eMarketing & New Media

5 Quick Ways to Use Gmail Lab Features to Make You More Productive

Erica DeWolf — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:46:29 +0000

In past years, Google has offered some up and coming features of Gmail that you can use to make your email and conversation viewing more pleasant, effective, and productive. Here are a few of my favorites that can increase your daily productivity.

1. Email Addict. Find yourself constantly checking your inbox and/or chatting with friends on chat? Take a break from your email inbox by enabling Google Addict, which will block your inbox for 15 minutes, allowing you a few moments of intense concentration, or time to take a walk.

2. Offline. Do you need to work within gmail in order to get your work done, but become distracted by all of the new email flooding your inbox? Work offline, and work with your messages without being connected to the internet. This will also be helpful when you need access to your messages but have no internet access.

3. Message translation. Do you deal with individuals speaking another language? Message translation allows you to eliminate language as a potential barrier for business and allow easier communication.

4. Mouse gestures. Move through your inbox and navigate your information more quickly be implementing mouse gestures, which allows you to use gestures with the mouse to go from conversation to conversation with a flick of the wrist. Works best on Windows.

5. Canned responses. Do you get emails often from individuals who may have a business inquiry, or frequently asked question? Save and then send your common messages using a button next to the compose form. Don’t waste time typing similar responses when you can type it once and save it!

Check out Gmail Labs for even more features that may make you even more productive.

How do you access Gmail Labs?

Log in to your Gmail account and click the green beaker, and you’ll be able to see all of the new features Google offers for Gmail users.

10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media

Erica DeWolf — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:41:53 +0000

This is a guest post, and a re-post, from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

Please note this is not a top-10 list, nor are these listed in any particular order. It’s also incomplete. So we ask that you add to this conversation in the comments. If you’d like to Retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

1. Take Social Actions: The nonprofit organization Social Actions aggregates “opportunities to make a difference from over 50 online platforms” through its unique API. It recently held the Change the Web Challenge contest in order to inspire the most innovative applications for that API. The Social Actions Interactive Map won the $5,000 first prize. The result is a virtual tour of the world through the lens of social action. “People are volunteering, donating, signing petitions, making loans and doing other social actions as we speak — all over the world. To capture the context of the where, this project uses sophisticated techniques to extract location information from full text paragraphs.” You can also join the Social Actions Community, which is powered by Ning…which now boasts more than one million individual social networks.

2. Twitter with a Purpose: This list could be exclusive to Twitter. The micro-blogging sensation was featured on our first two lists (a three-tweet), and it’s certain to be a fixture. From Tweetsgiving, the virtual Thanksgiving feast, to the Twestival, which organized 202 off-line events around the world to benefit charity: water, it’s become the de facto tool for organizing and taking action. Tweet Congress won the SXSW activism award, and celebrity Tweeps Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Rose Tweeted their two million followers about ending malaria. Max Gladwell recently initiated the #EcoMonday follow meme as a way to connect and organize the Green Twittersphere.

3. Visit White House 2.0: Inside of its first 100 days, the Obama administration has managed to set the historic benchmark for government transparency and accountability. The President’s virtual town hall meeting used WhiteHouse.gov to crowdsource questions from his 300 million constituents, complete with voting to determine the ones he’d have to answer. All told, 97,937 people submitted 103,978 questions and cast 1,782,650 votes. The White House continues to raise the bar with its official Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter channels. In so doing President Obama is not just setting the standard for state and local government in the U.S. He’s establishing the world standard. The Obama administration is spreading democracy not by force but through example. Because you don’t have to be an American citizen to be a friend or follower of White House 2.0.

