Twitter – Digital Media | Video Production | Media Training | Executive Coaching | Social Media

October 13, 2015November 20, 2015

Five Digital Media Updates Making Headlines

Here are five digital media news stories ripped from the headlines. I’m most interested in Amazon’s entry into the Internet of Things, one of my tech obsessions and Periscope’s new On Air Button. I’ll be using Periscope to do a live broadcast of my “Social Media For Nonprofits” talk at The Daily Good Conference and to broadcast the breakaway sessions. I’ll report back on my user experience with the web page interface after the conference. In the meantime, here are my picks for the top five digital media news stories making headlines.

Variety: Snapchat Shutters Original Content Channel

“Snapchat is laying off members of a team assigned to a channel on its Discover platform devoted to original programming, dubbed Snap Channel.

The closure has prompted the exit of Marcus Wiley, a former executive with broadcast network Fox who was brought on to figure out how Snapchat would build up its programming lineup. Since his hire in May, Wiley led a group of 15 that has been disbanded, with some being pink-slipped and others being reassigned elsewhere in the company.

Until its removal from Discover a few weeks ago, Snap was the home of short-form content produced internally at Snapchat since launching in January. The channel was once home to ‘Literally Can’t Even,’ a split-screen comedy series starring and written by Sasha Spielberg, daughter of Steven Spielberg, and Emily Goldwyn, daughter of John Goldwyn”

TNW: Periscope now has an embeddable ‘On Air’ button for broadcasts

“Periscope now has an On Air button for websites that tell everyone when a broadcast is live.

It’s a useful little tweak that anyone can use. All you have to do is enter your Periscope username (typically your Twitter handle without the ‘@‘) into Periscope’s button generator, and it creates a code so you can embed a button into a webpage. Your username takes the place of the ‘broadcaster’ text, seen below.

Periscope’s On Air button also comes in two sizes, and automatically toggles when a broadcast goes live.”

Re/code: Twitter Unveils New Video Advertising Strategy

“The company is taking a different approach to video ads. More precisely: Twitter is adopting YouTube’s video advertising approach. What that means is that publishers and video makers can upload their video to Twitter, and Twitter will attach short ‘pre-roll’ ads in front of those clips and split the ad revenue with the video owners. Which is how YouTube, the world’s biggest video site, does it, too.”

TechCrunch: Amazon Launches AWS IoT — A Platform For Building, Managing And Analyzing The Internet Of Things

“Make way for another big player entering the Internet of Things space. Amazon today is announcing its long-awaited IoT platform for AWS at its re:Invent developer conference in Las Vegas. As Amazon describes it, it is a managed cloud platform ‘that lets connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applications and other devices.’ The platform, which is launching in beta, will be able to support billions of devices and trillions of messages, ‘and can process and route those messages to AWS endpoints and to other devices reliably and securely.’ AWS IoT will integrate with Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3, Amazon Machine Learning, and Amazon DynamoDB to build IoT applications, manage infrastructure and analyze data.”

Advertising Age: Reuters Is the Latest to Try Reinventing News With Digital TV Service

“Early next year, the company plans to introduce Reuters.TV, an ad-supported digital service that allows subscribers to receive personalized video content created solely for the platform. Reuters.TV will cost a monthly fee, but the company declined to say how much it will be. The service will initially be available on iPhones and iPads.”

May 8, 2015

Your End of Week Social and Digital Media News

ITWorld: How Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google compare on user privacy – Nearly three-quarters of people with access to the Internet use social networking sites, a number that has skyrocketed since early 2005, according to the Pew Research Center. As social networks continue to permeate our everyday lives, so do the privacy and security risks associated with our accounts. Here’s a look at how Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ stack up on user privacy and security settings, plus instructions for finding and updating these options to maintain control over your account. [ED NOTE: If you haven’t done a Facebook Privacy Checkup, click here to get started TODAY!]

Re/code: Periscope Added a Million Users in Its First 10 Days – Buried amidst the chaos that was Twitter earnings this afternoon was a small nugget on the popularity of the company’s new live streaming app, Periscope. CEO Dick Costolo said on the earnings call that Periscope added a million new users in the app’s first 10 days on the market. It’s a relatively impressive number considering competitor Meerkat was at 120,000 users three weeks after it launched. (Periscope, of course, benefitted from the buzz Meerkat generated and also the fact that it had a well-known owner to help push the news.) It’s unclear if Periscope was able to sustain that growth — when pressed for more metrics on the app and its user base, Costolo declined to share anything. Periscope launched in late March after Twitter acquired it back in January. The app is still not yet available to Android users.

