To Blog or to Tweet....Both

So when Dr. Waters told us to blog this week about Twitter, I thought...how peculiar? For me these are two opposites of the spectrum. Blogging is a journal style way of discussing a topic while Tweeting reminds me more of a billboard teaser. For someone like me that is never short on words, Twitter is a hard medium to handle.


According to Crunchbase.com Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams in March, 2006 is a social networking and microblogging service that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited to 140 characters and can be posted three ways: web form, text messages and instant message.


Now trying to get me to keep anything to 140 characters is a hillarious thought if you've seen any of my previous blogs. But I tried to think of it more in terms of integrated marketing. In traditional forms of communication you send out press releases, PSA's and billboards. I'm trying to think of tweeting as my billboard to my blog.

So I've blogged about tweeting, then I went and tweeted about blogging about tweeting. Talk about circular communication. Check out my tweet that talks about this blog at Twitter. If you'll notice I don't have quite the followers that Ashton Kutcher or Oprah has, but a girl's gotta start somewhere.

Of course, we all know that some people tweet about EVERYTHING they do. Do we really need to know what you're doing every minute of the day. Some people think so. This video hammers that idea home.



This is suppose to be our classes last official blog. I'm hoping to continue in some fashion but probably a lot less often so for now I hope you've learned as much as I have about the world of Social Media. And Happy Blogging!!!

What Will Cell Phones Be Able to Do Next!

So let me say that I'm one of those who can remember the pre-cell days. Yes, when I was first in college I put quarters into a pay phone if I wanted to dial home. Gone are those days when the operator comes on and says "Please insert more quarters". Imagine just letting your teenager leave for a date and knowing you wouldn't talk to them again until they walked back through those doors. Hard to believe isn't it? But then again, I could actually use the excuse that I had no way to call home if I was late for curfew. Well, gone are those days too. In fact, because we are all so addicted to having our cell phones with us 24/7, its hard to believe there was a time before cell phones.


Walk with me through what I remember as the evolution of cell phones. I remember back in about 1995, my husband walked through the door with a large bag in is hand, and a smile on his face. He'd purchased our very first bag cell phone. It was bigger than my overnight bag and carrying it around was something to see. Also, the charges per minute were so astronimical that I think I used to time myself each time I made a call. I searched the internet to see if I could find a picture of one, but I guess they were too old school. Two or three years later, we purchased our next cell phone (no we didn't have multiple ones, just one per household). This one I would say resembled a brick. (See picture). Was definetely more portable, but it also gave my triceps the work out of a lifetime each time I used it, which still wasn't much because of the roaming charges that applied if I left the Auburn/Opelika area. But I did think I was styling with a phone so small, which is really something to laugh at now.

Since that time, we know that cell phone costs have drastically reduced due largely to the increased use by billions of people all over the world. Since that time we've also gone from a family of four having one phone to each of us having our own phones and changing out phones many times over. The phone I now own is about 1/3 the size of that brick phone and weights about 1/5 as much as the phone did. If you had told me then that in less than 10 years I could purchase a phone which would allow me to surf the internet, check my email, take great pictures, text (unlimited), play games, oh....and call people, I'd tell you that you were crazy. But that's just what my phone does, and its not even an I-Phone, a Droid or a Blackberry.


What's even more amazing is that they can do even more than what I've named. They have already replaced many home phones, they may eventually replace home computers and laptops as well.

In the article "Living with Technology" by Marguerite Reardon who writes about the changing world of cell technology. She says that "The past decade has seen the device evolve into the Swiss Army Knife of consumer electronics. Not only can you take pictures and video with your phone, you can use it to send e-mails, chat on instant messengers, listen to music, get directions, and even watch television. The technology has come a long way since the days of brick-shaped analog phones that barely fit in a purse, let alone a pocket. Two years ago, experts predicted that there would be 3 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide by 2010. Now it looks as if we'll pass the 3 billion mark by the end of this year." She talked to industry experts who noted the several things we will see in phones in the next few years:


1. No wallet? No problem.
A new technology standard called "near-field communications," or NFC, will turn cell phones into credit or debit cards. A chip is embedded in a phone that allows you to make a payment by using a touch-sensitive interface or by bringing the phone within a few centimeters of an NFC reader. Your credit card account or bank account is charged accordingly.


