Dave Fleet

OCTOBER 14, 2010

Tweet Let’s chat about the biggest challenge I think digital communicators on the agency side face nowadays. It’s not measurement. It’s not integrating channels in their programs. It’s not thinking strategically while selecting tactics. Don’t get me wrong – all of these are significant and important challenges. However, there’s a bigger one that over-arches all of them: When we go into organizations and explain the way communications is shifting, we̵

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Campaign Trends Compete Curation 400

Dave Fleet

AUGUST 30, 2010

“In too many cases, the “best practices&# espoused by digital agencies are less about “serving the community&# and more about driving a rush of new fans, without much thought re: how to keep those fans engaged on a LONG-TERM basis.&# — Todd Defren. As corporate spending on social media-based communication continues to rise, I’m beginning to worry that many brands are inadvertently adopting a ’scorched earth’ approach to their online activities.

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Social Media Patterns Campaign Engagement 399

Dave Fleet

SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

Is the term “social media&# hurting strategic communicators in the digital space? Before you tell me I’m crazy, stop and think for a second. Plenty of people have wondered about the term before ( Google “social media term&# and you’ll find a 2007 post from Jeremiah Owyang on the topic) but I’m thinking of this from a slightly different angle.

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Social Media Activities YouTube Conversation 393

Dave Fleet

MAY 12, 2010

Forrester analyst Augie Ray posted a list of seven things he recommends organizations do to avoid the recent problems of Nestle and United Airlines. The list makes for interesting reading: You must be proactive: Nestle knew the palm oil/deforestation issue could blow up, but did nothing about it until it did. You must improve customer support: Poor customer service now has the potential to do widespread damage to your brand.

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Organization Social Media Airlines Issues 393

Dave Fleet

OCTOBER 6, 2010

Tweet If you work in PR you probably find yourself pulled in myriad directions on a constant basis – especially if you work on the consulting side of the industry. This can be pretty overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the industry. So, I thought you might find it helpful to know a few of the tools I use to keep myself from running around like a headless chicken every day.

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Industry Meeting System iPad 391

Dave Fleet

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Tweet How many times have you read something like this in a digital communications plan? “One in three of our target audience is using Facebook. So, we recommend creating a Facebook page for this program.&#. As social networks become more and more prevalent, we’re at the point now that almost every client brief appears to point, on its surface, to one of a few key networks.

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Social Media Proposal Analysis Policies 391

Dave Fleet

JUNE 24, 2010

Yesterday afternoon at 1:41pm EDT, a 5.0 magnitude earthquake shook Quebec and Ontario and it looks like people ran to Twitter instead of diving for cover. Once again, social media beat traditional media to the punch (as if this is news nowadays), although mainstream outlets were quick to report the news shortly thereafter. We did a little research on social media activity regarding the earthquake using Radian6.

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Radian6 Social Media Journal News 390

Dave Fleet

NOVEMBER 26, 2010

Tweet I usually keep this blog to work-based content, but I’m making an exception today. My brother Simon lives with learning disabilities. Cornwall Council, which offers programs to help people in his situation find work, just produced this video about him. I have a tear in my eye right now. I couldn’t be more proud of my little bro’ Tags: personal.

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Video Content 388

Dave Fleet

AUGUST 25, 2010

The last few years have been wonderful for me, both personally and professionally. I’ve lived happily with my girlfriend, Caralin , for several years now, and I’ve enjoyed a rewarding career that has so far brought me more opportunities than I could have possibly hoped for. Today, I’m happy to announce the next step in both of those areas of my life.

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Proposal Team Industry Consultant 388

Dave Fleet

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

Tweet If you’re a regular Twitter user, Scott Stratten can be hard to miss at times (ok, always). The self-proclaimed “Jedi for social media,” with a big online mouth and an even bigger following, Scott provokes strong reactions from people. I’ve known him for a while and, while I always enjoy sparring with him , I consider him a friend so readily agreed to take a look at his new book – UnMarketing: Stop Marketing.

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Engagement Review Marketing Small Business 387

Dave Fleet

OCTOBER 30, 2010

Tweet The Globe and Mail , Maclean’s magazine , CTV , the Torontoist and blogTO all ran stories in the last day, alleging that staff of Toronto’s newly-annointed mayor elect, Rob Ford, used a fake Twitter account to deceive a voter into handing over incriminating materials during the campaign. According to the reports, Ford was recorded offering to buy prescription painkillers on the street for a voter suffering from fybromyalgia, and tapes of the call were sent to the Toronto Star.

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Twitter Social Media Campaign Report 382

Dave Fleet

JULY 20, 2010

Too much has already been written about the recent Old Spice foray into social media. However, one aspect of the campaign has escaped most commentary – the firm – Wieden + Kennedy – is an ad agency. Not a PR agency, or a social media agency. An ad agency. On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal ran an interesting story on the growing interest of ad agencies in the social media space.