4. Claim your Zumbox: What happens when all mail can be sent and delivered online to any street address in a paperless form? That’s the big question for Zumbox, which has created an online mail system with a digital mailbox for every U.S. street address. And while the answer to that question remains to be seen, it promises to be as liberating as it is disruptive. A key quality for Zumbox is that it’s closed system much like that of Facebook, only instead of true identity it’s true address. This will enable people to better connect with their communities including their neighbors, local businesses, and the mayor’s office. The primary agent of change, though, might not be that this uses street addresses but that it enables direct and potentially viral feedback, which is a virtue that e-mail and the USPS do not offer. The first methods are to request exclusive paperless delivery and to block a sender, but others are certain to evolve such as real-time commenting and ways to share mail with friends, family, and colleagues. Welcome to Mail 2.0. (Disclosure: Zumbox is a client of Rob Reed, the founder of Max Gladwell.)

5. Host a Social Media Event: This is the year of the social media event. No meaningful gathering of people is complete without an interactive online audience, especially when it’s so easy and cost effective to pull off. Essential tools include a broadband connection, laptop, video camera, projector, and screen. Add people and a purpose, such as entrepreneurship. Promote it through social media channels, and you have a social media event. A recent example in the green world is the Evolution of Green, which was hosted by Creative Citizen, a green wiki community. It celebrated the launch of a new Web property, EcoMatters, while also establishing a new Twitter tag. By posing the question, “How can we go from green hype to green habit?” and including the #GreenQ hashtag, it sparked a conversation between attendees and the Twittersphere in real time. Thus was born a new mechanism for getting answers to green questions via Twitter.

6. Travel the World: More than anyone else, Tim O’Reilly knows the potential for social media to change the world. In his opening keynote at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo, he called for a new ethic in which we do more with less and create more value than we capture. This provided the context for SalaamGarage founder Amanda Koster, whose presentation followed O’Reilly’s. The idea is that social media has enabled each of us to have an audience. Whether through Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, or a personal blog, each of us can have influence and reach. What’s more, it can be used for good. SalaamGarage coordinates trips for citizen journalists (that means you) to places like India and Vietnam in conjunction with non-government organizations like Seattle-based Peace Trees. The destination is the story, as these humanitarian journalists report on the people they meet and discoveries they make. Their words, images, and video are posted to the social web to gain exposure and because these stories just need to be told.

7. Build It on Drupal: You may not have noticed, but the open-source Drupal content management system (CMS) has quickly become the dominant player on the social web. While we still prefer WordPress as a strict blogging application, Drupal has emerged as the go-to platform for building scalable, community-driven Web sites. It powers Recovery.gov, a key part of President Obama’s commitment to transparency and accountability. PopRule uses it as a social news platform for politics. And Drupal will soon become the platform for Causecast, a site where “media, philanthropy, social networking, entertainment and education converge to serve a greater purpose.” This is especially significant because Causecast CEO Ryan Scott is transitioning the site off of Ruby on Rails because Drupal has proved more efficient, user friendly, and cost effective. (Disclosure: Max Gladwell founder Rob Reed is co-founder of PopRule.)

8. Green Your iPhone: Looking for an organic diner within biking distance that has a three-star green rating? There’s a app for that. It’s called 3rd Whale, and you can download it for free. (Except that the star rating is actually a whale rating.) Complete with Facebook Connect, this iPhone app locates green products and businesses in 30 major North American cities. It uses the iPhone’s dial function to select a category (food), sub-category (restaurants), and distance (walking, biking, or driving). In Santa Monica, this might give you Swingers diner for its selection of veggie and vegan fare. You could then get directions from your current location using the iPhone’s built-in Google map, rate your experience on the three-whale scale, and write up a quick review. 3rd Whale recently released a new feature that integrates green-living tips, which can show how much energy or waste you’ll save by taking a given action.

9. Unite the World Through Video: Matt’s dancing around the world video inspired many to tears. Today, more than 20 million people have viewed his YouTube masterpiece, where he performs a kooky dance with the citizens of planet earth. The most recent example of this approach is Playing for Change, which connects the world through song. The project started in Santa Monica with a street performance of the classic Stand By Me and expanded to New Orleans, New Mexico, France, Brazil, Italy, Venezuela, South Africa, Spain, and The Netherlands. The project was superbly executed via social media, complete with a YouTube channel, MySpace, Facebook, and Blog. It’s received tremendous mainstream media exposure and also benefits a foundation of the same name.

