My Social Network Map

Posted by lemiffe in Computers, Internet, Marketing, Products, Technology on Jul 27th, 2010 | 0 comments

Three days shy of a year ago I published a blog post about my social networks in which I explained a bit about the interconnectivity provided by sites such as Ping.fm which help you keep your status updates synchronised across social networks.

Last year I was on about 10 social networks, this year the number has gone up to 17 (which is  really19 as I excluded Google Reader and WordPress.com for visual purposes). But it seems to me that interconnectivity has still not matured enough, there is no “home” for your social networks, and I doubt this will change in the short term.

Click on the image to see a full-sized version.

Why Google Buzz is brilliant | Christopher S.

Posted by lemiffe in Business, Computers, Internet, Marketing on Feb 15th, 2010 | 0 comments

I’ve been wanting to post something about Buzz for the last few days. It has been generating so much buzz, first of all with its instant appearance on the scene. Then with its privacy issues (that are being worked on). I wanted to write a detailed post about the pros and cons, however, I think this article I just found via Chris Brogan’s shared items details what I think much more clearly.

Why Google Buzz is brilliant and deadly to social media 1.0

From the moment it launched, Google Buzz generated buzz:

• OMG another social network to manage
• OMG there’s too much noise
• OMG this is so redundant

And for the early adopters, it’s exactly that and more. It’s noise. It’s clutter.

It’s brilliant.

Here’s why. Google wants the best of the best data. Remember this. They are a data company. They are a data quality company. They are algorithmic in their approaches to solving problems.

For a lot of the social media crowd, the moment Buzz turned on, our valued inboxes became insanely cluttered as we linked up all our social media sites, networks, and properties. We discovered that frankly, we didn’t want the firehose of social media in our inboxes.

We realized quickly, if we didn’t already know, that most of our “friends” are in fact valueless robots spewing garbage at us all day. On services like Twitter and Facebook, we don’t really notice because it’s bite size garbage that passed by quickly. When it piles up in the inbox, we notice. Fast.

So for the early adopters, those who keep Buzz on, we’re pruning back hard. We’re not following back. We’re dropping auto-follows. We’re down to just a handful of people, close friends, that we REALLY want in our inboxes. How many of the self-proclaimed social media gurus are you actually allowing inside your inbox, in Buzz? Exactly.

Continue reading @ Why Google Buzz is brilliant and deadly to social media 1.0 : Christopher S. Penn’s Awaken Your Superhero.

Removing The Noise | Six Pixels of Separation

Posted by lemiffe in Business, Computers, Internet, Marketing on Feb 15th, 2010 | 0 comments

Too many people are looking for too many ways to follow too many people and places. Your best bet is to do the opposite…

Did you know that you can have your 140-character tweets from Twitter also cross-posted into your Facebook status, LinkedIn status and now even into your Google Buzz without doing much of anything besides letting each platform know that you would like this happen? And while that may sound convenient for you to ensure that anybody and everybody who is following you can get your information, it should come as no surprise that we’re quickly all barrelling towards an information and attention crash.

Continue reading… Removing The Noise | Six Pixels of Separation – Marketing and Communications Blog – By Mitch Joel at Twist Image.

Social Media Revolution… A fad or to stay?

Posted by lemiffe in Business, Marketing on Sep 30th, 2009 | 4 comments

I was a bit skeptical of all the attention placed on Social Media when it started booming not long ago. I wasn’t sure if it was something that’s going to stay, or if it is just a fad that’s going to fade. The following video was something I found on Steve Farnsworth’s Digital Marketing Mercenary Blog.

Steve Writes “A challenge for most senior marketing professionals who cut their teeth any time before, say, last year has been to fully grasp the impact of social media on how they perform their job. The new many-to-many communications model forces everyone to re-imagine their tools, role, and strategies.”

On September 23rd The Silicon Valley Brand Forum held an event on the impact of social media on branding. The morning opened with this viral video that uses powerful statistics and visuals to hammer home that this is not your dad’s Internet.

So is Social Media here to stay? Or is it just a fad? What is your take on this?

Social Media and Marketing… Where are we?

Posted by lemiffe in Business, Communication, Marketing on Sep 29th, 2009 | 0 comments

Where are we today regarding Social Media and Marketing?

Advances in Social Media are changing the way we market our products, services, or ourselves. It’s not all about *the logo* any more, it’s not about what your company represents, it’s about what your customers represent to you, it’s about how will your customers benefit from your service, and how can you learn from their experiences to build up on your products, and deliver better service.

One platform isn’t the future. One platform isn’t even better than another. A platform is a tool, and us marketers must know how to use these tools to reach our customers, without aimlessly devoting everything towards one specific platform. Today it might be Twitter and Facebook, tomorrow Google Wave, and the next day who knows, but we must always keep in mind that it’s the person that makes the platform useful, not the platform that makes the person useful.

Chris Brogan is an expert. I don’t usually call someone an expert unless I really mean it. He recently gave a speech at New Media Atlanta (which I obviously did not attend to), and he just posted the video capture for the whole speech on his blog. If you have a spare hour I recommend you give it a good listen.

So what are your thoughts about Social Media? Where do we go from here?