Thursday, November 29, 2007

Social Media Takeaways #5

Well, here we are at Thursday and already the Thanksgiving leftovers are piling up. I hope you enjoyed the holiday last week, if you celebrated it. For those of you outside of the U.S., I hope you were able to get some work done thanks to some peace and quiet emanating from the U.S. workplace on Thursday and Friday.

So that gets us to this week's installment of Social Media Takeaways.
Blog Nothing Day
For one day - Monday, November 26, 2007 - we were asked to put down our keyboards and support the ongoing writers strike by not blogging. I'm happy to say I did my part, and then some. This is my first post since last Friday. But was this really an effective statement? Can you really prove a negative?

SMT: To me, it smacked of the urban legend about boycotting gas for a day. I think a much more beneficial approach would have been to ask people to write about the strike or link to a site supporting the Writers' Guild.

Facebook Beacon
Where to begin? Through its new program, Facebook is putting some of your online purchase history into its newsfeed. If you want a nice recap and implications on this move, check out what Geoff Livingston has to say or what Matt Dickman wrote and recorded. But I have to question the degree of uproar this is causing. After all, we opted into the network; we're willingly sacrificing some privacy (hat-tip to Sarah Wurrey) for the sake of a free service. As Jeremiah clearly states, "...for every free services people rush to use, they forget that they are the ones entering the data."

SMT: Facebook needs to listen to its community and take some action to make it more universally embraced.

'C' Is For Cookie (or, That's Not Good Enough for Me)
According to an excellent blog post by Toby Bloomberg, Pepperidge Farms has come up with a half-baked idea of a social media strategy called Pepperidge Farms Connections. The site, rather than encouraging people to connect and share information there, or hosting a contest, or anything else creative, for that matter - is simply a collection of tips on how to connect online. What a crummy idea. Toby makes some very worthwhile suggestions that can be used as the foundation of a social media strategy by any company.

SMT: Instead of being a how-to site, why not give them the tools yourself? There are plenty of bad ideas floating around out there, so take the time to study them, understand them, and avoid this yourself. Will Pepperidge Farms remember?

Boston Continues to Get Pulverized
Jeff Pulver has been making the social media rounds in Boston recently, connecting with lots of folks in person and connecting us with each other. Today, he stepped out of his Social Media Living Room to host a Social Media Breakfast at the S & S Restaurant & Deli in Cambridge (Full disclosure: I have an impeccable reputation for picking good eating spots, so Bryan Person asked for my recommendation for the breakfast. The S & S was it). Jeff instituted a neat little practice of having everyone wear a name tag with their tagline on it, coupled with little stickers everyone can use to physically tag each other.

SMT: Boston, in addition to being the Hub of the Universe, is a social media hub. I like to think that outside of Silicon Valley, it's got one of the most active and well connected communities in the new media space. And Jeff's insistence upon getting us out from behind the computer screens is making us better for it.

Have you had any social media takeaways over the past week? I'd love to know. Drop me a line or leave a comment.

Labels: Bryan Person, Jeff Pulver, social media, social media takeaways

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:09 AM

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Social Media Takeaways #2

Busy week, this. The great topics started piling up on Monday -maybe it was that the Columbus Day holiday (for some) made a difference in the ability to crank out some top-notch blog posts, or that the news was especially slow. And then some big news from some major companies started pouring in on Tuesday. Santa Maria! We've got a nice lineup of topics this week.

Anyway, I wanted to get these to your attention before all of the newsy-ness wears off of them...

Die, Resume! Die! Die! Die!
Bryan Person takes a cue from Tom Foremski's shot-heard-round-the-world for the PR industry and suggests that it's time for an end to the traditional resume as we know it. The replacement? Why, a Social Media Resume, of course!

SMT: Great idea. I think it's high time this was instituted. I've always referred headhunters to my LinkedIn page when they ask for my resume, but they insist on the hard copy anyway (come to think of it, even crayon insisted on the old fashioned version).

Manhattan Sees a Mashup of Soup & Ice Cream
For fans of Cold Stone Creamery and Soup Kitchen International (aka the Soup Nazi), you don't have to visit more than one store. An aspiring entrepreneur is combining both stores in one and promoting it with a contest that rewards two grand prizes: a cup of soup a day for life and a cup of ice cream a day for life.

