6 Challenges to Managing a Brand on the Social Web

This series is supported by IGLOO, a leader in helping organizations improve business processes, increase employee productivity and enhance stakeholder engagement inside and outside the organization using social technologies.
As more companies and PR firms attempt to manage their brands using social media, there are just as many opportunities for greatness as there are pitfalls.
To broaden our collective understanding of these challenges, we consulted six social media pros with extensive experience in PR, branding and marketing. Each one has gained respect in their respective spheres of work; and each one of them told us about a unique challenge and how to address it.
From being transparent to being profitable, from the tools you use today to the ones you’ll need tomorrow, here are six specific challenges to managing your brand on the social web. If you’ve got your own insights to share, please let us know about them in the comments.

HOW TO: Better Serve the Social Media Customer

Maria Ogneva is the Director of Social Media at Attensity, a social media engagement and voice-of-customer platform that helps the social enterprise serve and collaborate with the social customer. You can follow her on Twitter at @themaria or @attensity360, or find her musings on her personal blog and her company’s blog.
When it comes to social media for business, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. But to ensure results, you must align it with your overall business objectives and avoid falling for “shiny new objects” simply because they are trendy or hyped.
For example, a new business or “first mover” may want to focus on establishing thought leadership, while a more mature business should aim for customer support. In all cases, creating a product that actually solves problems for customers, present and future, should be every business’s top priority — and you should be using social media to help you figure out what that product is.
Below, we’ll take a closer look at how each department can blend traditional and social media to drive business goals and collaborate on a seamless customer experience.

How To Write Better Tweets

How To Write Better Tweets

 

As silly as it sounds, there’s an art to Twitter. Combining a call to action with useful information all inside 140 characters is something that takes practice. The same way journalists had to learn to use the new medium of blogging, tweeting is a new skill that must be mastered. It’s more personal, it’s more succinct and it’s real-time. But just because the information passes more quickly and in fewer characters doesn’t mean it’s less important. In fact, incorrectly tweeting can be a recipe for total brand disaster and each word counts.

Videogame Consoles Emerge as Pay-TV Threat

By NAT WORDEN

Sony Corp. has agreed to offer on-demand access to HBO programming through its PlayStation 3, the latest example of a videogame console maker aiming for a bigger role in the digital living room.

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HBO

PS3 owners will be able to watch HBO programs such as 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' above, on their consoles.

ASCAP Declares War on Free Culture

The free culture movement is abuzz today over news that ASCAP has requested their members to fight organizations like Creative Commons, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation over what it claims as an effort to undermine copyright.

ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), according to ASCAP member Mike Rugnetta, has sent a letter out asking its members to send donations that would go to fighting organizations like Creative Commons, the EFF, Public Knowledge and other supporters of the free culture movement. He posted the letter to prove it (Part 1, part 2).

The Plato Code: Secret Symbols Discovered in Plato’s Books

A researcher at the University of Manchester has discovered a pattern of symbols embedded in ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s writings which give them a musical structure. According to Dr. Jay Kennedy, a researcher at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine who has been studying Plato’s work for five years, this code reveals his “hidden philosophy.”
“The result was amazing,” he said, “It was like opening a tomb and finding new set of gospels written by Jesus Christ himself.”
Another Dan Brown book in the making? Perhaps, but more importantly, what implications do these findings have for our conception of Western history, and the age old conflict between science and religion?
Reportedly, this so-called Plato Code suggests that the philosopher anticipated the Scientific Revolution 2,000 years before Isaac Newton, in that he posited the awe-inspiring force of nature was mathematically dictated. Thus according to Plato, to understand the scientific basis of nature was to move closer to God.

Facebook Server Count: 60,000 or More

June 28th, 2010 : Rich Miller

It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes a PowerPoint slide can tell the story of thousands of servers.

That was the case with a presentation from Facebook’s Tom Cook at last week’s  Velocity 2010 conference, which depicted the growth of the company’s server footprint. Designed to illustrate Facebook’s insatiable need for more servers to support its 400 million users, the chart didn’t include any numbers, seeking not to reveal the actual server count.

Best Blogs of 2010

From the savvy to the satirical, the eye-opening to the jaw-dropping, TIME makes its annual picks of the blogs we can't live without

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Best Blogs

• Zenhabits
• PostSecret
• Climate Progress
• HiLobrow

100 things you didn’t know about Apple and Steve Jobs

100 things you didn’t know about Apple and Steve Jobs

If you’re into interesting facts, few companies have as secretive, cool and intriguing histories as Apple and its leader, Steve Jobs. Anything missing? Leave a comment.

1. Apple didn’t have two founders. It had three. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.
2. Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive share the same middle name: “Paul.”
3. Before working at Apple, Jonathan Ive worked for a company called Tangerine.
4. The original Apple 1 computer sold for $666.66.
5. The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan (the cube) is said to be one of the most photographed landmarks in the world.
6. Nine U.S. states don’t have Apple stores: Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.
7. Before co-founding Apple, Steve Jobs worked for Atari.
8. Jonathan Ive has worn the same shirt in every Apple product intro video since 2000.
9. Steve Jobs is a Buddhist.