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Social Media Advertising Journal Campaign 379

Dave Fleet

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Tweet Situation: When food writer Monica Gaudio discovered that Cooks Source magazine had lifted an article she’d written and printed it in the magazine, she emailed the magazine to inquire about how it had come about. When the editor of the magazine asked what she wanted, Gaudio told the. she wanted an apology and a $130 donation to the Columbia Journalism School as compensation.

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Public Domain Issues How To Policies 375

Dave Fleet

SEPTEMBER 22, 2010

Tweet Seth Godin says you don’t really care about privacy : “If you cared about privacy you wouldn’t have a credit card, because, after all, they know everything you spend money on. And you wouldn’t use the phone, because somewhere, there’s a computer scanning what you say. What most of us care about is being surprised.

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Privacy Buy Company Google 374

Dave Fleet

DECEMBER 2, 2010

Tweet There’s been a lot of debate back and forth around bloggers (generally mommy bloggers , although they’re certainly not the only ones) receiving direct payment for posts over the last little while. The latest post to catch my eye was a controversial piece over at Mom Blog Magazine entitled Why PR People Get Paid And You Don’t.

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Blogger Compete CPM CPC 371

Dave Fleet

OCTOBER 6, 2010

Tweet If you work in PR you probably find yourself pulled in myriad directions on a constant basis – especially if you work on the consulting side of the industry. This can be pretty overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the industry. So, I thought you might find it helpful to know a few of the tools I use to keep myself from running around like a headless chicken every day.

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How To Meeting System iPad 369

Dave Fleet

JULY 28, 2010

Liam Fitzpatrick wrote a controversial post earlier this month, saying that he thought writing skills are over-rated for communicators: “To be honest I don’t think being a good writer matters – I’ve met plenty of great comms people who couldn’t write to save their lives and I know a few fantastic writers who I’d never trust to give communications advice.&#.

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Skills Proposal Examples Study 363

Dave Fleet

DECEMBER 20, 2010

Tweet So, a rumour says that Yahoo is shutting down Delicious … or not. Cue a mass exodus as many people, including myself, look for ways to back-up thousands of bookmarks they’ve saved over the years. They also look to backup their photos on Flickr, as people realize that site may not be a sure thing after all. Meanwhile, Facebook rolls out revamped Page layouts for brands… and then rolls them back, after first taking their site down for a while.

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Social Media Delicious Yahoo Sentiment 360

Dave Fleet

AUGUST 31, 2010

As you may know, I’ve recently begun a new job at a new agency ( Edelman , for the record). In doing so, I moved to an agency that represents competitors of past clients. While I’ve taken this in my stride, several people have now raised questions about confidentiality with me – enough that I think it’s worth addressing at a broader level.

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Reputation Compete Company Questions 360

Dave Fleet

JULY 28, 2010

In the latest of a series of practical and helpful resources for marketers, Altimeter Group has released a free report entitled The 8 Success Criteria for Facebook Page Marketing. The 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing. The report, based on input from 34 industry vendors and consulting agencies, outlines – you guessed it – eight criteria for determining the success of Facebook pages from companies’ perspectives, and in doing so provides a useful set of general guide

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Guidelines Report Facebook Case Study 354

Dave Fleet

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

Tweet Discussion around my recent post on some alleged unethical social media use during Toronto’s mayoral election got me thinking around some broader topics that have emerged recently. Without further ado, here are five thoughts on themes I’ve seen recently. 1. People who try to tie social media success or failure alone to campaign results are nuts.

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Social Media Policies Metrics Issues 343

Dave Fleet

OCTOBER 22, 2010

Reputation management through social media is a hot topic right now. In fact, digital crisis communications was the topic of one of the best panels I saw at Blogworld Expo last week (more on that panel soon). With that in mind, I thought you might like to hear an interview I just did with Andrew Brown and Robert Gold at BusinessCast, on the subject of “using social media to protect your reputation.&#.

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Reputation Social Media Banking B2B 342

Dave Fleet

DECEMBER 24, 2010

Tweet It’s nearly time for Santa to round up those reindeer and hit the skies for another round of gift-giving. A couple of years ago, in the spirit of the season, I put out some suggestions on how Santa could fix-up his PR. This year, I got to thinking what I’d do to digitize Santa. 1. @Santa. Santa already has a Twitter account – @Santa.

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URL Foursquare Applications Notification 337

Dave Fleet

JULY 5, 2010

In recent months we’ve seen several interesting moves within the social media monitoring/social CRM space. Company. Acquired by. Date. Techrigy. Alterian. July 2009. Filtrbox. Jive Software. January 2010. Buzzgain. Meltwater. February 2010. Biz360. Attensity. April 2010. DNA13. CNW Group. April 2010. Scout Labs. Lithium Technologies. May 2010.

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Sysomos Alterian Filtrbox Attensity 334

Dave Fleet

JULY 5, 2010

As the social media space slowly matures, we’re starting to see more and more reports released by companies offering insight into the ebbs and flows of peoples’ behaviour online. Not surprisingly, these reports are pretty popular – they possess two desirable attributes: They offer easy-to-digest, soundbite-sized nuggets of information – perfect for short-form media such as Twitter.