2. The World Wide Web in your pocket
The promise of the mobile Internet has yet to live up to its hype. Users have had disappointing experiences with HTML Web sites that render poorly on handsets, or they've been forced to use stripped-down wireless application protocol, or WAP, sites that don't provide the same richness that they have come to expect on the wired Web. But as more phones come equipped with full HTML browsers, cell phones will truly become just another device used to access the Internet.


3. Search goes mobile
Mobile search will become a standard feature on all handsets over the next three years. Most phones will likely have search built into their main screens, with a search icon prominently featured next to the time and the icons depicting battery and signal strength. Some phones will actually have a search button on the keypad or protruding from the case. In April, Alltel Wireless announced that it would preinstall JumpTap's mobile search button on LG Electronics' LGVX8600 devices.


4. TV on the go-go
Mobile TV in all its forms is expected to explode in the next few years. IMS Research forecasts that by 2011 there will be more than 30 million mobile TV subscribers in the United States. The firm also predicts that almost 70 million handsets capable of receiving mobile TV will be shipped in the U.S. in 2011.


5. Brainier radios
Many phones today are equipped with dual radios that let subscribers roam on differently configured cellular networks throughout the world, but in the next few years handset makers will also embed Wi-Fi technology into phones, allowing customers to use the devices in any Wi-Fi network hot spot.


These are just a few of the many, many additions we will see in cell phones in the next 3 or 4 years. Which brings me back to my family and our cell phones. We gave our children cell phones when they reached 9th grade, but they had rules to live by to keep them. Our son moved out and now takes care of costs for his own cell phone. Our daughter became a slave to the phone, always with her head looking in that little box and feeling the need to immediately reply to a text. She got in trouble in the fall by not following several ground rules we had. Therefore, we decided to ground her by taking away her cell phone in November and haven't returned it to her. She says she's the only person in her school without a cell phone and that we are giving her cruel and unusual punishment. However, we now talk in the car, eat at the dinner table and carry on a conversation while I cook dinner in the evening because there is no little box for her to type into. So while I'm a fan of the cell phone, I'm also a fan of conversation. So remember, everything in moderation!! This video brings that message home.

Press Releases for the 21st Century

As a PR professional, who entered the field in the mid-1980s, I have done my share of press releases. An event comes up, send out a press release. A new product is released, send out a press release. A new CEO is hired, send out a press release. Back in the day, sending out a press release to the media was a cost-effective way for PR professionals to get their message out. But of course, that was long before the World Wide Web.

Now the media is so inundated with press releases from both non-profit and for-profit organizations every hour of the day, that the likelihood of getting your message out to the public through a traditional press release is miniscule. Furthermore, with how technology is evolved, if you're not reaching out to your media on-line then you are not up-to-date with today's on-line PR tools.

One of these tools is the Social Media Press Release. In an article on Masternewmedia the author notes that a The Social Media Press Release "is an evolved approach to preparing press releases characterized by a multimedial and facts-oriented approach. The typical social media press release integrates video clips, bookmarks, citations, blog posts, multiple links and resources allowing the news editor to pick and select individual info items that may best serve his interest, editorial style and audience."

Todd Defren with Shift Communication has gone so far as to design a very effective Social Media template that almost anyone can use. By following this particular template you can put together not only an attractive but also quite useful press release that would be beneficial to both media as well as investors and consumers alike by including elements such as photos, video links, RSS feeds. corporate blog links and more all under one tool. According to Todd Defren, “the SMPR is simply a way to both Web-ify the content that you put in a news release, and also, ideally to socialize it. So it’s about adding multimedia, making sure these things are more findable than they’ve ever been before in the age of Google, but also giving some community and context aspects to it as well. Letting people potentially comment on the news, or take and remix aspects of the news and put it on their own blog…and discuss it and find it among their own friends.” I have also included Todd's template here which illustrates the items to use.

Social Media Press Releases are certainly are more effective use of a PR professional's time. Think about it, write up a traditional press release then use your email database to email the release out to all of the media in your market. Then follow up with all of the media personnel to make sure they have received it. Then wait and see if it makes it in the news somewhere. Instead put together a social media press release, which probably takes a good bit more time than the traditional release. However, now that you have posted it on-line, you have put your message out to billions of people including bloggers, podcasters, consumers and of course the media.

Now instead of being reliant on the media, you have put the power of word of mouth back in your organization's corner.

YouTube...Life Unedited

It's hard to believe that YouTube is just five years old. Just listening to the story amazes me of how three former Paypal employees created YouTube and within a year and a half Google realized its worth and made those employees billionaires when they purchased the company for $1.65 billion.