NewsCred: How Brands Marketers Can Grow Their YouTube Audience – In the brand space, the leaders are Disney and Samsung, which have nearly three billion and one billion views on their channels, respectively. Not surprisingly, one of the top B2B channels is Google Analytics; it has over 11 million views and 113,000 subscribers. Once you hit your stride like these creators and channels, you can foster brand loyalty, close leads, and provide content to the people who matter the most to your company: your customers. NewsCred spoke with two huge YouTube channels, Rooster Teeth and WatchMojo, about what they did to achieve a high subscriber count, billions of views, and a dedicated audience.

MarketingProfs: Bye-Bye to These 10 Web Design Trends – When technology is ever evolving, change is the only constant. Take, for instance, the realm of Web design. Design trends come and go. Some may only breeze by while others last longer. Either way, design trends come into being and fade because of changes in technology and user demands and expectations. As long as human beings desire improvement and expect more, design trends will continually evolve. And we need to learn to adapt accordingly. Often, that means saying goodbye to design trends that are no longer working. So here are 10 Web design trends that are among the fading; you should ditch them if you want to keep with the competition and increasingly demanding audiences. [ED NOTE: Must read]

April 14, 2015April 14, 2015

Five Things To Know In Social Media This Week

I searched the headlines for the hot social media topics of the week. Here are five stories to help with your professional development in the social space.

From TechCrunch: Twitter Officially Launches Its “Retweet With Comment” Feature – “Twitter just officially launched its “retweet with comment” feature, which it began testing last summer. “Retweet with comment” allows users to embed a tweet in their own tweets, which lets them get around Twitter’s 140-character limit when they write their own commentary. The feature is now available on Twitter’s site and iPhone app and will be available on its Android app soon. [ED NOTE: This is WAY cool!]”

From WaPo: Snapchat’s controversial emoji update: An explainer for the old and/or confused– “Nothing prematurely ages you quite like social media. Are you upset about the big Snapchat update? No, okay, you’re probably old. You didn’t hear about the update? Positively ancient. You don’t even use Snapchat?!?!??! Dinosaur!! Allow me to inform you, oh fossilized one, that Snapchat yesterday made some changes to its popular messaging app, which have become something of a flash point among the teenage set. But if you’re older than, say, 17, the very substantive, concerning implications of the update are not apparent immediately.” [ED NOTE: After reading this article, we can all be happy with the notion that we are not dinosaurs!]

From Re/code: YouTube to Video Makers: Join Our Subscription Service or Go Somewhere Else– “YouTube is getting ready to launch an ad-free subscription service. And the world’s largest video site is flexing some muscle to make sure its new product is as big as possible. YouTube is doing that with new rules that will make it difficult for video makers to keep their clips out of the new service, which should come out in the second half of this year. The key change: YouTube “partners” — video owners who make money from ads on their YouTube clips — will need to let YouTube put their clips in the ad-free service, too. If they don’t, YouTube will make it nearly impossible for a casual visitor to find the videos. It will classify the clips as “private,” which means the only people who can see them will be those preselected by the video owner. YouTube says it will share subscription revenue with video owners whose stuff gets viewed, and it isn’t requiring video owners to keep their stuff on the site exclusively. So the new rules likely won’t pose a problem for the majority of video makers.”

From ReadWrite: Yahoo Has Apparently Decided It’s Time To Really Cash In On Tumblr – “Yahoo is planning an internal reshuffle that could effectively end the independence of its most popular acquisition, the visual blogging platform Tumblr. The Information reports that CEO Marissa Mayer spoke about the major changes inside the company at an offsite meeting with executives. She also reportedly asked Tumblr CEO David Karp which Yahoo executive he’d like to report to from now on. Yahoo spent $1.1 billion to acquire Tumblr in May 2013, and it looks like the company is finally planning to seek a return on that investment. Tumblr’s highly visual format makes it possible to serve native ads—that is, ads that are barely distinguishable from the content around them, and thus less intrusive to users.”

From The Verge: Facebook launches standalone Messenger for web browsers – “There’s now a web browser version of Facebook Messenger to go along with the standalone smartphone apps the company is making everyone use. No, Facebook the website isn’t taking away your ability to chat with friends. After the controversy that surrounded divorcing the two central features on mobile, Facebook is adamant that Messenger isn’t leaving Facebook.com anytime soon. Instead, Messenger for the web — which you’ll find at Messenger.com starting today — focuses solely on simple conversations and leaves the other parts of Facebook that can be distracting to the primary site.” [Ed Note: I don’t use Facebook Messenger. It’s the one place where you cannot get in touch with me. It’s my own private rebellion]

There you have it. You’re up-to-date on the hot social media topics for this week.

March 13, 2015April 9, 2015

Stop Counting The Number of Followers You Have

You’ve built up a loyal follow of thousand upon thousand of folks across multiple platforms. Yet, you are unable to get them to buy your goods or services. You can’t get them to donate to your cause and you online marketing efforts are failing. Before you even think about getting more followers, start instead by setting some goals on the return you want from you do have. Here are a few tips to up the ante on your online engagement.

