, said, where you are or more. So use some common sense out there……

Invest in your customer today so they invest in you tomorrow

theburritoking — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:56:00 +0000

As I was shopping in the Circuit City liquidation craze yesterday I was prompted to write about how difficult these times may be for businesses but more so how the ones that are still around can take advantage of the time to secure their future. Businesses today need to be thinking about how to differentiate their business and capture customer loyalty today in order to ride the wave of spending that will come in the future or grab the dollars that are in the market today. Consumer spending will turn around in the future and when it does will they choose you? Studies have shown that building a relationship with customer can increase your business double digits and who wouldn’t want that. Can social marketing help you with this? YES. Just consider some of these numbers from companies that have implemented programs. Dell – Dell’s forums and message boards have received over 1,000 ideas of howto better their products. They have over 4,000 conversations about consumer problems. Sony – Sony’s Backstage 101, Digital Darkroom and Frontline Focus Groups reported that 78% of their users are more likely to buy Sony and reported sales increasing 16% yoy. Dollar Rent a Car – even with a shrinking market and strong competition, in the first four months of the campaign Dollar’s revenues at La Guardia were up 20% compared with the previous four months. Revenues in 2007 grew 24% year over year. So what can your marketing departments do in 2009 to engage your consumers and turn that relationship into buying power and brand advocates for your brand? Even with marketing departments cutting budgets some 15-30% you should be considering re-arranging the existing marketing budgets to incorporate some of the below programs that have proved successful for others. Forums & Message Boards– do you have forums on your site to help with: a. Customer service issues and avoid an expensive service call b. Gathering customer feedback, ideas to better your products c. Start to build your community and gather data on consumers Content – instead of building one TV commercial consider the below and syndicate that content across the web. a. Content that helps users understand how to get the most out of category of products. b. Develop content to support your top 20 Service Call Issues c. How-to guides about how to use your product in their lives. This is not about speed/feeds or set-up it’s about how to take the best outdoor photo or restore an old photo. Embed your brand into social networks – this is not a sales pitch or about setting up a Product Fan Page. It’s about providing relevant information and getting feedback. a. Set up a twitter account and provide industry information, case studies, discounts, etc. b. Facebook/MySpace – set up sponsored groups/fan pages about your industry or category that can help users. Dell set up a Social Media guide for small business on FB. Visa set up a business network for small businesses to share information about their companies and find partners. c. Do a blog if relevant or if you have heavy content create your own Youtube channel. Branded Communities – depending on your product/category try creating one or all of the following. a. Research community – an online focus group can not only gain valuable insight but can begin to build your community b. Education-Social Network Community – set up a community around key categories within your industry. Like a digital photography community, scrapbooking, SMB issues, fitness, finances, etc. c. Employee/Vendor communities – these can share best practices from other divisions, improve performance and sharing documents, answering questions, etc. Theses are just some of the things you can do today to engage your consumers, improve brand loyalty and gain key insights that will help you get the most of the dollars spent in the market today and prepare yourself to be the brand of choice when spending increases in the future. Invest in your consumers today so that they will invest in you tomorrow.

Social CSI II – Served via Facebook

theburritoking — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:48:58 +0000

I wrote in November about social media affect in criminal, character and career. This month Austriala supreme court ruled that Facebook is an acceptable way to serve legal documents to defendants that could not be found. It’s kind of like your own virtual ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’.

I can’t wait to hear about the first person who gives their deposition via the ‘Deposition Super Wall’……..You can read a little about it in this small article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE4BG6TU20081217?rpc=60

FB Connect vs MS ID vs Google Friend Connect

theburritoking — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:34:59 +0000

There has been a lot of buzz in the last couple weeks about some new tools from Facebook, My Space and Google. While there are differences between their services, MySpace is more of anopen environment (possible integrating with Google Friend Connect while Facebook Connect will be more central to Facebook. For more detail check out some of the following article from Mashables:

Facebook connect http://mashable.com/2008/12/04/facebook-connect-identity-management/

My Space ID vs Facebook http://mashable.com/2008/12/09/myspace-id/

Some also have started to argue that a larger piece of the puzzle is the battle for demograhpics online and the extra traffic that will benefit the sites that integrate with them.

While this all starts to work itself out there will be some great benefits to sites to integrate with them to drive traffic and syndicate content and great benefit to FB, MS and Google from behavioral data on their users and potential marketing opportunity for brands.

I wonder how the adoption rate will be by users. In the past many have been worried about privacy issues and this may be no different. Only time will tell. Can’t wait.