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August 09, 2010 by Christina
Patience is not one of my virtues. Yet, I waited a looooong time before finally breaking down and switching from Verizon to AT&T to nab an iPhone. I was really happy with Verizon’s service and was hesitant to switch to AT&T just for a phone because I remembered the horrendous reception and service I had when I used Cingular for a short stint about 10 years ago.
But, I really, really wanted an iPhone and I got tired of the Verizon teases that the phone was coming over to its network. First it was supposed to be June then September and right around when I switched, I heard January 2011. In addtion to being tired of waiting, I had heard negative things about Verizon phones that were supposed to be comparable to the iPhone, so I wasn’t willing to settle for iPhone sloppy seconds.
So, when I called an AT&T store the day after the iPhone hit retail stores and was told they’d hold a phone for me, I went for it. I’ve had the phone for just shy of six weeks, and I AM IN LOVE. However, AT&T’s reception has been enormously disappointing. I’ve dropped countless calls…in my house, with my mom-in-law, with my hubs, with clients, on conference calls. It’s embarrassing.
Here’s what’s interesting.
a) I’m using Facebook, Twitter, foursquare way more frequently than I ever used to because of the easy accessibility from my phone.
b) I’m texting more because of the embarrassing nature of dropping calls.
c) I’m using my home phone more to make local calls for the same reason as above (we also have AT&T for our home service.
d) I’m definitely switching back to Verizon when my contract’s up and they get the iPhone, but I’m not overly furious about the terrible reception because I love the actual phone so much.
e) My husband, who switched with me, has a crappy flip phone (which he requested) and none of the social media or music benefits of the iPhone, so he officially wants to kill me for making him use a crappy service for two years.
f) Yes, I’ve had a case on my phone since I bought it so it’s not an antenna issue.
I guess you can say the iPhone is making me more social, yet less talkative (particularly when I drop a call with my husband…yikes).
July 22, 2010 by Christina
Yesterday during a D&E staff meeting, our digicom team led an exercise to help our firm think about the intersection of b2b with social media and crisis communications. We discussed as a group how BP might use social media channels to help it restore trust with its suppliers. Many of the ideas shared revolved around an issues management response crafted using a hybrid of traditional and digital channels. And, of course, we all agreed that priority #1 needs to be to stop the flow of oil. Before that happens, it will be impossible to restore trust.
Then this morning, I came across this article about how social media is shaping crisis PR. The article argues that crisis PR will be dead without the adoption of social media communications. While I agree that real-time news requires a strategic response in real-time, which often means that social media channels are the best fit, they can’t be the only communication channels used. For example, if no one knows your Facebook page/Twitter feed/fill-in-the-blank-here exists, it’s not going to get much traction, so social media communications still need to be aligned with traditional PR.
In the grander scheme of things, let’s hope the spill is contained for good.
June 02, 2010 by Christina
Need help navigating your next step forward when it comes to social media? We hope our Social Media GPS tool can help.
We designed it to help companies identify a comfortable social media approach that will lead them to their ultimate destination, growing their business. For example, we’ve found that most organizations utilizing social media tools fall into three categories of usage – assessment, engagement or influence. (Read more on those categories here.) At the completion of the survey (11 questions), participants learn more about the category they fall into based on the questions they answered and receive some suggestions of next steps and how to measure impact. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
May 20, 2010 by Christina
Given this week’s hubbub around Facebook privacy concerns, I thought it would be helpful to share some step-by-step tips on how to aggressively manage your privacy settings. As back story, there has been a flurry of protesting around Facebook Open Graph, which allows users to “like” items on other Web sites without logging into Facebook. Why is the concern? Some Facebook users don’t like how the site is spreading its tentacles throughout the Web and in return, is eliminating some privacy barriers for its users.
On a related note, I received a teleconference invite for how to use social media in collections. Seriously. This description made me immediately revisit my privacy settings:
“You will learn how you can use social media websites and new technology to maintain a good customer base, keep good paying customers on track, and find and collect from past due customers. Learn how these popular websites can improve your collections, what some of the most common mistakes are when using these websites and how you can avoid them.”
So without further adieu, click here for the best walk-through I’ve seen on how to manage your privacy settings. The setting suggestions given in the example are for extremely conservative privacy settings, so you might consider still opting in to have your friends post on your wall and to have your profile appear in search engine searches.
