Blogworld: Spam is Spam No Matter Who Sends It
I was lucky enough to be invited to attend Blogworld Expo in New York City this week, moderating a panel on social media in the financial services industry. I also attended the opening keynote, featuring author and winer Gary Vaynerchuk, former Kodak CMO and current, um, marketing e-book something or other Jeffrey Hayzlett, and author H.P. Mallory. One moment that stood out for me was when the subject of promoting products via unsolicited direct message on Twitter came up. Hayzlett defended, somewhat, his experiment with doing that to promote his e-book. I received one of those DM’s a few months back and was pretty shocked to get such a piece of spam from someone so well-known in the marketing industry. When Hayzlett’s defense was that he received only 18 negative comments about the spam, Vaynerchuk, to his credit, said “That you know of.”
Applause moment.
And yeah, I mentioned Gary Vee 2 weeks in a row. Complain in the comments. To make up for it, I’ll add that I refuse to stand in line for book autographs; that’s a big “whatever” for me. So I took Gary Vee’s book, which was given to all attendees, and had Wendy Piersall, author of the upcoming “Mom Blogging for Dummies,” sign it instead. She’ll need the practice as I’m sure the book will do well.
Infographics Are Way The Heck Out of Control
Similar to my recent rant about overused stock images and their inability to make me respect your writing, I would also argue that making infographics that try to cram too much into a small space– or even worse, take up too much space- disrespects the reader. I think infographics should be simple, to the point, and easy to digest. To extract more detail, write more in the blog post or a white paper.
Geoff Livingston goes on about this at length. Bravo. My only beef is that I wouldn’t describe overwrought infographics as porn, as I don’t think porn is designed to make people angry, give them seizures or destroy their eyesight.
Yeah, I can easily talk about the Twitterverse, but there are several other examples, sadly too easy to find. Danny Brown pointed me to a blog post discussing the role of swearing in professional blogs, but I couldn’t scroll past the darn infographic to read it for fear of developing tendonitis in my trackpad fingers. Good heavens, what a clusterfudge of info-filth.
About the Swearing
Speaking of Danny Brown’s dilemma; people who know me know I know all the words, and use them (knowingly). I tend not to use them here or on my public Twitter and Facebook feeds (except in rare instances and occasionally by accident), but that’s a choice. Am I offended if people use language in a professionally-focused post? Not really. The words are now in the boardrooms, conference calls and certainly at the water coolers. Use your judgment and be prepared for people to be offended, but it’s out there.
Consarn it.
Twitter Buys Tweetdeck; So What?
Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research says Twitter will favor its own apps. Will other developers cry foul if that happens? Maybe, but so what? An “open API” is as open as its owner makes it, and no more so (accounting for the possibility of legal contracts and such between owners and developers, I suppose). So will we get a better experience on Tweetdeck? A more consistent one as Josh says, sure. For advertisers and marketers, consistent experience across multiple platforms makes Twitter more attractive, not only for marketing but for plain old business use.
Does it mean other worthy tools like CoTweet, HootSuite and Seesmic get short shrift? Not if they continue to differentiate or simply add their own value. I don;t pretend to know if that is about to get more difficult.
Also interesting, is Josh’s mention of the “Splinternet,” meaning that the so-called open world of apps is turning into one of consolidation by companies. Natural progression, isn’t it?
Me? I’m still waiting for the day when Tweetdeck loads on my Macbook in a timely fashion…
…still waiting. Maybe that will change.
Did The Onion Take Over All Things D?
With a headline like “Apple Store Customers Satisfied Even if They Didn’t Buy Anything,” one has to wonder.
I still can’t wait to see a video of the undressing by Gary on Haslett.
I still like tweeting that my Kodak shares haven’t done anything despite the SM that Hayzlett pushed so much (more for himself than for Kodak) … and a Bloomberg reporter retweeting me.
I still find it odd that he was speaking at 140 the same day earnings came out. But that’s just me.
Hi Doug,
You’re right about that infographic. It is so detailed many won’t read it and it will give others a headache. The most important part of that post is the warning to businesses to make sure they and their social media consultants and bloggers are on the same page when it comes to what is acceptable and what is to be avoided.
Failure to do that is going to result in some major embarrassment because what some people consider socially acceptable is still considered crass and lower class to others.
Thank you for including me, Doug! Infographics, argh!
Weird that I didn’t see this until now. THANK you for mentioning our conversation and especially for the book signing. You absolutely made my day! :)
The pleasure was mine, Wendy! I have done this a couple of times, but this was the best.