This is bad, really bad. The man’s name in question is “Harman Bajwa” — Remember his name is literally Harman...Read more...

http://www.tribbleagency.com/?p=6676

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Although this article (http://bit.ly/4IRvTy) has a sensationalist subhead, there is only one line in the article that relates to that statement. I quote "our research shows that even more than Twitter, people are using social network status updates -- mostly Facebook -- for these same sorts of connections."

This is a theme I've been exploring for a couple of months now. Here's my original post from Nov. 11: Is Facebook the inevitable social portal? http://tinyurl.com/yjgv9pp

Put simply, Twitter is going to go away. It's easy to figure out how to use it, but most folks can't figure out why to use it. Having been on twitter for almost two years, I love it but I notice the adoption rate over that time, despite Ashton Kutscher, is nothing compared to the rise in Facebook users. People get Facebook..it's about friends. Twitter is about business.

I have no doubt that Facebook will absorb all of Twitter's functionality soon; they just incorporated the retweet feature. And doubtless, everyone on Twitter already has a Facebook page. In fact, one person I follow, Matt Singly (@mattsingley) who has 32,000 followers on Twitter, posts to both Facebook and Twitter simultaneously.

That is the future.

We will tire of maintaining multiple tools. When I can port my fellow Tweeters to Facebook, and maintain those connections there, I will do so, I just hope I'll be able to retain the conversations and friends I've met on Twitter, because they represent a very diverse amalgam of brilliant, educated, humorous people and and I will miss them if they go away completely.

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Facebook gets 260 billion (that's right BILLION) pageviews a month

http://bit.ly/4GrfZw 

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December always brings year-end reviews and prognostications for the future, and it seems this year everyone is writing about the rise of social media, highlighting what's good and what's bad. And one threat that seems to be universally touted is the intimacy experienced through this digital interaction is replacing or undermining real face-to-face personal relationships. As a fairly regular social media user, I do not agree, but I don't plan to extol the benefits of social media in this post. Rather I'd like to provide evidence that social media is not replacing real social interaction, but rather exists nicely along side it, and in fact, even enhances it. And I have proof.

1) The attendance at museums, especially evidenced by this week in NYC, is certainly not declining. The lines at the MOMA to see Tim Burton's drawings and at the Met to to view Samurai Art were staggering. In freezing temperatures, people stood outside for over an hour just to mingle with thousands of others and view two dimensional non digital images. I saw the same lines at the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Granted it's the holiday week but still people are not staying home. Impressive. No social media required.

2) Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, holiday travel is always the lead story on the news as in "more people travel on this day than any other." And why? Because going home to family for the holidays is wonderful, and cannot be replaced by skype, twitter or facebook. But you can share those moments with family that could not be there if so inclined.

3) This holiday season the Kindle was the most gifted Amazon product ever. And while this may not directly relate to being social, it proves people still want to be engaged with long form communication and richly woven stories longer than 140 characters, and not just watch YouTube videos or comment on Facebook posts. Hooray.

4) And last but not least, I find I'm actually able to stay in touch with more people than ever, people who's email addresses have changed, or who have moved and neglected to send out their new phone number. And I think we've all reconnected with folks from our past --like our old boyfriend from that summer long ago --that we might otherwise have lost touch with.

All of this is simply proof that social media is not replacing the real thing, but I think keeping us closer. So on this eve of a new decade, I wish everyone a wonderful very social new year.

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This new theory, from Kevin Kelly at The Technium,  holds that "a creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson,
performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans
to make a living."

This is the direct result of the paradigm that content wants to be free. Creators of content are no longer supported by large corporations with PR and Sales machines to back up the product launch. So artists, musicians and writers will need to fill that gap themselves..and will need to play dual roles, first as the creator, then as the promoter. These are distinctly different skill sets, not necessarily inherent in an artist's repertoire, but they sure as hell better be, going forward.

My artist husband Campbell Laird (http://www.campbelllairdstudio.com/#/home/) has actually managed to do just this. Through his own paid advertisements and collector "fan" base whom he contacts through newsletters, and now Facebook and Twitter, he has removed the gallery from the financial equation and has over 1000 True Fans.

The benefits are numerous..control over his career and direct contact with his collectors.

But his "work" has doubled, to include promotion, outreach and of course all finance issues.

He has managed to juggle these very diverse skills but it is not easy. And although it sounds like fun to have all this power, it is certainly not for the faint of heart.

