09 Apr 2009
Today I found some pretty appalling examples of people misusing automatically generated updates on Twitter to over-promote themselves. It inspired me to highlight why auto-tweets are a really bad idea. First of all, if you are thinking about using Twitter to get your name out there, or tap into this social media stuff, please consider a few things first. People are not going to follow you, or help you achieve any sort of promotional goal, unless you understand how to operate within their realm. They can easily spot fakes and spammers. If you want to promote something on Twitter, you have to do the ground work. You can start by being a human that knows how to listen, being respectful, and putting others before yourself. Take a look at Qwest’s Twitter (@talktoqwest) for a good example. Out of all of the bad examples I dug up today, one particular account…
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08 Apr 2009
Qwest announced its “Talk to Qwest” program today – a comprehensive social media effort effectively helping Qwest customers resolve a range of issues online – including billing, tech support, product/pricing inquiries, etc.
Starting on Twitter, @TalkToQwest, Qwest has put together a super-group of people clearly demonstrating their care for customers through daily outreach and response (in 140 characters or less). That is actually the short answer to why they are succeeding in social media: their people.
As the social media agency hired to assist them, it’s a privilege to share a little personal insight on Qwest with respect to both challenges and opportunities. But first, I have a confession.
Frankly, I was a little concerned about the project before we even started working together. It’s one thing to focus on a project within a department of a large company – but when multiple departments are motivated to participate, and impassioned individuals are talking about literally…
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01 Apr 2009
Kudos to Peter Hershberg regarding his insight on what social media means to search, along with his explanation on the three evolutionary waves of search.
It seems not that long ago (middle of this decade), I was writing quite a bit about how relevant search results had evolved through Google’s PageRank concept – what Peter refers to as Search 2.0.
And now here we are talking about Search 3.0 – relevance based on personal networks and the filtering of data through online social graphs, ultimately strengthened as more people connect with each other via the web.
When you consider the technology (RSS) supporting the distribution of information or updates within online social networks like Facebook and Twitter – I think we actually began seeing the infancy of Search 3.0 nearly two years ago through Google’s Universal Search algorithm update (see basics of how Google’s indexing changed in image below).
Another glimpse of Search 3.0 could be…
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