I find very little time to blog these days. Babies don’t leave much time for blogging, I have never been the most efficient blogger. But for a little while I will try blogging from my Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo using SlideIT. One blog post per money on the way to work each morning. Riveting.
Posts Tagged ‘Blogging’
Blogging from smartphone, is it possible?
May 25th, 2011 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Life, LinksJust home much air time does Twitter actually deserve?
November 29th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in BloggingI’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:
Tags: Blogging, journalism, online, PR, social networks, twitter, Web
Just Another 24 Hours is re-re-launched again
September 18th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in BloggingWelcome to the new look justanother24hours.com.
The theme is a modified Depo Skinny and the work was completed by Sweans Technologies who I commissioned via elance.
Still no advertising on the site (I wonder if that increases or decreases the credibility. I suspect that its detrimental).
I am going to be ramping up my blogging activities, more focus, some new regular features, more keywords and more plugins.
I am also going to change the header – I’ve had feedback that the image is ‘too cheesy’. It was taken at an ill-fated party a few years back. It’s just a placeholder for the time being.
Let me know what you think of the new look and feel.
Article for Digital Media Magazine: CEO as Chief Communicator
April 16th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Public Relations, Social mediaI wrote the following article for Digital Media Magazine. It ran in the newsletter yesterday (April 16th) which you can download here.
Links have been added for the benefit of this posting.
CEO as Chief Communicator
Current economic challenges have lead to intense scrutiny of executive decision making, corporate culture, compensation, risk management and due diligence in business.
This close examination by Government and the media of corporate largesse has highlighted a vast chasm between senior executives and the general workforce leading to unprecedented levels of mistrust towards the business sector. It has highlighted the urgent need for cultural change within the corporate sector in the developed world.
A January 2009 survey by a rival PR firm – Edelman – found that 38 percent of American respondents between the ages of 35 and 64 said they trust business. This is the lowest rating in the survey’s 10-year history. The corporate sector must act quickly and decisively to address deteriorating levels of trust between itself and the pool from which it must draw its customers and employees.
The question is: whose responsibility is it?
The buck must surely stop with the CEO. Research conducted by Burson-Marsteller in 2005 found that perceptions of the CEO represent 65 percent of a corporate reputation.
The role of the company CEO is to set the company vision, values and direction. They then must develop the plan of actions. The critical step lies in the effective communication of the strategy, and the consistent demonstration and reinforcement of the stated values.
The rise of digital media has had a major impact on corporate communications since 2005. It has provided the opportunity for corporations to establish an ‘authentic voice’. This singular, human voice enables corporations to engage in meaningful two way conversation with individuals in the media, customer base, bloggersphere and so on.
Interestingly, that authentic voice is rarely if ever the voice of the CEO. A 2008 research project by Burson-Marsteller found that just 18% of CEOs have used social media to communicate with stakeholder groups.
There are exceptions, most notably in the technology sector, but typically the engineer, product strategist, technician or designer is perceived as the authentic voice.
CEOs are overlooked for a wide variety of reasons; they don’t have time; they are not close enough to the detail; they are generalists; they don’t see the value in mass-communication; they are constrained by corporate disclosure guidelines.
This must change.
Businesses find themselves less trusted than ever before. This fact is a critical business issue and will be a major inhibitor for many companies in the years to come, more pressing in some industries than others. One time, one directional communications will not re-build trust. Businesses need to engage in a continuous dialogue.
The good news is that CEOs today have a wide variety of communications tools at their disposal and these tools will be second nature to the next generation of CEOs. These individuals assisted by corporate communications experts will recognise the need to communicate their vision and values for the company as well as encouraging and facilitating transparency across all operations.
There will continue to be a place for the ‘at the coal face’ bloggers within organisations – those individuals that discuss their daily challenges, share insights and generate ideas with likeminded people. In doing so, they generate goodwill, enhance reputations and engage various audience groups.
The organisations that recognise the need to re-instate and re-equip the CEO as the Chief Communicator will be the first to begin the process of re-building trust. Those businesses that deploy a strategy and the tools that enable continuous CEO communications will invigorate their reputation and establish refreshed relationships based on trust.
Tags: Blogging, CEO, change, corporate, digital, Media, relationships, trust
Twitter may peak but only while Jo Bloggs takes a quick peek
March 20th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Social mediaThis post is prompted by discussions related to Twitter and in particular, this post by Steve Rubel.
If you don’t know what Twitter is by now then I’d argue you don’t need to know.
The only people that will get value out of Twitter today are people that use the Internet as a core part of their professional or personal lives (or some combination of the two). Rubel refers to the lack of organisation and this is going to be a major turn off to your average users who is happy with the way Facebook and other networks serve everything on a plate in a personalised fashion.
Twitter will need to evolve considerably to appeal to a mass-user audience. I remember reading about a lot of very switched on social media experts who questioned the value of Twitter when it first came on the scene.
Twitter has hit the mainstream media as the latest social media phenomenon but it’s not new – its been around since 2006. It’s being positioned by the mainstream media as the latest hot thing on the Web and there has been much discussion around its lifespan, future, viability, business model. The geek chic Twitterati feel discovered and are looking for their next big thing as the general population flocks to Twitter to check it out. Nielsen has reported a 1,000+ percent growth rate.
I spend loads of time online
Twitter started to become uncool when Britney and a raft of celebs signed up but surely the fact that it has taken three years to ‘go mainstream’ provides some indication of its relevance to the general population.
I’d say that talk of Twitter’s demise is premature – not withstanding the questions around its business model, which is surely the real issue here. I’d bet that the vast majority of new Twitter registrations that come as a result of this publicity fade and die very quickly – having zero impact on the activity that’s going on right now and minimal impact on the protective community of active Twitter users today.
Forrester’s Technographics research found that only 13% of (US) online consumers are Creators.
It takes a lot of time to identify and build your community on Twitter. It works for:
- The digerati – the population that spends a lot of time online
- Thought leaders and those that have something interesting to say
- Individuals promoting their own commercial interest or reputation
- People who want to promote their own content
- People who want to receive randomised news items from ‘authorities’ and experts in their field
- Chat in real-time at real-life events #hashtags
- Those that are generally interested in social media and how it works
You have to invest a fair amount of time in Twitter to generate returns, simply by virtue of the fact that messages don’t hang around for long – apart from anything else. As Rubel points out, it is disorganised and this will be the networks biggest challenge if it wants to retain the mainstream user.
My sense is that large swathes of the general population will quickly migrate back to the familiarity of Facebook and other multi-function social networks. The press coverage will undoubtedly drive a ton of people toward Twitter but I doubt that many will become very active.
The general population would be better advised going to Yahoo Answers! or a specialised social network if they want to tap the opinions of a mixed collection of people on an ad-hoc basis.
The attention paid to Twitter will be a positive thing for the service in the long run – it will also increase its attractiveness of potential acquirers. If Twitter can couple the increased user population with a workable business model then Twitter will remain relevant for a long time to come.
Does the mainstream’s media sudden obsession with Twitter reflect the growing importance of social media OR does it reflect the fact that social media is maturing and there are fewer new things to get excited about? What do you think?
Subscribe Feed (RSS)
