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For the past 20 years, Metzger Associates has been a leader in the art + science of communications. We appreciate your readership, and hope you enjoy our new blog format!
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Google announced today it will begin tracking and ranking individual content creators. (You can read more about it on ReadWriteWeb). Authors will be ranked, not just content on individual websites. If your business is gunning for organic search placement (and who isn’t?) what could this mean for you?
Plagiarized Content Will Kill You
Last week, a friend of mine, who is a reporter for USA Today, had an story she wrote for the paper plagiarized by tmcnet.com
Here’s Kelly Kennedy’s original story
Here’s the ripped off version attributed to Deborah Hirsch.
Notice a difference? Me neither.
The comments at the bottom of the article even call out plagiarism but the website hasn’t removed the story. So, using the example above, TMCNET will not only be dinged in rankings for duplicate content, their contributor, Debora Hirsch, will also be penalized for plagiarism.
Don’t make the same mistake by copying a related news story on to your business’ blog and calling it your own. It’s not clear exactly what the repercussions will be, but given today’s announcement, you might want to start looking at past blog posts, as well. Write your own intro sentence and link to the entire news story just to be on the safe side. This has always been a good blogging practice, but now it has implications.
Take Advantage and Create Thought Leaders Within Your Organization
And while we’re on the subject of blogging, you might want to think about who’s blogging for your site, as well as writing your contributed articles and blog posts for trade publications and content websites.
While writing a contributed article for a trade magazine is more work for your employees, no one can disagree that it’s a bad idea. Newsrooms are short-staffed these days and often, you’re more likely to land an article into a trade magazine if you write it yourself than if you sit in your office and wait for a reporter to call you.
Now that your employee’s name will be linked to everything they write, you can really take advantage of this opportunity to extend your thought leadership within your industry.
Thought leadership, whether it’s information coming from your CEO or your top sales guy, can demonstrate your company’s innovation, customer service, and show that you have business ideas that merit attention.
While in the past, it may have made sense to pass around the workload of writing contributed blogs and trade magazine articles, it appears to make more sense now to have one voice for your company online and have a single content creator.
There are a lot of future implications that can be imagined for businesses to take consider. For example, what if your thought leader gets another job? Do they take your web traffic to your competitor? That could shake things up not just for SEO managers, but for your entire public relations team.
The one thing that hasn’t changed is that great content comes from great authors. Choose wisely in your communications strategy and you won’t be scrambling to fix links every time Google adds to their search functionality.
→ No CommentsTags: Communication Strategies · Search Engine Optimization · social media
Image via CrunchBase
posted by Doyle
Most of you have seen it by now: Facebook hired one of the world’s largest PR firms (Burston-Marsteller) to execute a whisper campaign against Google over privacy issues. Irony of Facebook (pot) calling Google (kettle) out on privacy concerns aside, this entire episode was simply sad and continues to be handled badly by all concerned. This isn’t grey. It’s black and white, right and wrong:
The saddest byproduct of this entire mess is the shrugs and comments like “yeah, but this happens all the time. These guys just got caught.”
Sorry, but that’s nonsense. If Facebook has a problem with Google’s Social Circle, just come out and say so. Does anyone (B-M?) believe Facebook couldn’t get coverage by taking a stand? Of course not. They just wanted to play the “See? Everyone thinks Social Circle is bad!” card. If they would have been transparent, the message would have gotten out, the tech/social media community could have evaluated Facebook’s concerns and the discussion would have ensued. Instead, whether or not there is a privacy issue with Social Circle has been lost in the slime.
Sack up, Facebook. And same to you, B-M. I’m not so naive as to think this is an isolated incident, but that does not make it right. It hurt Facebook, it certainly hurt B-M and it was yet another black eye for the PR industry. I’m sorry to see this nonsense continue to happen, and I’d like to see some serious adult supervision to minimize the continued proliferation of stupid.
In the end, it’s easier than ever to do things like this. But the good news for all of us, is that’s it’s easier than ever to get caught. If doing the right thing isn’t enough to keep companies on the high road, maybe the fear of retribution will.
That’s an end that will justify the means.
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posted by Marie
By now, it’s common knowledge that the news about Bin Laden’s death broke on Twitter and set new traffic records for the site. Donald Rumsfeld’s Chief of Staff, Keith Urbahn, was the first credible source to break the news last Sunday.
What is there to learn from this? Social engagement platform SocialFlow analyzed nearly 15 million tweets and bit.ly links to draw a connection between the news and the influencers. As the graphic above confirms, Keith Urbahn was the main influencer, as well as New York Times digital media reporter Brian Stelter, who shows up in the bottom right as the second hub of retweets. The conclusions you can draw from research, outlined in their blog post:
SocialFlow alos pointed out that Urbahn was not the first to speculate on Bin Laden’s death, but he was the one that gained the most trust. “With that,” writes Social Flow, “the perfect situation unfolded, where timing the right social-professional networked audience, along with a critically relevant piece of information led to an explosion of public affirmation of his trustworthiness.”
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posted by Doyle
Sometimes, there’s just no point in trying to re-create the wheel.
All of us at Metzger are exciting to be hosting Amber Naslund, author of The NOW Revolution, next week, and we hope you’ll join us for either the Boulder event or the Denver event.
What’s it all about? Our good friend and co-sponsor Erika Napoletano said it best on her blog, so… what she said!
Hope to see you there!
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Amber Naslund, nationally known communication and business strategist, vice president of Social Strategy for Radian6 and author of The Now Revolution, will be giving two Colorado presentations: Denver (May 12) and Boulder (May 13).
