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Q&A: Marc Schiller, CEO of ElectricArtists

Marc Schiller is CEO of ElectricArtists, a groundbreaking digital agency in New York with a client roster that has included such major and broad-ranging clients as American Express, Starwood Hotels, A&E Networks, The History Channel, USA Network, Microsoft, Netflix, and The Los Angeles Lakers.

The company has created some of the most innovative and original work in the social media arena, from the first marketing presence in Second Lift back in 2006 to the much more recent Trackingtwitter, a site that tracks (and rates) major brands and products on Twitter.

Marc spends a great deal of his time considering how social media influences marketing, and how marketing can leverage social media. He'll share some of that thinking with the attendees of our Peer Summit in New York on October 8.

Being the impatient types, we asked Marc if we couldn't have a sneak peek now as to what he'll be sharing with the audience next month. Happiily, he obliged.

by Rebecca Lieb 08 September 2009 14:00pm 0 comments

Gone fishing: Seven tips for providing customer service support via Twitter

I've never done a list before, but here's my seven tips from using Twitter to provide customer service and online help and support. What are yours?

by Guy Stephens 04 September 2009 11:51am 8 comments

Are paid friends the new paid links?

Paid links have been and still are a popular SEO technique and it's not hard to understand why: they promise instant gratification to those who can't wait for results. Unfortunately, paid links are not in favor with search engines for obvious reasons and those who employ them today do so at significant risk.

As the importance of social media becomes more apparent to businesses both large and small, it's no surprise that the desire for instant gratification is rearing its ugly head in the form of 'paid friends'.

by Patricio Robles 03 September 2009 12:51pm 1 comment

The 5 things Twitter must do to avoid #fail

How popular is Twitter? It's so popular that some would suggest it's worth billions of dollars. But as many of us who lived through the first .com bust know all too well, it's disappointingly easy to take something that looks like it has a future filled with success and turn it into fail.

In the case of Twitter, I think there are 5 things that the company's management needs to do to avoid that fate.

by Patricio Robles 02 September 2009 09:17am 4 comments

Q&A: BusinessWeek.com Editor-in-Chief John A. Byrne

Journalism on the web requires a new way of thinking. As editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com, John A. Byrne is responsible for guiding the BusinessWeek brand on the web.

In this exclusive interview Byrne, who was previously editor-in-chief of Fast Company and is the author of eight books, talks at length about BusinessWeek's strategy for engaging readers and managing BusinessWeek's web brand.

by Ben LaMothe 28 August 2009 12:07pm 7 comments

Does the UK car industry not get social media?

Despite the opportunities offered by social media, the UK car industry seems to have been slow to catch onto it as a way of promoting its products and talking to customers.

In the US, brands like Ford, thanks to the efforts of its social media director Scott Monty, have placed a high importance on engaging with customers through social media, yet I can think of very few examples from the UK.

by Graham Charlton 27 August 2009 12:08pm 11 comments

Five Twitter slideshows you need to see

Slideshare is one of the more useful startups launched in the past few years, as it means you can view slideshows without having to attend events. It is Youtube for Keynote and Powerpoint.

I've just viewed a compelling / amusing 26-slide presentation on 'Twitter party theory' by Poke creative director Iain Tait, and thought I'd share it with you, along with four others that I've enjoyed recently. They include a comprehensive overview by Ogilvy PR, and a great slideshow by Adam Schoenfeld that takes a detailed look at running contests on Twitter.

Enjoy...

by Chris Lake 27 August 2009 11:09am 1 comment

Twitter goes local. And paves the way for geotargeted ads.

Twitter may already be everywhere, but it's about to know where you are. The microblogging service announced today a new feature that will make it location aware for users.

Twitter is developing an API that will allow third-party platforms like Tweetdeck and Tweetie to indentify users' latitude and longitude. Eventually it will be an opt-in option on Twitter itself. And that means local advertising cannot be far off.

by Meghan Keane 21 August 2009 17:15pm 1 comment

The box office Twitter effect. Fact or fiction?

Twitter is making movie studios nervous. Ever since Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" dropped a few points on its opening weekend, there has been talk of how the Twitter effect can sink a film's box office sales.

Can the power of Twitter make or break a movie at the box office? Probably not. But there is one thing social media has the potential to do: burst the opening weekend bubble of bad films.

What can movie studios do about it? Fill theaters with people predisposed to like their movies.

by Meghan Keane 20 August 2009 20:33pm 1 comment

Corporate blogs and other bad habits

"We need to be on Twitter," cries the CEO. But for how long, and what will it do to the brand long term?

The consistent cry from boards and management interested in the Internet is the always 'the latest thing'. Today, it's Twitter. But the Internet has bad habits. It keeps check of what you do. It crawls, catalogues and communicates all the past 'latest things'.

That's right. Those things. Those 'not latest' things. The things you were doing yesterday. They are still there.

See, social media isn't a campaign. It's a habit.

by Julian Grainger 20 August 2009 11:11am 8 comments