I’ve been hearing a lot about the uneasy relationships between governments and social media, especially Twitter. Since it’s been credited in part with helping several revolutions and protests, is it inevitable that it will soon fall under some sort of restriction? If, for no other reason, than because of a government’s instinct for self-preservation? I…
The other day I was reading an article about the growing problem of ‘fake reviews.’ You know, companies being reviewed on Yelp and other sites, supposedly written by real customers, but actually ghostwritten by the company itself. Apparently it’s quite common with hotels, and I’m sure lots of other businesses do it too. And not…
“Content” is such a buzzword. I much rather prefer to use plain English: “Have Something To Say!” But it amounts to the same thing: I read about how some pharmaceutical companies were using social media, and why they were failing. Basically, it boiled down to content, aka having something to share with your audience. That…
I really shouldn’t pick on the poor congressmen. While his actions were rather bizarre and poorly considered, he’s not alone. According to a recent study, one in five people have done something with social media that they regret. Well sure, that seems obvious, but 1 in 5 seems low. Shouldn’t it be more like, oh,…
i wrote a bunch in recent weeks about Netflix’s about-face of customer sentiment: they’ve gone from ‘beloved’ to ‘betrayers’ faster than any other company I can think of in recent times. So when I came across an article about how social media ‘incidents’ can cause headaches for companies, Netflix again came to mind. From the…
Yesterday I was showing a friend my whole book-business operation; the entire process from acquisition to inventory to shipping. His mom is retired and wanted to sell her books for some extra cash, so I gave him the rundown and a few tips and pointers. While looking at the crammed shelves, we speculated about the…