April 30, 2010 by Christina
These days, Arizona knows what it’s like to be the unpopular kid at school. Thanks to the ease of organizing protests against its new immigration law on social networks, the state is taking a beating on the hallways of Facebook in particular. The calls for boycotts can significantly impact the state’s tourism livelihood. Read here about how its tourism arm is fighting back.
April 23, 2010 by Christina
Last week, I took a delightful babymoon with my husband to Key West. When researching hotels for any trip, I heavily rely on Trip Advisor for insight and advice. We chose our hotel based on not only the reviews on Trip Advisor, which gave high ratings, but also because hotel management actively commented on positive and negative posts by users, which demonstrated to me that they took customer service seriously.
Fortunately, those in the hospitality field are recognizing how monitoring and responding to comments on social networks can drive sales and improve perception of customer service. USA Today published this article last month about hotel operators are monitoring online critiques to improve customer service, and in some cases, actually change business practices based on feedback. It’s a smart choice that yields ROI.
April 01, 2010 by Christina
It’s taken me five and a half months to feel comfortable enough to go public on the interwebs about being pregnant. During that time, I’ve learned A LOT about social media privacy settings (especially for Facebook) since I wanted to control when and how family, friends, coworkers and clients heard my news.
1. Facebook’s privacy settings still have a long way to go
It’s really agitating that you can’t customize who can post on your wall…it’s either everyone or no one. To protect my wall from rogue pregnancy comments from my family, I blocked some of them from seeing my wall. However, I quickly realized that they could still comment on my status updates. Be forewarned that loophole exists.
2. It takes a little magic out of saying, “I’m pregnant!” when you have to add, “But, DON’T post anything on Facebook because I haven’t told fam/work/friend!” But, the caveat is completely necessary. Admittedly, I went a bit overboard with reminding people of my request. (If I hadn’t, I bet my social blabber friends would have gone turbo with comments before I was able to tell clients.) However, I haven’t had to remove a single post or tweet since everyone respected my wishes to hold out for a while. (Thanks!)
3. I still think social networks are great channels for sharing news
Earlier today, I posted on my personal blog about my new status, and it’s been fun exchanging comments with friends I haven’t seen in a while about this new phase in my life. While it’s always best to share big news in person, I look forward to staying in touch via Facebook, Twitter and my blogs.
March 17, 2010 by Christina
For some reason, I keep repeating words in threes today…maybe since I’m stunned we’re already in the third month of 2010? Who knows. 
But, back to my headline, social media more and more is trending toward mobile applications. Smart phones/mobile technology is becoming the key platform for social media engagement and usage, which means that optimizing Web sites for mobile use is a must. In addition, apps are now emerging as Web site alternatives and stand-alone marketing tools.
So, I guess I need to start blogging via Posterous, huh?
February 17, 2010 by Christina
Hey Gmail users: are you using Google Buzz? I’ve been ignoring the pop-up box that shows up when I log in, but this Mashable column is motivating me to take another look.
So what’s the big deal? Social media prophets are predicting that Google Buzz, which went live to most Gmail users on Feb. 10, will lure marketing dollars from Facebook and Twitter because its user base is more than 38 million (as of September 2009). And, Google reported that Buzz is generating about 160,000 posts and comments per hour.
Personally, I’m not yet convinced that I “need” another social network. Will you be joining the bandwagon?
February 04, 2010 by Christina
A few weeks ago, The Plain Dealer’s director of digital development, John Kroll, invited me and other NEO bloggers to attend a meet up at the PD to discuss how we can formulate a symbiotic relationship. In John’s words, “to talk about how we can help each other: That includes how we can drive more traffic to your blogs, and how aggregating your blogs can make cleveland.com an even better window on our community.”
I thought it was a great idea and was happy to participate (and munch on cupcakes with fellow bloggers and one of my former co-workers). We talked about how to integrate blog content with current Cleveland.com content from the PD…for example, referencing blog posts about a similar topic covered in a news article somewhere in the story. True convergence at work!
If you’d like to register your blog with Cleveland.com, here’s the link. Register your Twitter feed here.
What ideas do you have for how the PD/Cleveland.com and NEO bloggers can work together?
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