Posts Tagged ‘brands’

Posted on November 23, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Video: Real talk about influence, creativity and what it means to be an influencer

Hat tip to Dave McClure who ironically I’m influenced by for posting the short documentary video called INFLUENCERS on his blog.

The INFLUENCERS video is 13:56 long but it’s worth viewing. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.

INFLUENCERS is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.

The film attempts to understand the essence of influence, what makes a person influential without taking a statistical or metric approach.

Written and Directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, the film is a Polaroid snapshot of New York influential creatives (advertising, design, fashion and entertainment) who are shaping today’s pop culture.

“Influencers” belongs to the new generation of short films, webdocs, which combine the documentary style and the online experience.
influencersfilm.com
facebook.com/​influencersfilm

I’m almost at the point to where I hate the words “influence” or “influencer” but after watching this video, I’m cool with it again just as long as we don’t see anymore find the “influencers” projects in the near future.

A few takeaways I got from the video was:

• If you’re a startup or have a product you have to decide if you want to stay small and cool or go big and be liked by a lot of people
• Looking at trends how brands embrace cultures
• The concept of how brands are trying to reaching “influencers” online is out of control
• Become a mentor

What are some of your takeaways from the video?

Posted on November 10, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

3 1/2 Ways for Brands to Reclaim their Twitter Name from Squatters

It hurts my eyes to see provocative profile pictures of half-naked women and other racy avatars in my twitter stream from squatters who have hijacked brand names. I may not be following these accounts but when I do keyword searches or just looking for brands on Twitter, only to find out that they have yet to claim their brand name is sad. It’s even sadder if they have attempted to get access to their brand name twitter account and were unsuccessful. But with the growth of Twitter and dealing with all of the spam, please be patient with the Twitter team.

Photo via AdAage.com

Yesterday’s Advertising Age article called GM, Kellogg, Nestle Beat to the Tweet as Squatters Take Over Twitter Names is a troubling sign for Twitter and brands but it should be nothing new to brands, just something they haven’t done in a while. Remember the .com squatting back in 1997 and more recently Facebook username / fanpage squatting a few months ago. Regardless I’ve had a few success stories helping brands getting access to squatted Twitter accounts and getting a few spammed “brandjacking” twitter accounts closed. How you ask? Well I will say their is no exact proven method that will work 100% but I will share what has worked for me.

1. Email terms@twitter.com to let them know that you own the trademark to your brand. A screenshot or pdf attachment with proof is advise to let them know you want your Twitter brand name.

2. Send a tweet from a representative of your company or another company created twitter account to the proper twitter employee that handles Twitter name squatting. I’m not going to give you their names but you can find and follow the entire Twitter team here: http://twitter.com/twitter/team and /or here: http://listorious.com/twitter/team. Please don’t spam them. Note that @biz and @ev are the cofounders and are very busy.

3. Login and fill out the “Submit a request page here to Twitter’s support team: http://help.twitter.com/requests/new

1/2. Use a service like DandyID’s Claim my name that will secure your name on social networks and prevent brandjacking. http://www.dandyid.org/beta/claimmyname

To those of you who are squatting twitter names, shame on you. To those of you who are trying to get access to your Twitter brand name, good luck. Oh, by the way @Krispy_Kreme if you want access to the @HotNow Twitter account, just let me know.

Update: Also read  DON’T FALL VICTIM TO B2B TWITTER SQUATTING by Jeff Cohen aka @dgtlpapercuts

If you need additional help I can be reached at wayne at ourhashtag dot com

Posted on November 9, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

You Lie! Numbers do matter: How brands look for influencers on the social web

A few years ago showing your RSS subscribers numbers was a big deal for validating your blog success and/or readership. Fast forward to 2009 you’ll see banner ads not saying how to get more blog readers but how to get more Twitter followers. I know you have heard the saying, “It’s not about the numbers“, I have said it before and I’m sure you have heard plenty of “social media speakers” say it before too. But when I talk to businesses and they ask me, how many followers I have and ask how can they reach my audience and gain the same amount of followers and more, it’s tough to say, it’s not about the numbers. Even with Twitter’s new list feature people are already trying to create a social algorithm measuring the amount of followers you have to how many Twitter list you are in and the name of those list compared to your tweet content for validation. Sounds crazy right….

To my point when I say it’s not about numbers, I do mean it. My usual response is it’s about the relationships you have with your connections no matter which social network. It could be a Linkedin or Facebook Fan pages, you could have thousands of connections or fans but without any true relationship with your community, the numbers are just that, numbers.

But what about brands who are now looking to Twitter, Facebook, blogs and “influencers” to create “viral” content to market their product or service? How do brands select who they should reach out to? What are brands going to look at to see if you have an audiences or not? You guessed it, they’re going to look at your Twitter followers, now list count, RSS subscribers and any public analytics number they can find online. So, to completely say it’s not about the numbers? You lie.

Here are 11ways brands look for influencers on the social web

1. Compete.com

2. Technorati blog rankings – http://technorati.com

3. Tweet Grader:

4. AdAge Power 150 Rankings

5. Blog Postrank via http://www.postrank.com

6. Twitalyzer Twitter influence rankings

7. Your Twitter list count
8. RSS Subscribers via Feedburner – http://feedburner.google.com
9. Alexa rankings – http://www.alexa.com
10.  Linkedin Connections

11. Facebook fans

12. BackType comment engagement numbers

Still this isn’t a green light to gain as many fans, friends, connections or followers as possible but evaluate your goals for establishing true meaningful relationships on the social web.

Posted on July 17, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Friday Fix: 5 social media post that cover brands, campaigns & policies for weekend reading

Yes another Social Media post, so I’ll keep this one short. If you’re a beginner or a proven veteran it doesn’t hurt to review some winning and failed social media marketing stories from others. It also helps to review some old lessons and evaluate how you or your company is using social media now. Below are five social media post that should provide you with some useful tips on social media.

1. 10 things you should cover in your social networking policy

2. 7 Reasons Your Social Media Marketing Failed (and how to fix it!)

3. 10 Social Media Campaigns that Failed! Avoid their mistakes!

4. 10 Reasons to Use Social Media

5. 7 Ways to Use Social Media to Build Stunning Brands

Have a great weekend

Posted on November 21, 2008 - by Wayne Sutton

Presentation: Twitter used as a PR Tool via Social Media PR Class & SlideShare.net

Everyone is talking, blogging, tweeting about Twitter now and most of the conversation is basic 101 information without any real examples. Take a look at this presentation from the Social Media PR Class called Twitter used as a PR Tool for a great overview of twitter along with some examples of companies using twitter and how twitter was used in the election.

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