I would explain to you what YouTube is except for the fact that I have never known of anyone that hasn't seen a YouTube video. If there is actually someone that does not know what it is then they must have been in a Rip Van Winkle type sleep for the last five years...and far be it from me to try to catch them up on the last five years of technological advances.

Actually the tag line of YouTube pretty much sums up what it does....Broadcast Yourself. Registered users can upload video for the masses to see while unregistered users and registered users alike can view the videos that have been uploaded. This is one of those technologies that even I can understand. In fact its one of those technologies that billions of people can and do understand all over the world.

I have used it to do everything from uploading previous family vacation videos to finding videos to use for class presentations. In fact its hard to imagine life pre-YouTube. I can honestly say that YouTube is one of the technologies that has not only made my life easier but makes me closer to family and friends all the time. Below are two YouTube videos that can attest to that. The first is a 2007 video from a family sailing vacation in the British Virgin Islands. I call it up every now and then just to make me smile. It's right after my son graduated from high school. My brother-in- law served as captain while my hubbie and son were both first mates. Great times!




The other video is much more recent. It is from a church youth retreat from this past February that my daughter went on. My husband asked all the youth to send him pics and he put together the video on the site for all the youth to have access to. Its hard to believe that back when I was in the youth the only way we could all have access to a video was if some strange guy followed us around with a huge video camera similar to the size of a boulder sitting on his shoulder. Then maybe two or three months later if we were lucky we'd get a videocassette to load into our VCR so we could watch it. Instead this video was downloaded the day after they got back from the trip.



I just have to ask....what will they think of next?!!!

Podcasting = Blogging with Sound

So this week's topic is a little out of my comfort zone. Dr. Youngblood informed us about the world of podcasting this past week and showed us how to host our own podcast. Much to my chagrin, we were asked to not only blog about that topic, but also include one in this week's blog.

I must admit that I wasn't too thrilled with that idea in the beginning. Keeping up with yet another site, and another way to get my message out was a little overwhelming. However, I put my big girl pants on and went in search of podcasting information. Of course, the first place I found information was none other than good old Wikipedia, which stated that podcasting is "a series of digital media files that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication. The mode of delivery differentiates podcasting from other means of accessing media files over the Internet, such as direct download, or streamed webcasting.....Files are stored locally on the user's computer or other device ready for offline use, giving simple and convenient access. to episodic content. Commonly used audio file formats are Ogg Vorbis and MP3."

So now are you as totally confused as what I was about what podcasts are from that terminology. Well, I searched further to see if I could find something that I could relate to, that would give me a reason to want to podcast, and I found it at Mashable.com.

Doriano "Paisano" Carta wrote an article noting that Bloggers now have the ability to turn their blogs into podcasts by adding text-to-speech capabilities to their site with new tools such as Odiogo, which allow readers to actually listen to blog posts on the website, and even on iTunes (as well as iPods and iPhones) as a podcast. This seemed like a great feature for me because I could kill two birds with one stone (sort of speaking). He also noted what a valuable tool this would be for the visually impaired. These tools also provide benefits to readers with learning disabilities like Dyslexia. Apparently, its quite an easy task. Below are the instructions he gave:

1. Join Odiogo.
2. Download the player button plugin that you will need depending on the blogging platform that you’re using. Odiogo will work with several popular blogging platforms such as: WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, BlogEngine.NETand Terapad.
3. Upload the directory odiogo_listen_button to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory via FTP.
4. Login to your admin account.
5. Click menu Plugins and Activate the Odiogo Listen Button plugin.
6. Click menu Setting > Odiogo Listen Button.
7. Enter your Odiogo Feed ID and click Save. (You’ll receive this feed ID in email after joining)
8. Click menu Presentation > Widgets (or Sidebar Widgets depending on your WP version).
9. Drag and drop Odiogo Subscribe Button from Available Widgets to Sidebar.
10. Click Save Changes.

He noted that within minutes, your blog posts can be heard online and on iTunes or mobile devices such as iPods and iPhones. I think that's pretty cool. In fact I thought it was so cool that I signed up and within almost no time my blog was podcast ready. In fact since the Mashable article was written, there are even less steps to the process. It takes time to sync the podcasts to the new blogs so if the podcast on this blog isn't ready yet, tune in to some of my previous blogs and listen as you read just by clicking the "Listen Now" button underneath the heading. Oh, and to be perfectly clear Odiogo call these podiocasts rather than podcasts because they are not human generated. Either way I think its a really neat tool. I'm also proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Online Forums...Consumer Platforms...PR Nightmares

Type in the two words "online forums" into your Web search engine and what you'll find is amazing. Thousands of forum sites devoted to a plethora of topics from culture to food to religion and everything in between. So what is an online forum? In basic terms it is an online discussion board on a particular topic.