Post Good Content: Sounds simple right? From your Twitter and Facebook bio, to you profile photo, and each post you make, your content should support your mission, tell your story and the convey the essence of your brand. The content should be so good, so entertaining, followers want to be a part of your mission.
Develop an Engaging Voice: Your brand has a unique personality. That personality should translate to your online presence. Whether it’s fun, witty, cutting edge or all about business, your posts and online voice should match up with your brand.
Engage in other people’s conversations: Participate in Twitter Tweetchats. Follow hashtags discussions on Twitter and Facebook. Be sure to follow the hashtags of events you attend, and make easy to follow hashtags for your events. Start a conversation based on a link someone shared.

Getting more followers isn’t the end game. You win by getting followers who are invested in your brand and responsive to your calls to action.

February 27, 2015June 1, 2015

Why You Should Have A Social Media Plan AND Ten Ways To Get Started

You know you should be active in social media. It’s good for your personal brand and your business. But you just don’t have time to do all those posts. One way to help you get organized is having a social media plan. A social media plan or mapping out what your posts will be on a weekly and even monthly basis helps you think strategically about what you should share with your audience. The social media plan includes a daily breakdown of what you should post most days of the week.

Yes, I said most day so of the week.

Consistency is the key in social media. Don’t ride the social media wave unless you can commit to a consistent schedule that your followers can depend on.

I tend to use themes to map out the days of the week on my social media plans. I am also a big fan of iteration. Below is an example of a Monday through Friday Twitter and Facebook social media plan. I developed this weekly plan for my client, AmeriCorps VISTA. It helped guide my posts throughout the week. You’ll see the days of the week divided up into five categories:

Mission Monday
Tip Tuesday
Webinar Wednesday
Throwback Thursday
Follow Friday

To get started on your plan, think about the content you have to share. If you are new to the social space, focus on one social media site at a time. I would recommend you consider getting starting with Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Twitter – Without a doubt, Twitter is the best way to share and discover what is happening in the moment. To grow your audience, think about following and sharing popular hashtags and TweetChats.

Facebook – Most of your friends and colleagues are on Facebook. So are your clients and customers. Why not join Facebook Groups that support your mission and vision? Better yet start a group of your own. It’s a great way to connect and engage with the people that mean the most to you or the people you are trying to reach.

YouTube – Everyone has a story to tell. YouTube provides a forum to allow people to connect, inspire, entertain and inform. If you are comfortable in front of the camera or have a lot of video content, YouTube is a great place to start. Consider producing a web series of your most popular content.

Here are ten tips to keep in mind once you are ready to start your social media plan:

Determine which platforms you will use – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or all four
Devise a daily, weekly and monthly social media schedule that incorporates each platform
Monthly posts should reflect recurring dates such as holidays, celebrations or conference dates
Determine who will manage your accounts and how often they will post
Build upon the content you already have (photos, video, press releases)
Come up with a regular posting schedule and stick to it
Use a social media management tool such as Hootsuite to schedule your posts
If you are cross posting from one site to another, factor in a few organic, original posts for each site
Remember that it is a plan, a guide, so leave room for unexpected breaking news stories or changes
Engage, engage, engage and then engage some more

If you need help developing your social media plan, I’m here to help!

July 23, 2010May 31, 2015

Foursquare Positioned To Partner With Google, Yahoo, Bing And Other Search Players

Well, now… this is getting interesting. Seems like the guys from foursquare have found a way to make expand on their business model. By the way, last week, Foursquare reported it had registered over 2 million users for 5.6 million venues on the platform, and around 1 million daily check-ins. The company is valued at around $100 million. So now I wonder, what’s in if for ME to continue to check in? Things that make you go… hmmmm

Amplify’d from blog.searchenginewatch.com

Foursquare, the location-based social media site, is aware of the value of its data for searches and has started talking to “a lot of different potential partners,” including industry majors such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in order to clinch data deals.

Data Power
Speaking to The Telegraph in an interview, Foursquare’s co-founder, Dennis Crowley, said: “Our data generates hugely interesting trends which would enrich search.” “We can anonymise data and use it to show venues which are trending at that moment,” he explained.
In Talks

“Twitter helped the world and the search engines know what people are talking about. Foursquare would allow people to search for the types of place people are going to – and where is trending – not what,” Crowley added. Recently, the company integrated its data to Twitter ‘Places’, giving the chirpy platform its ticket to paid search.

‘Historical’ Ties
Crowley himself has ties with Google, to whom he sold Foursquare’s text-message version called Dodgeball back in 2005. The Telegraph further quoted him as saying that he now employs “former Googlers.” However, none of the search engines commented on the state of the Foursquare partnership talks.