Touting Redesign, MSNBC Declares Pageviews ‘Dead’

The big idea behind just about every website redesign these days generally revolves around “less is more” minimalism. But it looks like MSNBC.com’s redo actually means it: the new site, which just went fully live, promises to do an end with clicking on stories and on ads. By introducing a single-page-only format, the company hopes to sell large, customizable ads to marketers as it tries to build a larger audience.
It is also promising to swear off reduce the use “standalone” slideshows, something that has become a staple of many news sites to drive pageview counts as a way of measuring audience usage and engagement to advertisers—instead relying mostly on slideshows that are “integrated,” though the difference was a bit unclear (update: Commenter Jason Lotito correctly points out that integrated slideshows “are part of the page, and don’t require you clicking to the next page.”). As a rep for the cable net told us,“Msnbc.com is in the business of selling advertiser experiences, not ad units.”

The Real Genius Of The Kindle? The Return Of ‘Unitasking’

Thomas E. Weber is the Editor of SmartMoney.com and a veteran business and technology journalist. A former Wall Street Journal senior editor and bureau chief, he created the paper’s first column devoted to the Internet. Those with short attention spans can follow him on Twitter @tweber, or email tweber@smartmoney.com .
When’s the last time you did only one thing at a time?
If you’re reading this—particularly if you’re in the news or content business—there’s a good chance you’ll have trouble answering that question. Technology has long been on a relentless march to “help” us do more things at once. Content is no exception. From TV news screens packed with crawls and overlays to online news, where that newspaper web site is apt to be one of umpteen browser tabs open at once, we’re all juggling ever-more threads of information simultaneously.
But one new technology is taking consumers in the opposite direction, and I’ve found it has unexpectedly helped me reclaim control of my attention span. It’s the Kindle. Unlike most digital devices, Amazon.com’s e-reader makes it difficult to multitask.

Much has been made already of the Kindle’s significance for publishers. By creating a payment infrastructure for digital reading matter, the Kindle is helping prod many to reconsider charging for their wares instead of relying on advertising revenue. Less discussed has been the Kindle’s tendency toward unitasking—but it’s clearly part of the device’s appeal, and it, too, offers lessons for publishers.
Here’s why. The problem right now isn’t just figuring out what type of content people will pay for. An overlooked part of the puzzle—one that’s finally beginning to get more attention—is what type of environment will foster that willingness to pay. And an environment that helps overloaded infovores regain their concentration could have appeal.

What Twitter Places Means for the Future of Location

What Twitter Places Means for the Future of Location

Despite the bungled launch and short hiatus, Twitter Places is back in action. The feature has huge implications for the geo-location space and the location-sharing movement.
Places is a big improvement on Twitter’s () previous geo-location offering, which was never widely adopted or embraced by the majority of users. Whereas before users had to adjust their settings and agree to posting every single tweet with their geo-coordinates, now Twitterers are presented with an elegant way to attach a place to their tweet, one tweet at a time.

There’s No iPhone 4 Recall, No Matter What Twitter Says

There’s No iPhone 4 Recall, No Matter What Twitter Says

The Daily Mail reported this morning than an iPhone 4 recall is underway, but don’t believe it; the UK publication’s source was a tweet from a fake Steve Jobs Twitter account. Apple hasn’t announced any plans to recall its new phone.

Clash of the Titans: The Battle To Become The Mobile Search Leader

Editor’s note: The following guest post is by Krishna Subramanian, co-founder of mobile ad exchange Mobclix.
Mobile search is still one of the big unclaimed prizes on the mobile web. Everyone from Google and Yahoo to Apple is going after it, but Microsoft’s Bing may stealthily become the king of the castle by aggressively promoting Bing through mobile apps. Let’s look at each player’s mobile search strategy.

Speaking truth to power: my speech to the CBI

On Thursday this week (June 10), I’ve been invited to speak at the Senior Executive Lunch of the West Midlands CBI. I’ve been asked to talk about “Tomorrow’s news today - changes to regional media and what the future holds for news journalism.”

It’s a well-worn theme and I’ve spoken on this at many events before, but mostly to media-dominated audiences. In front of an audience of very senior business figures, I thought I would try to give them an insight into where the media is going, and even steer them towards the realisation that smaller media enterprises will become more and more significant in the near future.

12 Ways to Reduce the Risks of Malware

12 Ways to Reduce the Risks of Malware

In this article you will learn 12 ways to reduce the risk of acquiring malware on your computer while surfing the Internet.

Malware Basics

Malware is a composition of the words "malicious" and "software" and, simply put, is unwanted software that someone else wants to run on your computer.

Malware encompasses a wide range of damaging conduits such as adware, crimeware (phishing), rootkits, spyware, Trojans, viruses, rogueware, and botnets. Malware is always intrusive, often hostile, and can operate secretly in stealth mode (eg: rootkits) or out in the open with annoying pop-ups and fake system alerts (eg: fake anti-virus warnings).