Thirteen to One

In honor of last night’s stupendous Red Sox performance in game one of the World Series, here are 13 things that I’ve been meaning to write about. Mostly social media and marketing related and in no particular order.

1. A new social network The Point  attempts to harness the power of collective action to bring causes to the tipping point. People and organizations post their causes on the site as an if/then. The basic idea is that if enough people do whatever the action is – if the cause tips, then some other thing would happen. Once it emerges from alpha, it could be an interesting vehicle for a company that is supporting a charitable cause. If enough individuals/customers do something (volunteer, quit smoking, whatever) then the company would do something as well — donate money, sponsor an event, and so on. From Jeremy Pepper, who works for the company, via Twitter.

2. Last week Doug Haslam from Topaz Partners emailed me about a social media survey done by his client, community builder Prospero Technologies. What was most interesting about it, though, wasn’t the survey. The sample size of 50 from a population of the company’s customers is neither large nor random, and the results were pretty much what I’d expect given that population: generally positive about social media with no clear idea of what is working and what isn’t. I do however give the company credit for actually asking its customers, rather than assuming.  What was most interesting was that Doug was pitching other marketing and communications bloggers; both Shel Holtz and BL Ochman wrote about the survey. If you wanted more tangible proof that the media landscape is shifting, this is it. We aren’t just the media relations folks. With a nod to Dan Gillmor, we are the media. Ain’t that a kick. Doug also blogged about this phenomenon.

3. "You could be a Durex Condom Tester and Win $1000"  Durex is pimping for recruiting condom testers on-line. Must be that new form of word-of-mouth: virile marketing (seen on Media Buyer Planner).

4. Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules by Mike Moran.  Not much news here for anyone already deep into social media marketing and communications, but a good read anyway. I’d recommend this as an intro text for experienced marketers who want to come up to speed quickly and get some practical advice on what they should do next.  Plus Moran is funny and he says lots of things I agree with  🙂  (via pitch from Peter Himler)

5. Society for New Communications Research is holding its annual Research Symposium & Gala in Boston December 5-6.

6. Kudos to Kami Huyse for spearheading liveblogging and twittering at the PRSA Annual Conference last week.

7. Andrea Weckerle has a good post on how social media has been, and will be, used in real-time disaster response. And if you twitter, make Ike Pigott happy and follow the Red Cross. 

8. Congratulations Josh Hallet, on joining Voce Communications and Geoff Livingston, on the publication of Now Is Gone.

9. I’ve been playing around a bit with Photrade, a new photo sharing site. It’s now in closed beta but I have three invites. Email or twitter me if you want one.

10. Courtesy of Scott Baradell, a great example of why we should NOT write blog posts simply for search engine optimization.

11. Papeldance.

12. Thank you to all the PR and marcom students who have been  reading the blog and leaving comments. I love to hear from you, even if I disagree with you.

13. Are the comment spammers getting a little more clever? Check out this one on an old Marketing Roadmaps post, comment left up purely to use as an example. Someone less suspicious might not catch it as spam, as the comment is pretty innocuous. BUT: I almost always follow commenters back to their sites. It’s a great way to discover new bloggers and get to know my readers better. AND: I am always a little suspicious when I get comments on really old posts.

Tags: Mike Moran, comment spam, PR, Red Sox, Prospero Technologies, Durex, Society for New Communications Research, Photrade, Red Cross