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Jan 10

Web 2.0: Make Sure Your Marketers Sell What is Effective Instead of “the Next Big Thing”

January 10, 2008 • View Comments • Blogs, Twitter

If you work for a tech company (which if you read this, you probably do), you are probably tired of hearing about how social media is the absolute end all be all for your marketing. The truth is, this is not the case. Don’t believe me? Try reading Jakob Nielsen’s report on how Web 2.0 Can Be Dangerous. As I commented in my last post, this site really is not much to look at. Nielsen’s research is so established in the industry, he has a PR 8. Nielsen doesn’t need all the Ajax and crazy new widgets on his site to get backlinks. He doesn’t even have a forum on this site. He just has research that actually works.

So how can Web 2.0 be dangerous? It can divert resources away from what we should be doing to get out to our customers if we choose to not use them effectively. In Nielsen’s blunt but spot on language, “most business tasks are too boring to support community features. The fact that the city Sanitation Department will pick up Christmas trees sometime after December 25 isn’t likely to inspire a longing to discuss shared experiences on the department’s site.” Come on, really? Nielsen argues that most of many these communities suffer from “participation inequality“, where a few members contribute all of the time and most members contribute seldom if ever.

Does this mean we should drop everything and just go back to the old fashioned mailing list? We dropped these conventions because they are often time consuming and ineffective. What can be the solution? Pay attention to all of your customers, and then they will actually want to pay attention to you. The Web 2.0 community tools are there for us to more effectively do this, but we will end up with a lot of users in our community but very few participants if our customers think that any talking they do will just fall on deaf ears.

We can use the “Web 2.0″ community tools make us more effective. Without actually caring about our loyal customers’ concerns, they will not prove to be the magic bullet.

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Jan 03

Check Out My Favorite Sites–Again on practicalecommerce.com!

January 3, 2008 • View Comments • Blogs

michelle greer bloglist

OK, so how crazy is it when people want to know what you read? I can only assume that the good people at Practical Ecommerce 1.) needed content, which I can certainly understand and 2.) figured I am geeky enough to have an ecommerce bloglist primed and ready for their audience (which I did). Regardless, I hope their readers learn something about the social media scene and how they can use it to better reach their audience. Look out for my interview about social networking sites and ecommerce with PeComm in future posts.

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Dec 28

OMG! FREAK OUT! It’s MICHELLE’S FAVORITE SITES 2007!

December 28, 2007 • View Comments • Blogs

michellesblog favorite sites

In honor of all of the goofy women who go bonkers for a flatscreen TV on Oprah’s Favorite Things, I am compiling a list of my favorite sites for 2007. These aren’t my favorite sites per se; they are just cool ones I found this year. Please fight the urge to feel ungrateful that some random woman in the Oprah audience gets a camcorder and you, the savvy michellesblog reader, merely gets a crummy list of sites that I want you to visit. Maybe when I gross over a billion and can afford my own hairstylist, chef, makeup artist, and small African nation, I will think back to your loyalty and reward you with a camcorder of your own.

Here’s a list of cool sites you should visit:

1.) Mashable. OK, most social networking sites seem to revel in their own web 2.0-ness to the accolades of the press and bloggers alike, but mashable has one leg up on them–it’s funny. I especially enjoyed their article on Ron Paul worship this Christmas and their “Deck the Trolls” contest, which rewarded the user who left the nastiest trolliest comment on a post. I left a comment about Wikipedia’s venture to get their content printed, and alas, I did not win. Sigh.

2.) TechCrunch. From what I’ve read, Michael Arrington’s feuds with traditional media sources are heated and somewhat silly, you have to hand it to the guy. The site is pretty current. I gained personal amusement by reading Arrington’s take on TechCrunch haters in Crunchnotes, as well as the comments that ensued. Check out the feud in the comments between Andy Beard and Paul Montgomery. Seriously.

3.) Twitter. Why wouldn’t you want to tell all of your friends that you are putting your whites in the dryer or buying a latte at Cafe Medici? Many people who don’t use Twitter have no idea why someone would feel compelled to microblog. Microblogging does not translate to less important blogging–it merely translates to short and sweet blogging.

Read my post on how Twitter users are battling breast cancer. Twitter users raised over $3500 in 15 hours for breast cancer research. There is nothing micro about that.

4.) Sphinn. It’s like Digg and StumbleUpon, but for internet marketing people. When I first found it, it seemed tailor made for me. A good feeling when visiting a website.

5.) OK, this is not a website, it’s just a page. But Chris Anderson’s rant on lazy PR people is the source of legend.

6.) Inrainbows. Although you cannot buy Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” for whatever you decide it’s worth anymore, this model created quite a stir. Did you buy it when it was available? If so, you know why I thought this was really cool. If you missed out, you just get to sit and stare at a crazy digital rainbow for as long as you want.