Patrick O'Keefe is the founder of the forum iFroggy Network, and has been managing online forums since 2000. In his book, Managing Online Forums, he noted that "Every day, millions of users log on to their favorite online forums, communities and social spaces and interact with others to get advice and discuss everything from the latest news and trends to their hobbies and professions to whatever else strikes their fancy. Administrators have to lead these communities, deal with difficult users, manage staff members and make tough decisions. Legal constraints, spammers and technical issues can turn the excitement of running an online community into chaos. With the right guidance, however, running forums can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience."

Forums can be started by individuals, by organizations and by educational institutions as well. Sometimes individuals host forums about products or individuals that they enjoy. Mini cooper enthusiasts such as myself enjoy discussing our automobiles on line in forums. We may talk about the next ride we go on or discuss likes or dislikes about certain aspects of the vehicle.

Of course, not all forums are devoted to positive information about products or services. More often than not you will find forums about less than positive reviews by consumers. One such site is Complaints.com, in which consumers can find reviews on almost anything imagineable. There are literally thousands of sites devoted strictly to consumer complaint forums. These sites can be quite powerful for the consumer and quite daunting for companies trying to do damage control regarding these complaints.

So what's the answer for organizations about these sites? First, most researchers note is to continuously monitor the website to find what's being said about their company online. But more, importantly is to be actively involved with the consumer by hosting forum sites through the company. Some of the most engaging company-sponsored sites seem to be those that allow consumers to speak directly to company staff, such as is done through the technology savvy, Oracle Technologies. Here millions of consumers interact monthly with Oracle staff on a variety of issues.

Organizations must be mindful that online forums bring a whole new meaning to consumer feedback and this is just one online medium that encourages people to contribute to material to help drive the decision-making process.

Viral Networking - The Online Business Card

So this week's topical discussion is Social Networks. Hmmmm???? What does that mean exactly? Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word "social" as "marked by pleasant companionship with one's friends". The word "networking" is defined in the dictionary as "the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups or institutions".


I find it strange that the word social is used when describing this form of media network. When I think of social I think of groups of people in a room carrying on personal conversations and interacting as a part of the process. As a true Generation Xer, who practiced PR beginning in the late 80's, networking often meant going to those after hours functions and handing out tons of business cards and talking one-on-one to peers in the industry. When I'm behind my computer on one of my social networking sites such as Facebook, I have a hard time thinking of it as networking. Sure I'm talking with a lot of different people, but the communication seems so less personal than when I'm standing next to them in the room.


I went in search of a more up-to-date term for social networking without having to quote Wikipedia itself, and while I couldn't find a straightforward definition of social networking, I did find something pretty close from Brian Solis on WebProNews when describing social media in general. He said that "social media describes the online tools that people use to share content, profiles, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media itself, thus facilitating conversations and interaction online between groups of people......a few prominent examples of social media applications are Wikipedia (reference), MySpace and Facebook (social networking), Twitter and Jaikue (presence apps), YouTube (video sharing), SecondLife (virtual reality), Upcoming (Events), Digg and Reddit (news aggregation) Zooomr (photo sharing), Blogtv, Justin.tv, and Ustream (livecasting).


Brian went on to note that "Social Media is the democratization of content and the understanding of the role people play in the process of not only reading and disseminating information, but also how they share and create content for others to participate. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in a conversational format between authors and people."


So I guess when you put it that way, I feel pretty stupid for thinking that "social" is an inappropriate word usage for this type of media network. We are typically in a room with other people when we are carrying on a conversation in the social realm of media networking. Or should I say that we are in a huge home with several rooms of which we get to be in all at the same time speaking to as many different people as we can in any given minute. That's a whole lot easier and more effective way to get my name out there than having to hand out a bunch of business cards at another boring after hours function. Plus I get to reconnect with old friends and associates that I haven't talked to in years, even though they may be thousands of miles away.


Codella Marketing takes a comical look at social media in general, but mainly how social networking has us somewhat on overload with all of the options that companies, employees and individuals have to choose from. Hope you enjoy it.