Being Social, Snow Days, and #Snowbored Friends

by Daria Steigman on February 8, 2010

Neighbors building a snow fort.

Unless you’re living under a rock, you probably know that the Saints won the Superbowl and that the Washington region is slowly digging out from a blizzard. While #snowmaggedon’s been a good trending topic, my favorite snow hashtags today are #snowmore (via Colleen Campbell) and #clusterflake (via Line Storgaard Conley). But I’m wondering if we’re missing one: #snowbored.

You see, several friends whose offices are closed have called me to chat. What’s interesting  is the trend: no one who called me this morning actively uses social media. So the only way they can connect is an old-fashioned way. So while the rest of us connect and keep working, they’re reaching out for company.

Do you have any #snowbored friends? Can they update Facebook, speak in 140 characters, or define a hashtag?

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What Do Newsday’s 35 Subscribers Say About Paid Content?

by Daria Steigman on February 2, 2010

If Newsday is the benchmark, The New York Times is in trouble.

I’m used to filing away random stats while listening to sports radio, but I didn’t expect then to involve newspaper readers. But then I learned that Newsday has accumulated 35 subscribers since James Dolan (who also owns Madison Square Garden and the hapless Knicks) bought the publication and decided to put all the paper’s online content behind a paid firewall. That’s right: 35 people in three months.

Let’s state the obvious up front: Dolan is a terrible businessman. He’s the same guy who refused to fire Knicks coach Isaah Thomas even after he was found by a court to have sexually harassed one of his employees. So it’s not really a surprise that he’s driving another business into oblivion.

I think the Newsday story is relevant to the broader question of whether people are willing to pay for content. And my guess is yes–if it’s good content. The Freemium model isn’t about free; it’s about moving people from free services to premium (paid) ones. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Business Journals, and a few other select newspapers are likely to survive as online publications because they’ll figure out price points and revenue streams. And because, unlike Newsday, they have something we want to read.

Photo by wili_hybrid (Flickr).

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Are You Plugging Holes or Seeking Solutions?

by Daria Steigman on January 28, 2010

The fire alarm in my building had a glitch last night. By glitch, I mean it was going off every 45 seconds or so. (And yes, the fire department came out the first time.) The management solution was to have someone man the switch and try to turn the alarm off as quickly as possible after it sounded–until someone from the alarm company could get there to assess the problem.

This is a plugging holes approach. Alarm sounding for no reason; okay, we keep switching it off.

Why not try to figure out why the alarm might suddenly be going off incessantly?

There was a crew working late last night installing new molding on the top floor. Molding + Ceiling = Working Close to Fire Alarm Wiring. I called down to suggest that perhaps something the work crew was doing had triggered the problem. A couple minutes later the alarm stopped glitching.

Now I don’t know whether my solution was the solution, but it was certainly better than just plugging holes.

Are you plugging holes or seeking solutions?

Photo by wobble-san (Flickr).

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How Do We Shatter the Silos?

by Daria Steigman on January 26, 2010

During the IABC/Washington panel discussion on 2010 trends, I posed the following question: Is 2010 the year we break down silos? In retrospect, I asked the wrong question.

Breaking down silos is critical, but it’s not about whether we do it–it’s about how. In the communications world, I’m finally hearing more conversation around “integrated” again, but I still see media separated from PR separated from marketing within organizations. Agencies are often worse (think digital practice groups, for example).

When will companies be ready to stop organizing their operations around tasks? And how might this new look take form?

Photo by accent on eclectic (Flickr).

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What Marketers Are Saying About Social Media

by Daria Steigman on January 22, 2010

Want to know how communicators are using social media? You could pose a question on Twitter or you could do a deep dive. MarketingProfs did the latter, surveying 4,763 marketers and others managing communications for their organizations. That included 3,285 who specifically said they are responsible for social media.

I don’t have a copy of The State of Social Media Marketing, but I did get a peak at some of the findings. There is some great data here:

  • 48.2 percent said their organizations have a social media presence. They are typically companies that have “very little to hide.” Companies in industries with strict regulations and major repercussions for leaking information (think drug makers, bankers, insurers) are less visible.
  • 60.8 percent who do social media said that it is not part of their job description.
  • Social media isn’t cheap: Most of those doing social media are mid- or senior-level people.
  • 48.8 percent said their company has no official social media policy; 12 percent said they have a restrictive one.
  • There is a correlation between culture and the success of a company’s marketing efforts. Employees who blog (independently) can spark new ideas and increase prestige.
  • All the measurement tools are helpful, but incomplete. For example, 52.8 percent of those surveyed said that paid analytics tools are “helpful but incomplete” (versus 66.1 percent of those using Google and other free tools). And approximately one-third of respondents (33.6 percent) said that the paid tools “enable perfect tracking” (versus 28.1 percent for those using free tools).

There is also a lot of data about the disconnects between the tactics people use a lot (i.e., what’s popular) and the tactics that are most effective. For example, the most used tactics on Twitter are driving traffic (72.1 percent) and driving sales (54.2 percent)—how’s that worked out for you lately? In contract, the most effective Twitter tactics cited involved two-way communications strategies and monitoring for PR problems in real time.

Photo by webtreats (Flickr).

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