But one thing's for sure, it wasn't even possible 10 years ago, so carpe diem!

http://bit.ly/cHNwc

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http://bit.ly/86sDM0

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A new found altruism?
It's interesting how social media has affected brands and their marketing initiatives Has anyone noticed?
Because the hard sell doesn't work any more, because you can't merely push a campaign at consumers and hope they notice, because the days of MadMen marketing kings are gone, there is a new altruism in companies this holiday season..and it's being ushered in through everyone's new communications channel, social media.
Now companies can't wait to prove how charitable they are in order to generate awareness, and social media is providing them the tools.
Lands End is supporting a used coat drive in Boston (http://www.bigwarmup.com/), Travelocity is promoting carbon offset, (http://bit.ly/8HedMs) Stella Artois is selling environmental awareness (http://www.youtube.com/user/stellaartois), Starbucks is supporting World Aids Day (http://bit.ly/4RrTW7) and Coke is turning Copenhagen into Hopenhagen (http://bit.ly/4GcI8u). It's truly wonderful. The US consumer accounts for approximately 83% of all charitable donations and it's a great thing if corporations want to increase their percentage too.
Thanks Facebook!

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Great article which continues on the theme of my earlier post of Facebook's (http://bit.ly/4AlWM5) positioning to dominate the social web. It's just a question of if they can do it fast enough. http://bit.ly/80l7Ja

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I guess brands, like Wendy's, are especially desperate to have a viable presence in social media, so they are willing to try anything. By glomming onto Bacon's large fan base through their Applewood Smoked Bacon Burger, Wendy's is sponsoring a contest on twitter called "The Bacon Hunt". It's not rocket science, that's for sure. By following @UrBaconMeCrazy and using the hashtag #bacon, and tweeting updates about bacon, the user has a chance to win $2000.

Having just said in my last post (http://bit.ly/4AlWM5) that Twitter never did contests, I must now recant that--but only partially. Though the contest is on twitter, it is feeding directly to Wendy's Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/wendys) where they hope to garner more fans. I have to assume they felt Twitter alone would not be as effective.

We'll watch how successful it is, but so far they have garnered 1300 fans since Monday, according to AdWeek (http://bit.ly/2RmdsD).>

Not a huge campaign so far, but they have done three smart things:
1. Tied to Facebook where they can leverage the relationship more effectively
2. Tied into an existing already wildly popular presence: Bacon (tho it's sad to have to acknowledge this fact)
3. Generated lots of buzz around the campaign.

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As those who know me know, I'm more of a Twitter user (http://twitter.com/howlvenice). I remember almost two years ago saying how i thought Twitter was the Facebook killer. And to this day, i spend 10 times as much time on Twitter as I do on FB...which still isn't that much, because maybe I spend 10 mins on FB a day. But still you get the idea.

But this summer, I began to think the opposite. Twitter is definitely an incredibly powerful tool. And even though it's UX is still horrendous, luckily through their API, there are so  many ways to interact with it, it doesn't matter.

I recently did a post about watching Mad Men (http://bit.ly/13Iqnb) while on Twitter and what an enriching that experience was.   On Twitter, we follow events in real time for a long time. It's not a simple statement or single post but as we call it now a stream..flowing over time and tweets. And we experience the event together as it happens.

And only on Twitter do companies reach out to customers and address needs, become personified through their tweets. At the recent  (http://140conf.com/)140 conf in LA, I heard Porter Gale (@porterVA), the VP  of Marketing at Virgin Atlantic, describe situations where passengers complained about food on a flight through Twitter and their Twitter rep saw it, got in contact with the flight attendant, and rectified the problem. Obviously, that doesn't happen every time, but it does highlight a value unique to Twitter.

But these attributes will likely be adopted by FB soon. The Twitter edge is not that impossible to copy. And with FB's acquisition of FriendFeed in August  (http://bit.ly/3SLooO) that kind of interaction is probably on its way. Twitter's is growth is flattening with 60% of users only tweeting once, and 10% of the users accounting for 90% of the content.

In the meantime,  obviously FB's audience has increased exponentially, and is not diminishing. With over currently 325,000,000 users, they are adding half a million users every day (http://bit.ly/rDa15) and those users are spending over 20 mins per day on the site, that's a lot of attention.  So it's no surprise that corporations are pouring development and advertising dollars there, and thereby also winning fans. And working at an interactive agency, we encourage our clients to use the flexibility and promotional opportunities of FB's platform,  in order to enhance the audience engagement which is as varied and interactive as their budget allows.

Twitter, on the other hand, really only has the 140 character call and response dynamic. No contests, no treasure hunts, no real branding.   

It's the user that will drive the platform of choice, not the corporation, and users are already doing that. Essentially people follow the path of least resistance, and if they can interact with their friends, their family and their favorite corporations in one place,  and win contests, get free stuff and purchase as well..it just seems to me, why go anyplace else?

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