MindComet

Dec is the season for a Tweet Tweet Tweetup!

While the holiday season is a special time of year, it can also be fairly hectic. Do yourself a favor and take a break from hanging Christmas lights and scouring the Web for the perfect eggnog recipe. Join me and Social Media Club Orlando at Orlando Tweetup IV. This event, sponsored by Etan Horowitz from the Orlando Sentinel, promises to be a blast. So make sure you get out and join us for a few hours, you’ll have plenty of time to sit at home and stare at the old yule log later.

The festivities are on Thursday Dec 10th at 6:30PM at Eden Bar at the Enzian Theater.

Also, for you Tweetup butterflies, doterati is holding their holiday tweetup on Thurs Dec 17th at Graffit Junktion.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Dec. 04, 2009

Hanging with Mike Haines, Regional VP of Facebook

Ok, so I didn’t actually hang with Mike Haines, in like a grabbing a beer or going golfing sense, but I did have the pleasure of attending a speaking engagement he hosted through the AMA Central Florida chapter.

Overall, the presentation was very basic, and to Mike’s credit, he explicitly warned us in the beginning. It truly was the 50,000 foot view. However, there were a couple of interesting points that Mike shared, which I thought invaluable, no matter how much of a “guru” you are.

Facebook is all about news streams.

In an average Facebook session of 22 minutes, a user spends 19 minutes of that time in their news stream. That one tidbit has an obvious and significant impact for marketers and their Facebook strategies - break the confines of your Fan Page and get your marketing message in user’s news feeds.

If you’re struggling with ideas on how to do this, maybe you’ll be inspired by IKEA’s approach to this. It is insanely simple, yet brilliant.

10x views on a stream vs page

If you were to post the same message into your fans news stream and only on the fan page wall, the former post would receive, on average, 10 times the views as the latter. Same message, different delivery method, different results. Not surprising, but it’s interesting to know the metrics surrounding it.

All in all, a good event. Thanks AMA CFL and Mike Haines!

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Nov. 18, 2009

My public declaration to fight SPAM

Spammers are everywhere. And without a doubt, they are the anti-midas, turning everything they touch into another 4-letter word that’s not “gold”.

Take for example, Twitter trending topics. It’s s a feature that is ripe for spam and in my opinion is now almost completely useless because of spammers. Twitter lists, probably one of the smartest platform features that Twitter has rolled out, is already littered with spammers. My DM stream is now useless. And I’m constantly pruning my blog comments for Viagra and phentermine offers, neither of which I need.

So here’s what I am doing. This is my public declaration of what I’m going to do to combat spam.

All blog comments are going to require approval by me

I honestly dread this. To me, it’s really annoying when you post a comment and your told that it’s awaiting moderation. However, at this point, I’m at my wits end. I could implement Captcha or get really elegant and use Mollom, but I just don’t have the time. Moderation is the most effective solution given my already busy workload.

I’m pruning my Twitter following list.

I was for quite some time a reciprocal guy. You follow me, I follow you. This stopped a few months ago, however, because of the practice, my following list if pretty large. That is going to change, no matter how long and arduous a process it is.

DM me a crap/spam message and you will be unfollowed.

I’m not even looking at my DM stream anymore, but that will change. Nuff said. You’ve been warned.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Nov. 17, 2009

A lesson in listening. Why Shakey’s Pizza rocks!

Are you a fan of Shakey’s pizza? Well, pop star Katy Perry is. In fact, she recently tweeted that she was hoping for a b-day shout-out from Shakey’s Pizza on one of their store front signs.

To provide a bit of backstory, Shakey’s had already established a Twitter presence and, with social media monitoring help from MindComet, were actively listening to mentions about their brand on Twitter. So when this opportunity presented itself, Shakey’s was already there, ready to go. They reacted quickly and had one of their LA locations change out the sign to say “Happy Birthday Katy Perry”. A photo was snapped and posted to Twitter.

This was a few days ago and unfortunately Katy Perry hasn’t responded to the tweet (yet). However, Holly Madison, star of The Girls Next Door, saw it and sent out her own tweet.

That’s what I like to call PURE GOLD. As a result of her tweet, the shout-out photo currently has over 7,000 views and that number is still growing as I author this post. Add that to the fact that Holly Madison publicly called Shakey’s Pizza one of her favorite things to over 230,000 of her followers! I suppose you could have Holly eat a slice of Shakey’s on Dancing with the Stars, but I’m thinking her tweet was alot cheaper (FREE) and less messy.

So I ask you, when opportunity knocks for your brand will you be listening?

BTW, please help me get the word to Katy by retweeting this tweet. I’d hate to see her miss her birthday wish.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Oct. 26, 2009

The sore thumb approach to social media

Getting noticed paves the way for progress. It opens doors. This is true in love, work and almost any other activity in life, including social media.

It’s easy to be a “me too”. I’m guilty of it. The problem is, “me too’s” don’t get noticed. You need to stick out, like a sore thumb.

So ask yourself, what do you have to offer that is unique to you? What sets you apart?

The answer to that question is your social media strategy.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Oct. 08, 2009

Thoughts on how to improve Google Sidewiki

Sidewiki has already made a splash… although adoption is fairly minimal, the blogosphere is already starting to buzz about it.

This post isn’t intended to spark a discussion about whether this is brandjacking on the part of Google or generally fair to site owners. There are plenty of other places for that.

I would, however, like to offer a couple of suggestions that I think would make Sidewiki a more useful tool and perhaps help to quiet the storm that’s brewing online.

For one, I don’t like how all the comments are presented in descending order, based on time/date added. There is one exception that allows site owners to keep their comments at the top of the wiki, however for the most part, Sidewiki’s look like a jumbled mess of disjointed thoughts, NOT a conversation. It seems as though threading would make sense here. Suppose I am the owner of a site selling apples and someone complains, via Sidewiki, that my apples suck. This comment is now attached to my site. Shouldn’t I, as the site owner, be allowed to respond to the comment and have my response physically positioned next to the original comment. If my response documents me trying to save the relationship by making it right, shouldn’t that be made apparent to the reader? On the flip side, if I tell you to go to hell because you obviously don’t know the first thing about apples, shouldn’t that also be apparent as well? Isn’t that type of “conversation” exactly what makes social media so powerful?

I’ve included a little mock up of a Sidewiki “thread” that shows a response. Notice that the site owner is visually distinct from other commenters.

In summary, maybe Sidewiki should become more of a Sideforum.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Oct. 06, 2009

Breaking and Friending - the folly of the Facebooking thief

Just how stupid can one be?

A 26 year old italian man answered that question this weekend. The unnamed man was arrested for burglary after he logged into Facebook while breaking into the house of 52 year old, Albano Laziale. After Mr. Laziale reported the crime, officers noticed the computer was still on. The victim touched the mouse and the still logged-in Facebook page of the burglar popped up. DOH!

Authorities simply went to the burglars house, arrested him and found items stolen from Mr. Laziale.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Oct. 05, 2009