BlogWorks: April 2009 Archives

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April 27, 2009

Domino’s and The Power of YouTube

By Alicia Dorset

If you haven’t the seen the YouTube clip of two North Carolina Domino’s Pizza staffers tampering with your favorite menu items, consider yourself lucky. The clip, which started making its way around the Web last week, shows two former employees doing disgusting things with the food as they prep it for an order. As the buzz continued to build, Domino’s actually got YouTube to pull the clip. However, outraged users kept replacing the clip on the site.

BusinessWeek has a post on the incident and raises the question of free speech on the Internet. What makes Domino’s so special that they can have a negative clip pulled (one that was actually posted by their own employees and not an irritated customer)? Will all companies be able to follow suit? The possibilities are scary, to say the least. Here’s hoping that this doesn’t become the next trend for corporate America.

Read BusinessWeek’s “Domino’s Pizza YouTube Video Lesson: Focus on Standards, and Pack Your own Lunch.”

USA Today also looked at Domino’s response to the crisis, and gives the company kudos for reacting quickly and using social media to respond.

Posted by staff at 04:30 PM
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April 25, 2009

Twitter Traffic Coming from an Older Crowd

ComScore posts recent data from Twitter. The social messaging giant neared 10 million visitors in February, up more than 700 percent compared to a year ago. It’s not the traditional 18-24 year olds leading the charge, either; it’s the 25-54 year old group. You can view full statistics here. BNet also reports Twitter grew by 76.8 percent in March, attracting 14,031,985 people, to break into the Top 100 sites, as calculated by the metrics service.

Posted by staff at 04:03 PM
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Ford Offers Test Drives and Adventures to Bloggers in its Fiesta Movement

By Marian Short

Ford received kudos from the financial Web site, Blogging Stocks this week for its use of social media within the “Fiesta Movement,” wherein the automaker awarded 100 lucky bloggers with Fiestas to test drive for six months. Ford chose the participants from 4,000 videos uploaded to YouTube. The bloggers have free reign in terms of content and will take part in “missions” devised by Ford. Blogging Stocks concluded: “The Internet has allowed us to expand our network of trusted voices, and Ford is smart enough to take a chance on peer-to-peer marketing. Perhaps Facebook can sell cars that the CBS Evening News can't.”

Full story available here.

Posted by staff at 03:50 PM
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April 24, 2009

The Refreshing TwitZap

The new Twitter client TwitZap helps speed up tweeting, even when Twitter is experiencing slowdowns. TwitZap updates automatically and in real time, at the speed you choose. Read more here.

Posted by staff at 04:01 PM
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April 23, 2009

Facebook Case Studies and Tips for Brand Marketers

Facebook wants to encourage brands to continue to build Facebook pages and, with the current revamp to pages, Facebook has developed its own page for promotion. Facebook Marketing Solutions is complete with case studies from a number of large brands using the tool, tips and how-tos, and discussion with marketers. View the Facebook Marketing Solutions page Posted by staff at 04:12 PM
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April 21, 2009

Yelp Controversy Revisited

By Marian Short

Remember the Yelp controversy? The East Bay Express reported Yelp was allegedly tampering with online reader reviews after restaurants refused to “pay” to have negative reviews removed. Well, subsequent coverage from diverse news outlets including The New York Times, Financial Times and Huffington Post has called many points of the story into question.

A feature at The New York Times stressed the difficult territory the online company negotiates – Yelp must be fair to its citizen reviewers and readership, but also cannot ignore the needs of its businesses, some of which advertise on the site. The Times also pointed to Yelp policies with advertisers that could cause confusion among other restaurateurs, as well as the closely guarded workings of its anti-spam algorithm “which makes a small number of reviews come and go from a typical business' page,” according to Yelp’s blog.

Closer to home, the Silicon Valley-based Mercury News characterized the “Yelp controversy” as a “digital culture clash.” Columnist Chris O’Brien theorized that while internet usage by small business owners is in line with the population at large, most still do not focus on Web 2.0 in connection with their businesses; O’Brien cited a recent survey estimating only 44 percent of small business owners have a Web site.

This week, Yelp announced its decision to allow restaurants to respond to reader reviews. For more details on this new development view the features from:

The New York Times, Yelp Will Let Businesses Respond to Web Reviews
San Jose Mercury News, O'Brien: Yelp controversy is a digital culture clash
Yelp Web Blog, East Bay Express Story Starts to Unravel

Posted by staff at 03:39 PM
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April 17, 2009

When Your Reputation is On the Line

While many fantastic, positive features can be written about our clients and industry online, it is inevitable that there will be criticism as well. Matthew Grant from MarketingProfs Daily Fix has tips to help us stay calm and respond to ‘negativity 2.0’ with a clear head:

- Lesson 1: Research Before You Respond – Even though comments can be anonymous, generally doing a bit of digging around can help you pinpoint where these comments are stemming from.
- Lesson 2: Respond with Humility – Sometimes a simple apology is the best opening line.

- Lesson 3: Accept Responsibility – Insert yourself into the conversation and provide a resolution to the problem. Be open for direct contact.
- Lesson 4: Provide a Forum for Criticism – iIf there are going to be negative things said, you might not have control over the topic but you have the ability to host the place for dialogue.
- Lesson 5: Hang in There – “It's not about being right online; it's about making sure people feel alright, even when things go wrong.”

April 15, 2009

Twitter Provides Glimpse into “World’s Collective Brain”

By Marian Short

A New York Times feature on Twitter refutes the usual charge leveled against it —inanity – and said that Tweets collectively form “a surprisingly useful tool for solving problems and providing insights into the digital mood.” Companies including Starbucks, Dell and Amazon, are using it to “tap into the world’s collective brain” and alter marketing in real-time.

First conceived as a tool to connect people who already knew each other, Twitter has lent itself to citizen news reportage during natural disasters and doctors consulting with colleagues, in addition to client-public engagement. According to recent Compete.com stats, Twitter has become the third largest online social network, joining Facebook and Myspace.

Paul Saffo, Silicon Valley futurist, described Twitter’s take on social media in this way: “Twitter reverses the notion of the group. Instead of creating the group you want, you send it and the group self-assembles.”

Read the New York Times “Putting Twitter’s World to Use” here.

Posted by staff at 02:36 PM
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April 13, 2009

Your Face is on Candid Camera

By Eden Litt

You’re at an event. Click. Someone snaps a photo of you. You hope that one’s not going to end up on Facebook, but…did it?

Now perhaps you can find out. Face.com has recently launched “Photo Finder” a new application boasting to be “the fastest, most powerful and most accurate facial recognition outside of TV crime dramas.” The application’s features include the ability to auto tag your friends’ faces and search through “face galleries” for your own face and for your friends’ faces.

So far it appears the site has some issues with Facebook’s APIs. If it does become successful, the tool has the power to bring wonders and disasters to the web. Stephen Shankland from CNET was one of the first to review the new app, read more here.

Posted by staff at 10:21 AM
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April 10, 2009

Overwhelmed by Social Media?

Twitter, Tinker, Facebook, Leftos, Blogspot and on and on and on. We’re all learning it in the moment, but some lucky children may be required to develop fluency in social media as part of their formal education.

Posted by staff at 11:16 AM
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April 08, 2009

Best Practices for Facebook Fan Pages

By Alicia Dorset

Mashable has some great tips about what makes a successful Facebook fan page. The five elements cover everything from working with other platforms, such as your other existing Web sites and social media properties, to finding the right fans based on your product’s or company’s demographics. Definitely an important read for anyone interested in creating that first fan page for a client.

Posted by staff at 10:51 AM
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