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Statistics Study Report Trends 332

Dave Fleet

JULY 12, 2010

Wondering what apps to install on your iPad? Here are 50 of the apps I’ve installed on mine. Take a look, and add to the list in the comments. Business/Productivity. Pages – Word processor. Sadly, not very compatible with MS Word (go figure) but suffices. $9.99. Keynote – Presentation tool. While I haven’t tried this yet, I’m hoping that this app may stop me from having to lug my laptop around to presentations. $9.99.

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iPad iPhone Tweetdeck Travel 321

Dave Fleet

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Tweet They like you, but do they really like you? I just returned from Podcamp Montreal , where I attended several thought-provoking sessions which I’ll write about over the next little while. One of those touched on an interesting question: If someone “likes&# your company on Facebook but hasn’t tried your product, what is that worth?

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Facebook Buy Report Products 321

Dave Fleet

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Tweet Last week, Radian6 announced a whole raft of improvements to their platform and to their engagement console. Our team uses Radian6 for many clients, and I’ve used the tool for several years now, so I thought I’d take some time to dig into the updates and distill the key improvements for you. This time around: changes to the Radian6 dashboard.

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Radian6 Widget Analysis Comparison 313

Dave Fleet

JUNE 18, 2010

Last September I had a chance encounter in Montreal. I was in town for PodCamp Montreal, walking along the street to meet up with Julien Smith and a bunch of other folks, when I bumped into my ex-housemate. Turned out she’d decided to take a random trip to Montreal and by a bizarre coincidence we bumped into each other. Small world. Why am I writing about this on this blog?

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Reputation Meeting Eventful Industry 310

Dave Fleet

JUNE 17, 2010

Electronics marketplace Retrevo this week released a new study suggesting that mobile shoppers have doubled since February. According to the company, 20 per cent of US consumers have purchased something from a retailer using their cell phone. While this isn’t a surprising trend, the fact that mobile commerce is growing so quickly is somewhat surprising.

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Mobile Retail Smart Phone iPad 304

Dave Fleet

OCTOBER 25, 2010

Last week I wrote about the biggest challenge digital communicators face. However, it’s far from the only one; in fact it’s one of many. One of the big emerging challenges right now is that, after a few years of PR agencies leading the way, we’re seeing advertising agencies throw their hats into the ring for social media in a serious way.

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Social Media Survey Sites Examples 303

Dave Fleet

AUGUST 3, 2010

When I think of examples of companies known for successful adoption of social media tools, a few names always come to mind – Dell, Radian6, Freshbooks… and Zappos. (On a related note, all of those companies have gained a reputation for good service via social media – a topic for a future post, perhaps…). So, when a colleague remarked that she was enjoying a book that charted the course of Zappos so far, I promptly added it to my 2010 reading list.

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Review Radian6 Skills Course 296

Dave Fleet

JUNE 2, 2010

When the iPad came out I was vehemently against the idea of getting one, for several reasons: No multitasking. No flash video. No USB. I railed against the device online, I said similar things on the Social Mediators show and I argued against getting one privately. How things change. I’m writing this post on my shiny new iPad, while sitting on a plane to Montreal.

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iPad Travel Study Upcoming 295

Dave Fleet

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

Tweet All my life I aspired to own a particular car brand. Where I grew up, there weren’t many around (it wasn’t the most affluent area) and I’d always loved the way they looked. So, I set my sights on owning one. Now that I’m in a position where I’m considering which car to get, I no longer want that brand. Why? Not because the quality of the cars has changed – I still like them.

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Issues Insurance Education Trends 290

Dave Fleet

AUGUST 12, 2010

When approaching clients on objectives to begin social media, agencies focus on three overarching areas: consumer trust, brand engagement and transparency. Is this the approach of all agencies? No, but it can be a starting point to figure out specific end goals. Transparency can come in a few forms : the form of humanizing the brand; the form of understanding the consumer and responding; or the form of disclosing sensitive information.

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Radian6 Exercises Journal Social Media 283

Dave Fleet

OCTOBER 28, 2010

We’re well into the Fall conference season now, and there are some great events coming up in Canada – UnGeeked Toronto (this week) and Mesh Marketing (which Edelman sponsors) are two great examples. Another conference that caught my eye is the Art of Management – a conference focused on management and innovation, rather than my usual marketing niche – on November 15.

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Conference Eventful Travel Cost 279

Dave Fleet

SEPTEMBER 29, 2010

Tweet The maturation of the conversation about social media-driven PR continues. As the “digital communications” industry (read: somewhere in the intersection of owned, earned and paid media) grows beyond the niche and towards the mainstream, the conversation at the leading end of the industry is shifting more and more from the “why” to the “how”. Brian Solis published a great post yesterday, touching on a couple of important topics at the heart of the evolution of social media-focused communica

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Conversation Metrics Social Graph Sentiment 277