Getting Caught Up

I just got back from a week vacation. I was almost completely away from the internet the entire week - no email, RSS, blogs, Twitter, or Facebook. Aside from about 1 hour during the week in which I checked my personal email, everything else was on hold and I knew it was growing. When I came into the office this morning, I had several hundred emails, over 1500 RSS feeds, and a whole week of Twitter messages to untangle.

A few observations:

• I ended up just deleting or marking lots of emails and articles right away in order to bail the water out of the boat quicker. While most days this tends to take place on a smaller and slightly slower scale, I found my "scanning eyes" were moving quite quickly. Lesson learned: Maybe there are lots of things that I don't really need to read even during a normal week.
  
• After visiting a few sites, I was able to establish a picture of some of the things I had missed. I watched TweetWeek to get a recap of some of Twitter happenings. I scanned PopURLs to look for top stories that I may have missed. Lesson learned: Sites that compile and recap can be just as helpful as reading it all yourself, but takes a lot less time.
  
• Although I tried to eliminate the clutter and ignore the "echo chamber" effect of social media buzz, there was still a good amount to read. Lesson learned: There is no way around the fact that you must be "in" social media to understand what is going on.
• After getting somewhat caught up, an interesting thought popped into my mind: Did I really miss anything? Through reading recaps, eliminating the waste, and ignoring the echo chamber, I was able to effectively catch up in a fraction of the time I normally would have. It seems like there is not only a lot of repeating going on in social media, but there may also be a lot of things that can waste your time. Possible lesson learned: Maybe a week away isn't as detrimental as I thought it could be.

A few questions for you -
Where do you go to get caught up when you get behind on news, social media happenings, etc?
Could you be away from Twitter/Facebook/etc for a week and not implode?
If you were away one week, what would you really miss that couldn't be remedied with a little catch up?

Was Killeen in it to Spin It?

Poor, poor renowned PR practitioner Joann Killeen. Boy, has America gotten so mean over the years! Or so she said in this recent Larry King Live interview, but we all know she was in it to spin it.

It was Killeen's dream that Ms. Suleman would have had that star-studded "Eight Isn't Enough" TLC show (thanks, Corey, for your suggestion :). The octuplet lady would be such a money-maker by selling her 14 kids' souls to publicity hounds. Due to Suleman's insidious way of having these kids, you might as well call her up for the next casting call of "Bachelorette." She is looking for a husband, after all.

But what really gripes me about this whole ordeal is the fact that Killeen went on the air proclaiming herself a victim more than a culprit. What would possess her to sign on as Suleman's publicist-- if not for the love of generating lots and lots of percentage share? Sorry, Ms. Killeen. I don't buy your quip. And to your Coolidge adage on your Web site's front page quote roll (though I might add some other sayings have strong merit) Nothing I never said did me any harm... Well, apparently, it did.

To the spin doctors out there who cut corners and tell half-truths, shame on you. The web 2.0 world is making your ills more apparent every day. Hmmm... are death threats deserved?

Are Webinars Worth It?

I share the sentiments of my fellow tweeps like @patrickrevans and @terrijellman in saying that webinars are truly behind in terms of helpful content, and are therefore not even worth a “free” tout.

While I certainly do appreciate an organization’s desire to share an "expert" panel’s wealth of knowledge, most oftentimes, it’s stuff I already know. I already know about Twitter and how businesses can use it (how many Webinars are going to cover this?!) The culprits of over-examined social media content tend to be media software corporations – evidenced by topics such as ‘building your brand on Twitter’, or ‘how agencies can tap Twitter’s potential’. If you’re trying to get me to sign on for another year with your wealth of knowledge about Twitter, that’s not the way to do it.

Another pet peeve of mine in attending corporate webinars is the types of people on the call. Who hasn’t heard the one person on the line asking questions that don’t deserve speakers' response, such as “so how do I create a Twitter account?” when clearly the webinar is far beyond that. This person continues to hog the attention of the speaker, and pretty soon it’s time to wrap up. What this person should be doing is undergoing extensive self-operation on these different social media platforms. Because after all, that’s the only way any of us are going to learn anything.

Brian Solis-- Thank you for giving myself and the many others out there in Twitterspace something to chew on and digest appropriately. To the others: please refrain from sending salty, cured ham.

Update: I'm thinking of attending this webinar to see if redemption is possible. What do you think about webinars?

Social Media Education in a Business

Educating a company about social media can be very hard. One way I am working on educating at Axiom Marketing is by compiling a "Social Media Reading List." I am able to read hundreds of blog posts a week (and not everyone at Axiom has this kind of time), so I filter through these articles in order to create a weekly list of reading about social media, marketing, and the evolving world of digital pr that would be beneficial and relevant. Once the list is sent out, I make an effort discuss the material and dialogue about the topics.

In conjunction with my Reading Lists, I am also working on teaching my coworkers at Axiom how to reach out to bloggers and not sound like a flack. Walking them through a step by step process, I outlined how to find blogs to read, how and when to make comments, ways to give instead of just take, and other various do's and dont's for blogger relations. Learning proper blogger etiquette will be important for the future success of marketing companies.

The online world is going to continue changing things, so not only do you need to prepare, but your company must as well. How have you been educating your coworkers and business partners on social media? What has worked? What hasn't?

Marketing with Chaos

This week, we have seen a few big discussions on the validity of a product or message due to their apparently chaotic image being portrayed (Pepsi logo redesign, Jaoquin Phoenix on Letterman).

These things may be real or they may be fake, but I think that maybe marketers are using confusion to create buzz.

While a clear, solid message is often the best approach, disorder, brand inconsistency, and chaos often get just as much attention, whether it is on purpose or not.