Owned, Earned or Paid -- What's Your Mix?

Here is a question. How much has the revolution in digital communications changed your thinking about the following categories of media: Owned -- content which you create and publish yourself through your own traditional or social media channels Earned -- content, i.e., coverage secured in independent third-party outlets including magazines, newspapers, blogs, analyst reports Paid -- content for which you paid for placement including ads, advertorials, white papers, and so forth If you're not seeing a dramatic shift in the...

Let's not discard PR and Traditional Media Just Yet

An interesting post in Mashable summarized a presentation by Forrester analysts Josh Bernoff and Augie Ray on peer influence and word of mouth marketing. The analysts summarized a research report they released on April 20 called "Peer Influence Analysis," which offered recommendations about how companies need to determine how to best reach the channels for their messages -- everyone from the social broadcasters (top bloggers), to the peers they know offline and therefore trust, to the mass influencers who make...

Death to performance reviews? No, but know where employees hearts lie.

Last week, I read a "death to performance reviews" article that made some bold claims about the value of performance reviews. Basically, it said corporate America needs to rid itself of the "bogus" and "most insidious" practice of holding annual reviews if it really wants to get the best out of its people and see them grow within an organization. I always love a good radical viewpoint, but I also know in reality this is pretty much a pipe dream....

When texting is too much of a good thing

My husband and I recently launched our third and final young driver onto the roads, after a grueling new requirement that parents take the child on 40 hours of supervised driving trips in addition to driver's ed classes and road training. As tough as the parental requirement was -- which, admittedly, my husband shouldered almost entirely -- I believe it was the best training possible for my son who had a great deal of experience and confidence by the time...

3 things B2B companies should know about Facebook Page changes

I wonder what companies like Organic Valley are thinking after yesterday's Facebook announcements. Many thousands of companies have established a presence on Facebook thanks to its entity (formerly) known as the "Fan Page." The smart companies, like Organic Valley, have promoted this presence through old school mechanisms like product packaging. While this is not the case with Organic Valley, many others have adopted Facebook's own nomenclature "become a fan on Facebook" in this promotion. For those that did, they have...

SNW, a reflection and review of the numbers

Last week marked the annual pilgrimage to one of the storage industry's seasonal events, Storage Networking World, held at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Florida. As with events past, last week had many industry watchers buzzing about the week’s events and conversations, while those of us who weren't fortunate enough to be able to attend, watched from afar. There were few real surprises from the week, although, as in years' past there were certain to be discussions emerging...

Is Google out-innovating Twitter on search?

I stopped using Twitter Search long ago. The reason why is because I could get the same experience through Seesmic or other real-time search engines, which is pretty basic. What I've wanted through a free Twitter search engine are two things -- the ability to see results older than 2 weeks and to see trends over a span longer than 30 days. So it's interesting that Google seems to be taking advantage of this complacency on Twitter's part by out-innovating...

Dear Big Papi, three sound-bites to use during your slump

There's a wonderful scene in my favorite baseball movie, "Bull Durham" in which the veteran catcher Crash Davis schools rookie pitcher "Nuke" Laloosh about how to work with the media. "Learn your cliches," he tells him. "Study them. They're your friends." Davis tells Laloosh: "Write this down: 'We gotta play 'em one day at a time.' 'I'm just happy to be here and hope I can help the ballclub.' 'I just wanta give it my best shot and, Good Lord...

Adapt or Die Time: Forrester looks to "interaction agencies"

(Image credit: redmeat.com) Forrester Research analysts Sean Corcoran, Dave Frankland and Vidya Drego just completed a report called "The Future of Agency Relationships" that challenges marketers and their agencies to evolve their relationships and their offerings. The executive summary on Forrester's site, where the report can be purchased, explains its premise: Agencies continually reinvent themselves to serve their clients — they have to quickly adapt to changes in marketing strategy, media, technology, and society. And with the rise of social...

What do your company's tweets say about your brand personality?

One of my colleagues, Kenna Luguri, sent me a link to the Night of 140 Tweets fund-raiser that Ben Stiller and 139 other comedians and celebrities participated in on March 12 to raise money for the people of Haiti. The goal was simple: Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel welcomed 140 Twitter-ers from the world of comedy, music, sports, and entertainment to the Upright Citizens Brigade stage to each perform a signature tweets in front of a live audience. The proceeds...