Social Media 101

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

IPhone App Uses Boston Marathon to Build Buzz

BOSTON: Jason Jacobs ran the Boston Marathon on April 20 dressed as an iPhone that was brandishing his company'sRunKeeper application for the smartphone. The campaign for FitnessKeeper's iPhone app was spearheaded by a team of students from a social media marketing class at Emerson College, who had three and half weeks to launch the campaign.

"To run as an iPhone with our application [RunKeeper] on the screen not only would get a lot of attention, but also reflects very well on what our company does," said Jacobs, the CEO and founder of FitnessKeeper.

The team also filmed the preparations for the race and the costume, posting videos on YouTube and its Web site. The brand is also active on Facebook. Throughout the Marathon, which Jacobs ran in 3:55:07, he Twittered and took photos with his iPhone.

"We got some pretty high-profile press leading up to the race," he said, "and we have this established fan base already, [so] it's been very out there on the social web."

The application works exclusively with the iPhone at this stage, but Jacobs said there are plans to expand it to other smartphones.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

NASA Astronaut Trains and Tweets for Journey

Hubble repair expert uses mobile device to update his Twitter messages

Space.com

updated 8:22 p.m. CT, Mon., April 6, 2009

Call him @Astro_Mike. That's the latest digital moniker of NASA astronaut Michael Massimino, who has invited the world to tag along via the Twitter micro-blogging Web site as he trains for a May space shuttle mission to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope.

Massimino, a veteran spacewalker and Hubble repairman, is set to make his second trip to the iconic orbital observatory when he and six other astronauts launch toward Hubble on May 12 aboard NASA's space shuttle Atlantis. The risky 11-day mission will include five spacewalks and expected to extend Hubble's lifetime through at least 2014.

Twitter allows users to post 140-character notes about their current thoughts and actions and to track the posts of others who do the same. NASA has been using the social networking site to reach out to a Web-savvy public and promote various space science and mission efforts.

According to Massimino's latest "tweet," he is currently embroiled "in a simulator practicing for the first spacewalk on my mission."

"He just started on Friday," NASA spokesperson James Hartsfield told SPACE.com from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "He has always been looking for good ways of connecting with the public and telling the stories of what they're doing."

Massimino is a veteran of two spacewalks, both of which he performed during his first flight to Hubble during a 2002 service call. He will perform two of the five planned spacewalks during the upcoming STS-125 shuttle flight to add new instruments, replace batteries and gyroscopes, attach a docking ring for future robotic vehicles and make unprecedented repairs to systems that were never designed to be fixed in space.

The mission is riskier than recent NASA shuttle missions because it is not bound for the International Space Station, where astronauts can take refuge if their orbiter suffers critical damage. Because Hubble flies in a higher orbit and different inclination than the station, Atlantis will not be able to reach the orbiting laboratory to ferry its crew to a safe haven. Instead, NASA will have a second space shuttle on a Florida launch pad ready to launch a rescue mission, if required.

Massimino is using a mobile device to update his Twitter messages and is currently the only NASA astronaut to use the online tool for official space agency business, Hartsfield said. The space agency has a general, agency-wide NASA Twitter account and uses the tool to spread updates for many ongoing missions and other probes that have not yet launched into space.

"Social media is a large and growing sector of communications," Hartsfield said. "So this is a very neat thing and it offers Mike a chance to connect with the public."

Hartsfield cautioned Massimino's Twitter followers to be patient, especially as his mission's launch date draws near.

"Of course, training keeps him very busy," Hartsfield said. "So we'll see how much he can update."

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30078050/

MSN Privacy . Legal

When To Use and When Not To Use Social Media

When to Use and When Not to Use Social Media

By Chris Crum - Tue, 04/14/2009 - 09:25

And A Bunch of Resources to Help You Determine

As a report from Michael Stelzner recently made abundantly clear, although the majority of marketers are using social media, most still have many questions about how to use it.

One of the biggest questions marketers and business owners have about social media use is, "How do I measure its effectiveness?" AdAge looks at a pretty interesting study that shows ROI may be measurable.

Perhaps an even bigger question though is, "Should my business be using social media at all?"

As I (and many others, no doubt) have said before, there are always going to be variables to consider before you can really answer that question. While social media has a ton of potential to benefit businesses, there are cases where some business might want to avoid it. BtoB Online gives someexamples (which are elaborated on this article):

1. You're in a high-ticket business
2. You fight with your employees
3. Management skepticism
4. Strategic vacuum
5. Privacy and regulatory concerns

An article from Liana Evans at Search Engine Watch points to a study from Gartner indicating that by next year, 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will be involved with some form of online community that's used for customer relationships. According to the study, half of them will fail.

"If half of these Fortune 1000 companies -- with all of their resources -- will fail, does that give any hope to the smaller businesses who venture into the social media realm?" asks Evans. "To be fair, smaller companies tend to have some advantages, such as being able to act faster in their social media efforts due to the fact of less "red tape" to deal with. However, in this area of online marketing, what it basically comes down to for any size company is understanding what is really involved in launching a social media strategy." She goes on to discuss the following tips:

1. Identify your audience
2. Define your success measurements
3. Plan a Strategy that Includes All Stakeholders
4. Be transparent
5. Recognize that it's not about you

On the other side of the spectrum a Netpointers article talks about some things not to do:

1. Don't try to invent your own version of something that already exists.

2. Don’t try to take advantage of every possible social media site out there.

3. Don’t try to sell your product on social media sites.

4. Don’t use social media if you want clear editorial control over your brand and message.

5. Don’t use social media solely as a link strategy.

6. Don’t engage in social media if your company is perceived as an unfriendly, arrogant, cynical, and uncaring company and you prefer to keep it that way.

Business owners and managers ultimately need to evaluate their goals, and project the effects of their social media strategies. Social media itself is not a strategy. It's a channel. I don't remember who originally said that, but it's a good way to look at it. You might find success from social media in a completely different way than another equally successful business does.

I certainly don't have all of the answers. Nobody does. In fact, you probably have more answers for yourself than anybody else. You know your business and your customer base better than anyone. That said, I have compiled a list of WPN resource articles that may get you thinking about ways you can apply your business to the channel that is social media.