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Amnesty plants social media time bomb

amnesty one-ten When it comes to innovation, look to the non-profits. When you're short of marketing megabucks, necessity can be the mother of some pretty interesting inventions. Consider the Obama campaign, or PETA.org's fascinating forays into viral marketing.

Amnesty International UK has just announced a new initiative that takes into account a factor that's huge in email marketing, but little used in social media: timing. At 1:10 p.m. on Friday, they're asking supporters to drop a coordinated social media bomb to raise awareness about violence against women in the UK.

Why Friday, why 1:10, you ask? Relevance. Friday March 6 is International Womens Day, and one in ten is the ratio of women in Britain who are victims of rape or violence.

by Rebecca Lieb 04 March 2009 17:33pm 5 comments

Consumers control social media, and brands need to wise up

A recent study by Netpop Research serves to only further assert the fact that social media is rapidly changing the way brands operate, due to the increase of consumer control.

The report is purely US-based, but it certainly seems fair to suggest that this trend can be applied globally, as there is an ever-growing permeation of social media into daily consumer life. The study concludes that there is a shift in consumer internet usage from entertainment towards communication, and it's being driven by social media and networking sites.

by Jake Hird 04 March 2009 16:39pm 2 comments

Are MySpace's better days behind it?

It's hard to say that Rupert Murdoch's $550m acquisition of MySpace in 2005 wasn't a savvy move. Last year alone, despite missing revenue targets, MySpace pulled in more revenue than Murdoch paid to acquire the popular social network.

But all does not appear to be well at the world's second-largest social network. Despite the fact that under News Corp., MySpace has become the best-monetized social network, it has lost significant ground amongst consumers. Last year Facebook surpassed it as the world's largest social network and it's poised to become the largest social network in the United States as well, a country that MySpace had previously dominated.

by Patricio Robles 04 March 2009 10:06am 1 comment

Q&A: Greg Jackson on promoting Labour online

Greg Jackson is Executive director and responsible for online strategy for Tangent PLC, whose recent clients have included Borders and the Labour Party.

Tangent has recently been working with the Labour Party, revamping its website, and developing LabourList, a blog / social media site, as well as promoting the party via sites like Facebook and Twitter.

I have been talking to Greg about Labour's use of social media, as well as the company's work launching Borders' first e-commerce site in the UK...

by Graham Charlton 03 March 2009 13:20pm 0 comments

Skittles launches an amazing social media campaign

Skittles, by *Micky via Flickr One lazy Friday a few weeks ago we rolled out an experiment by displaying all mentions of ‘Econsultancy’ on Twitter onto our homepage. It received a lot of attention, and some people thought we were nuts.

Now Skittles.com has gone one better by turning its entire site into a massive social media experiment. It is possibly the bravest move I have yet seen, in terms of a global brand getting into bed with social media and social networks.

by Chris Lake 02 March 2009 11:45am 19 comments

Why the real-time web isn't really important

There's a new buzzphrase floating around - the "real-time web."

I won't mention the service this buzzword is often attached to. There's already far too much discussion of it.

by Drama 2.0 27 February 2009 08:40am 5 comments

Q&A: Matthew Yeomans on social media measurement

Matthew Yeomans is the founder of Custom Communications and has worked in journalism for the last fifteen years. He is currently Managing Director at social media agency Radar DDB.

I have been talking to Matthew about the difficulties involved in social media measurement, and social media in general...

by Graham Charlton 24 February 2009 11:45am 12 comments

Is nofollow dying?

In a recent post, I discussed the use of the nofollow attribute as an SEO best practice.

In a guest post on SEOmoz, Distilled.co.uk's Will Critchlow suggests the opposite: nofollow is dying.

by Patricio Robles 24 February 2009 09:00am 4 comments

Glam Monetizes Oscar Widget

glam twitter widget Take one publisher, one widget, Twitter, a sponsor, and a dash of censorship, blend well, and...you've got yourself an ad model!

At least. Glam did during last night's Oscar telecast. The company plunked a widget on its home page during the Academy Awards broadcast last night so its users could share their thoughts on the telecast. Aveeno's logo graced the bottom of the app.

But unlike the live Twitter feed gracing our fair homepage, Glam editors made plenty of calls: who was allowed to tweet, as well as redlining inappropriate comments, to make the environment more advertiser-amenable.

According to a report in Venturebeat, Glam intends to continue the experiment, but isn't married to Twitter. Facebook and Friendfeed could supply the user-generated content in future endeavors in a product it has dubbed "gWire".

Glam experimented with the feature during New York's Fashion Week last week to enthusiastic participation. The company says it's creating a pool of freelance contributors it can trust to feed teh stream with less supervision and accordingly, lower editorial overhead.

by Rebecca Lieb 23 February 2009 21:44pm 0 comments

Friends don't let friends autotweet

The more I use Twitter, the more I've noticed an annoying phenomenon: the autotweet.

What are 'autotweets'? They're tweets sent in an automated fashion, usually through websites connected to Twitter via the Twitter API. The purpose of autotweets: to alert followers to new content posted on the Twitter user's website.

by Patricio Robles 20 February 2009 09:01am 0 comments