Her appearances — Naslund’s first-ever in Colorado — are being hosted by the Mile High Social Media Club (MHSMC), Metzger Associates, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)/Colorado Chapter and Redhead Writing.
Click here to register for the Denver event or here for the Boulder appearance.
At each event, Naslund will address the “Seven Shifts To Make Businesses Faster, Smarter & More Social.” Attendees will learn how to:
When & Where:
Cost:
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posted by Doyle
There are a few phrases I hear as a customer that really get me. They include:
The last one is perhaps the most frustrating to me. I heard it recently from a company trying to charge me $40 (on a $55/month recurring charge) when my credit card was rejected because I didn’t update their system when I got a new plate. So, they showed my card as expired.
When I called, I asked how they could possible condone — even if my card had been expired or otherwise rejected — applying a penalty equal to more than 70 percent of the charge itself.
“Our computers just do that,” was the answer.
“You can tell them to stop,” I said, thinking I was helping. It didn’t work.
“We’ll take it off as a one-time courtesy,” was the answer.
Strike two.
I asked if I forgot to update my plate in a couple of years when it expired again if I would have already burned my “one-time courtesy” and would have to pay $40.
“Our computers just do that,” was the answer.
I asked if their computers could take the order to cancel my membership. Turns out, they could. I did.
Getting new customers is hard and it can be expensive. Did someone in your organization tell your computers that “just do that” in a way that it’s costing you the very customers you worked so hard to get?
→ No CommentsTags: Marketing and Communications
Posted by Amy
I might get fired for this post.
I’m a little burned out on social media. Every day, thanks to Facebook, Twitter and a dozen or so other online communities in which I’m involved, I am awash in a sea of noise. And that’s all it is: noise.
Sure you might manage the noise with any number of fancy-schmancy APIs, security settings, or even just screening your phone calls, but what’s left? Which noises do you pay attention to once they’ve navigated through your complex system of filters and privacy settings? More importantly, why?
This is my problem with social media: it’s not terribly social. In fact, it often interrupts the time I spend interacting with my fellow humans. “Hang on, guys, I have to tweet this!” or “Sorry, I can’t go out tonight. I have to update WordPress.” Sound familiar, loser? It’s fun to read about goings-on from your friends (especially if they include a booze-induced typo or better yet, a juicy confession), but this kind of interaction shouldn’t get in the way of your social life—I mean your social IRL.
Here’s a revolutionary idea: let’s use social media to augment our personal relationships. Of course, there will be folks you only know through their blogs or the like. Just because I’ve never had a beer with Chris Illuminati doesn’t mean I have to enjoy this post any less. I mean to say let’s not build a network solely on social media. Use it to share your life with acquaintances, friends and family. Use it to make your life easier. Use it to meet new people—yes meet in analog, in person, with other human beings… and maybe beverages. Just don’t miss out on opportunities to build relationships IRL because of “social” media. Unless you really don’t want to go on that blind date.
→ No CommentsTags: social media
Most people that use social networking platforms like Twitter and FourSquare think only their chosen friends can see their updates and follow their whereabouts. Not true. A new tool developed by a Greek programmer called “Creepy” allows users to search people’s location-based updates (even those from months ago) and plot them on a map. Users can download this program quickly and then enter in a handle from Twitter, FourSquare or Flickr and obtain a slew of results.
MSNBC’s Red Tape tested the product and the results were “unnerving.” Read the story here http://redtape.msnbc.com/2011/04/just-how-creepy-is-creepy-a-test-drive.html
It’s important to remember that everything Creepy finds and aggregates is already available on the Web. But this just might make you think twice about how much location-based information you are sharing about yourself.
By Stephanie V.
→ 2 CommentsTags: social media
Posted by Jill
Today it was announced by Cisco that they are discontinuing the manufacturing and marketing of the popular Flip camera. (Here’s the story as reported by Mashable this morning.)
I own a fairly new Flip camera and, as a self-proclaimed video hack, I enjoyed the ease of travel and the quality of the video on the Flip camera. I did find the editing software a little weak and archaic, but it easily integrated with iMovie, so semi-professional editing could be applied to the video.
But, still, I can see why Cisco made its decision.
Vital Flaw: Sharing
About a month ago, I became aware of a vital flaw in the Flip camera. At an event where I was responsible for live-streaming video, I learned the hard way that I was not able to live stream from the tiny camera… even when plugged into the computer using an adapter so it could stand upright on the tri-pod. I loved the tiny camera, but from then on I was forced to look elsewhere for my streaming needs. Also, the camera lacked immediacy and sharability. Since the camera doesn’t have a WiFi or 3G component, it was impossible to post videos on social media sites, send to friends via MMS or post them on YouTube unless I was right next to the computer. Those problems are easily solved by most smart phones these days.
The Smart Phone Kills It.
After learning that the Flip didn’t play well and share with others, I was forced to dive into the filming and video sharing capabilities of my iPhone 4. With a free app on UStream, I was able to live stream video, record video and share the video on social media straight through the phone. The HD video quality was also perfectly acceptable for my “film hack” needs. There was only one problem with the iPhone live-streaming capabilities: after about 35 minutes, my phone gave me the scary warning that it was too hot and needed to be turned off. Granted, 35 minutes is a long time to stream live video, but I am sure that this will improve with upgrades.
Despite it all, though, I am definitely sad to see the little guy go. The Flip has been so popular for amateurs like myself. But, as everything goes social, the lack of shareability with the device was its fatal flaw. Our phones are now becoming the singular device for our multiple needs; besides gaming, social media, email and phone calls (who knew?), our phones are now playing the part of a completely sharable video camera.
