Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

Social media Compliance is another complicating factor for marketers and PR

December 1st, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Public Relations

BzzAgent is a WOM agency that manages a network of 600,000 highly engaged consumer volunteers located throughout the US, Canada and the UK.  The WOM company has just announced a series of Compliance services to ensure that its clients in PR and marketing departments do not contravene the FTC’s Guides on endorsements in social media, which come into effect today.

I wrote an article in favour of these guidelines for Mumbrella.

BzzAgent refers to its network members as volunteers.  I thought volunteers worked for not-for-profits.  I think its inevitable that the WOM agencies will have to make full disclosure and transparency core to their service offering in order to stay on the right side of the FTC and similar enforcement agencies in other countries and for the reasons that I pointed out in the article for Mumbrella.

This graphic from BzzAgent provides a neat summary of the obligations under the FTC Guides and the steps that PR professionals and marketers can take to ensure compliance.

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Buzzagent

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Just home much air time does Twitter actually deserve?

November 29th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging

I’ve been watching the Brian Solis – Robert Scoble discussions here.  Twitter continues to generate a huge amount of conversation, which is interesting considering:

  • Facebook has 250 million active users to Twitter’s 19 million (eMarketer research via Mashable)
  • A large number of users quite within the first month (Nielsen)
  • Twitter has no revenue stream

So, is Twitter the new attention dashboard? I have my doubts. I think that’s a very limited view of the conversations that are occurring online.

Will the real-time Web be a major influence on communication in the future? Absolutely.

The focus on the newness of things, the tool and its features and the immediacy of information (Twitter beat CNN to the Tiger Woods story this week by 45 mins) is compelling – but only to a point.  Beyond that point, Twitter discussions tend to become rather sycophantic, repetitive, tactical and/or theoretical.

This stuff is important though; The immediacy of micro-blogs like Twitter influences the way that we value information and perceive it.  It speeds up the news cycle and makes information even more of a commodity.

In a presentation at the recent Media140 event in Sydney Barry Saunders spoke about the danger of not considering context when we use the real-time Web as a primary source of information.  This is among the most insightul and interesting things that I’ve heard said about this space.  Its a very valid point, which is – along with others -  being overlooked in a plethora of hype fuelled conversations about Twitter.  Mr. Saunders make some additional points on related topics here.

The Twitter purists consider Twitter to be a conversational tool but many organisations are, in my experience, approaching it is a broadcast medium, as research that we are releasing tomorrow will show.

I will leave you with this analysis from BlogPulse, which shows comparative mentions of ‘Twitter’, ‘Unemployment’ and ‘Iraq’ in all forms of consumer generated media over the past six months:

Blogpulse

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Australian medi-hotel to offer cosmetic procedures and R&R

November 28th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging

GeoffEThis man, Geoffrey Edelsten, is about to open a medi-hotel complex in Caroline Spings, Victoria.  According to this morning’s Sydney Morning Herald, the medi-hotel will provide a range of cosmetic surgery procedures with the idea being that clients can’t recuperate post-op in the Mercure hotel part of the medi-complex.

This conjures up some amusing / disturbing images of breakfast at the hotel with patrons munching away and imbibing (via straws) at various stages in their recovery with a multitude of bits and pieces bandaged, stitched and stretched.

The over 55s: A sizeable and wealthy segment of the Australian population with an increasing penchant for all things Internet.

I am not planning on cosmetic surgery.

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Social media traffic catching search in Australia

November 26th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Search, Social media

Hitwise

Great Tool: Forester Technographics Profiling

November 23rd, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging

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Mumbrella article: Time to regulate paid Aussie blog comment

November 2nd, 2009 by Daniel Young | 2 Comments | Filed in Blogging

My contributed article ran in Mumbrella - an online news and opinion site for the Australian media and marketing industry.

Time to regulate paid Aussie blog comment – and to penalise the offenders

In this guest post, Daniel Young of PR agency Burson-Marsteller Australia argues that marketers and bloggers who make undisclosed paid comments should be fined

From December 1, bloggers in North America will be required to disclose ‘important connections’ with advertisers as a result of new guidelines governing ‘endorsements’ and ‘testimonials’.  

The Federal Trade Commission guidelines apply to ‘bloggers’, ‘consumers who join word of mouth marketing programs’ and ‘postings by participants in network marketing programs’.

This raises the question: Should bloggers and individuals active in social media in Australia be required to reveal their commercial relationships?  Click here for the article

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My tweets 2009-09-24

September 25th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging

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My tweets 2009-09-23

September 24th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging

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My tweets 2009-09-22

September 23rd, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging
  • From the SOH website: * Transaction fee of $8.50 applies to all phone bookings. Flipping joke!!! 13:44:19
  • I m trying to find something that doesn't exist – another 'high' profile Aussie blogger with a focus on industry and enterprise IT trends 17:38:09

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My tweets 2009-09-20

September 21st, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging

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