SMT: The kicker is that they're not using traditional marketing. They tried "buying local advertising and radio spots, but didn't get much bang for [their] buck." So, the co-branded shop is going entirely with word of mouth marketing. How's that for hot & cold?

Google Acquires Jaiku
Google buys Jaiku for an unspecified amount. A huge surprise, since Twitter seems to have the market share of users. But a brilliant strategic move from Google. And expect more soon - as Robert Scoble says, prepare yourself for November 5.

SMT: Rest assured that Google is assuming a take-no-prisoners approach with Facebook and Twitter. I think Google is getting more deeply rooted in the community space - and what's more, this clearly positions them for more mobile applications (can you say gPhone?). But will I still be able to stream Twitter through Jaiku?Neville Hobson recommends that we "refuse to choose" - use Twitku.

NBC Universal Acquires Oxygen Media
NBC announced that it was paying $925 million for the female-focused network that streams into 74 million homes in America, padding their portfolio of properties that cater to the fair sex.

SMT: It's an interesting way to assemble more of a focused audience - well, as focused as mass media can be. But I think Chris Thilk hit it on the head when he Twittered:

Now it has 2 female-targeted properties it can fail to integrate efficiently. Awesome.

Labels: big media, Bryan Person, Chris Thilk, social media takeaways, Twitter

Posted by Scott Monty at 9:02 PM

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About Scott

For hi-res, click here

The best way to describe Scott is "Renaissance Man." Friends and colleagues that know Scott from one facet of his life are very frequently surprised to learn of his interests and talents in other areas.

Scott is a marketing and communications professional focused on the digital industry — specifically on social media. His career spans a number of industries such as healthcare, pharma, biotech, travel, automotive, tech, and communications, and includes a wide range of clients, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.

Currently on the staff of corporate communications in Ford Motor Company, Scott heads up the social media function and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager. He is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.

Prior to joining Ford, Scott served as Consigliere for crayon and spent a number of years with PJA Advertising + Marketing, a boutique BtoB agency specializing in health sciences & high tech.

In addition to his consulting and agency background, Scott is an active blogger and podcaster. He writes about the intersection of advertising, marketing and PR at The Social Media Marketing Blog and also writes The Baker Street Blog, a literary undertaking. Scott has been featured in numerous news and business publications, on a variety of podcasts, and on national television. Scott is a recognized thought leader in the social media industry and frequently speaks at industry events.

Scott received his Master's in Medical Science from Boston University's School of Medicine concurrently with his MBA from BU's Graduate School of Management. He lives in the greater Detroit area with his wife and two young sons, golfs all too infrequently, and has a hidden talent for voice over work.

Oh, and one last little-known fact: Scott coined the term "tweetup."

You may download a headshot here, courtesy of C.C. Chapman and a PDF version of Scott's bio here.

Books in which Scott's work is featured:
The New Rules of Marketing & PR
Twitterville
Six Pixels of Separation
Monkeys with Typewriters
Read This First
World Wide Rave
Get Seen

Disclosures/Relationships

Scott is on the Advisory board of SavvyAuntie
Scott is on the Advisory board of Business Smart Tools
Scott is a judge for the SAMMY Awards
Scott is on the Advisory board of The Hive Awards
Named one of iMedia's 25 Top Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovators
This blog's content is also syndicated on Social Media Today
Plaid occasionally does web work for me and designed this site
No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

Speaking Events

Scott speaks on social media at events, seminars and conferences around the world. His topic generally focuses on corporate use of social media, becoming an online spokesperson, and specifically on the progress that Ford has made in the recent past. If you're interested in booking Scott to speak at your event, please send an email to speaking [AT] scottmonty [DOT] com. Scott's bio and headshot can be found in the "About Scott" tab above.

Some previous engagements include:

BlogWell - How Big Companies Use Social Media - Minneapolis - August 13

Who is Scott Monty?

Hi, I'm Scott. I'm the head of social media for Ford Motor Company. This is my personal blog, where I share my perspectives on social media - the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web - for marketers, agencies, the enterprise and the individual. This blog contains my personal views.