7.) Chuck Norris Jokes. Better than a roundhouse to the face.

8.) Flickr. How great is it that I can broadcast your drunken pubcrawl and share photos with the entire world in less than an hour? Not too crazy about the admin or front end interface, so hopefully they’ll either fix it or something snazzier will come along.

9.) geekaustin. Yet another shameless plug for whurley and linearb’s party. They are fun though, so it’s worth keeping up with if you are in the Austin area. Hopefully whurley will take a few seconds away from networking with half of the known universe to update this site with one of his funny cartoons.

10.) michellesblog. But you already knew this.

Got a site you think I’d like? Send it to me. I’m always looking for great new sites.

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Dec 21

Solidarity in Peas: Celebrate Frozen Pea Friday

December 21, 2007 • View Comments • Blogs, Social Media for Social Good

avatarpeas.jpg

I read a Duncan Riley article in Techcrunch that well regarded blogger Susan Reynolds is undergoing surgery today for breast cancer. Although I am not familiar with Susan or her blog, I remember what it was like to go through my own sister’s cancer experience and I wish her and her family the best during this hard time. Our peas are with you!

Why peas? Read an exerpt from Reynolds’s blog, Boobs on Ice:

When I discovered a very thick area in my breast I called the doctor. The next day I was in her office. A half hour after that I was in the diagnostic radiologist’s.

A full afternoon and multiple stab wounds later we had a variety of samples of malignant tentacles of tissue that were on their way to the lab.

I was in a little pain – it would increase as the local anesthetic wore off – but left his office with a soft cold pack in my bra.

To keep bleeding down & relieve pain I’d need to keep things cool. Traditional ice packs are hard and heavy. As much as I try to be a good sport I’m not into having a brick sitting on my chest.

Enter a bag of frozen peas.

I tucked it in my bra, took a picture, and was ready to tell the story later that night. That bag of peas added a touch of lightness to what could have been a sad and serious tale.

* A bag of peas was something everybody could relate to.
* Some people love them, some hate them, some use them for their own injuries.
* A bag of frozen peas was a vehicle for conversation and let people tease me instead of having to cry.
* It let people share instead of bemoaning.

I napped a lot during the first few days after the biopsy. The news was sudden and stunning after all and my body was being assaulted.

Mmmm peas for lunch?

When I fell asleep with peas in my cleavage I’d wake to the smell of freshly cooked peas. That made the story funnier, and more human. Of course I shared it because what is life but a series of stories.

After enough cooked peas I moved on to baggies with ice cubes or larger gel-packs which truth be told still are too big and too heavy to be comfy but help with pain.

The peas however live on in the form of stories from others about their use of pea-packs and the line-up of twitter avatars sporting peas in support of my struggle.

This makes them a comfort in more than one way

You can follow Susan through her Twitter account. Give your support by adding peas to your Twitter avatar, and don’t forget to donate to the Frozen Pea Fund!

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Nov 30

Tiptoeing into the Blogosphere

November 30, 2007 • View Comments • Blogs

OK, so for my first post, I actually wrote this sweet psuedo-interactive commentary on the social web which involved a window with a video of me talking to a window with a video of my friend John, a chat window featuring an overzealous Viagra pusher, and a Skype option. Considering I spent several hours attempting to install a festive WordPress template that ended up being broken to begin with, I think i’ll just stick with writing for now.

I will first start my blog by offering a few shameless plugs.

debutaunt.com: This is my sister’s blog. She is recovering from a stem cell transplant. If you are interested in learning about cancer recovery or just want a good laugh, check it out.

sports.aol.com/fanhouse/nfl/houston-texans: This is another blog by one of my sisters. If you are a Houston Texans fan, then 1.) I will know you are not from Austin, because no one here respects the Texans for picking Mario Williams over Vince Young and 2.) you will enjoy this blog.

barackobama.com: Hopefully you know who this is. Apparently, Obama is so incredible that a 26-year-old Google ad executive who met him dared to call him “Google-Like.” Hopefully we can all get a piece of him before he closes at $701 a share. Check out his campaign events or log into Obama forums by registering at my.barackobama.com. At this site, you can participate in or plan campaign events in your area. If you are in the Austin area, you can register for a debate watching party at Scholz Garten on December 10th at 6:00 pm.

geekaustin.com: What is “the Social Web”? You can peruse through Wikipedia’s lovely entry on the topic and/or you can attend one of the events on this site. Currently, whurley and linearb are hosting a party at Joe Dimaggio’s in the Domain. I opt for the drinking martinis at a swanky restaurant option, but that’s just me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C64GpWNHkg
This clip is just really really funny.

Please take a look at the hundreds of WordPress templates available, and if you see one you think would look cool, send me the link. I will be sure to give you props in my next post if I use it.

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