Ironically, Yahoo had expressed interest in the company in April. But not for teaming up with Foursquare. The intention of the search engine now turned content provider was to buy Foursquare. Now with the Search Alliance integrating Yahoo Search into Bing, who knows if Foursquare will not be dealing with both – one as a content partner and the other as search engine?

Read more at blog.searchenginewatch.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/800t

via Amplify.com

August 2, 2009September 14, 2009

Tweeting for United We Serve

How do you get the word out about nearly 200 AmeriCorps VISTAs (Volunteers In Service To America) being sworn in by the Mayor of New York City? Well, you tweet it live on Twitter, of course. As a Social Media Specialist for Campaign Consultation, Inc. and while representing our client, the Corporation for National and Community Service, we were there first hand as history was being made to tweet events as they unfolded. United We Serve, President Obama’s call to service initiative, marked July 27-August 2, 2009 as Education Week, highlighting the countless Americans who roll up their sleeves to read with a child, volunteer at a library, organize a book drive, and strengthen education and learning in other ways.

On July 30, 2009, 193 VISTAs rose to President Obama’s call and took place in one of the many Education Week activities when New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the Corporation for National and Community Service Acting CEO Nicola Goren swore in the newly formed NYC CivicCorp with VISTA members from 25 states and 19 countries on Thursday, July 28, 2009.

NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Corp for Nat'l Community Service Acting CEO Nicola Goren

The VISTAs hail from all five NYC boroughs and range in age from 21 to 72. The program, the first as part of United We Serve, runs from the second week of August through 2010. The swearing in also marked the launch of @VISTAbuzz, the Twitter account designed to engage, involve and invoke interest in current VISTA members and VISTA alumni.

Follow @VISTAbuzz for updates as the Social Media Plan begins for this group of unique individuals who have been fighting against poverty since 1964. This week, Mayor Bloomberg and nearly 200 NYC CivicCorps VISTAs have responded to United We Serve, President Obama’s call to service, challenging all Americans to engage in sustained, meaningful community service. Continue to look for us on-line as we continue to grow the VISTA brand in the digital space.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Corporation for National and Community Service Acting CEO Nicola Goren — NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and to his right Corporation for National and Community Service Acting CEO Nicola Goren

May 28, 2009July 13, 2021

If you teach them… they will come… lesson on how to use Twitter

Busy professionals love the digital space. So it stands to reason that on-line Universities offering advanced degrees are becoming increasingly popular. Walden University is one such on-line university offering accredited on-line masters and doctoral degrees in everything from education, psychology, and health and human services to master’s programs in engineering and IT. Adding even more prestige to Walden University is the fact that it is under the umbrella of Laureate International Universities, a leading global network of accredited campus-based and on-line universities.

But even with this impressive on-line menu and the strong global backing, Walden University, like many companies, is still learning how to navigate their way through the New Media space. Last week, my client, Alumni Relations Manager, Shannon Mouton, and I presented to various members of the Digital and Marketing teams on how to use the social networking site Twitter. There were the usual questions such as “how do I join”, “do I have to use my real name” and “what will I say” to more thought provoking business specific questions such as “if someone sends us a message about the company who should answer them” and “do we have someone who can monitor our Twitter account full-time”? These are the kinds of questions businesses need to consider before they launch into a digital campaign. Here are a few things to consider:
1.   What are your goals in the New Media Space?
2.   Who is your target audience?
3.   What is your mission statement or online “voice”?
4.   What will your New Media campaign encompass?
5.   Who will be the administrator of your sites, social networks and blogs?
Businesses recognize the need to be in the Social Media Space and the benefits of both instant and viral marketing. The way we do business is changing. Are you ready?

May 27, 2009June 8, 2009

We are off to the races… live Tweeting!

Tweeting every detail of the NASCAR race

One of the aspects of creating a brand presence for clients is developing a Social Media strategy. It can be anything from setting up a client’s Social Networking page, creating a viral marketing campaign, to live Tweeting an event as a marketing or promotional tool.

Patering with Richard Montgomery of Rixstar Studios we introduced the value of social media to WHUR-FM, sponsor of NASCAR driver Marc Davis. Davis, a 19-year-old from Silver Spring, MD is NASCAR’s only African American owner/driver. He made his first NASCAR Nationwide Series owner/driver entry at Bristol in March. During one of his qualifying races in Virginia I did a three-day Twitter campaign live tweeting from the NASCAR cockpit. Rick and I developed a campaign designed to drive attention to the race and to Marc Davis before, during and ultimatly, after the race. Our efforts were successful enough to create a buzz and ultimately got the racer a write up in the Washington Post.

This is the power of Social Media and developing your brand!

(Marc Davis photo courtesy Of Harry Davis) — (Marc Davis photo courtesy of Harry Davis)

See what the Washington Post has to say about Marc Davis

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052203425.html

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