10. Rate a Company: The conversation about corporate social responsibility (CSR) takes place across the social web on blogs, Twitter, and YouTube, but a central hub for this information and opinion is still to be determined. SocialYell seeks to address this by building an online community around the CSR conversation, where users can submit reviews of companies together with nonprofit organizations and even public figures like Michelle Obama. The major topics are the Environment, Health, Social Equity, Consumer Advocacy, and Charity. The reviews are voted and commented on by the community in a Reddit-like fashion with both up (Yell) and down (shhh) voting. The site is relatively new and still gaining traction, but there’s no question that a resource like this is needed to shine a bright light on CSR and and other related issues.

11. Publish a collective, simultaneous blog post on a universal topic: As Nigel Tufnel might say, this list goes to eleven. Let the #10Ways conversation begin…

Final note: This is Max Gladwell’s third list of “10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media.” The first was posted a year ago today on Sustainablog.org, and the sequel followed five months later. If a single headline can capture the Max Gladwell raison d’etre, this is it.

Social Media Tools Should be Used for PR

Erica DeWolf — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:17:01 +0000

In my opinion, public relations is all about getting people’s attention, and responding to what they have to say about you. Today, I want to talk a little about the second part, which is for the most part known as reputation management.

Defined: As related to the media, reputation management is the process of tracking other’s opinions and comments about a company’s actions and products, and reacting to those opinions and comments to protect and enhance the company’s reputation.

If your company currently does not have a reputation management strategy in place to monitor and respond to company mentions in social media, I recommend immediately signing up for the following social media services.

Google Alerts

I’ve talked about this in a past post, but to summarize, Google Alerts is a service that will send you an email, or report to your RSS feed, when any mentions of your company name, your name, or any keyword become indexed on Google.

Why is this useful? If you were Dell, wouldn’t you have liked to have been immediately notified when a laptop that you made spontaneously combusted at a conference? In today’s era of social media, there would have been tweets, blog posts, and photos of it online within thirty seconds of the first flame.

If some extremely negative or extremely positive comments are made on one of your products or your company in general, you want to be the first to address it so that any potential problems will not escalate.

TweetBeep

TweetBeep is sometimes known as the Google alerts for twitter. It’s the same concept- except you are notified when your keyword is mentioned in any tweets on Twitter, and in real time (within one hour of the mention, you will be notified).

Twitter is evolving as a real time search engine, so instead of getting notified hours or perhaps days after your company’s product explodes, you’ll be notified immediately, allowing you and your company to immediately begin to formulate a plan for addressing the issue and managing your company’s reputation.

What to do after your notified

I am by no means a PR professional, but I can tell you that consumers don’t like to be lied to, and don’t like to be “talked around.” My best advice on this topic is to respond to any negative press timely, honestly, and up-front. If your product was faulty and is now considered dangerous, admit that you made a mistake instead of blaming the problem on the plant you outsourced to, for example. Take responsibility and address the issue. People care about you fixing the product, not who you point the finger at (for the most part). The ‘problem’ is much more likely to stay a simple complaint then to escalate into a full-blown crisis if it is addressed immediately.

Also, be sure to not release a short press release or statement talking around the issue, saying things like “we are doing everything we can to solve this problem,” and simply leave it at that, with no further communication as you actually address the issue. Or else, the fact that you are handling the situation poorly will become the focus of the ultimate conversation going on in the media.

Remember- your entire company and every step you take will be under scrutiny once an issue arises, so handle yourself appropriately.

If you’re feeling ambitious

If you’re not completely comfortable with social media yet, but are feeling ambitious, then create an official company Twitter profile. This way, when somebody talks about you on Twitter- you can immediately respond instantly to that individual or the mass twitter audience, in a short and sweet message of 140 characters or less.

The point:

Public relations professionals should be using social media tools such as Google Alerts, Tweetbeep, and Twitter to monitor company mentions in the media to most effectively manage the company’s reputation.

Twitter Overload- 10 Reasons Why I Love and 1 Why I Hate Twitter

Erica DeWolf — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:30:33 +0000

I love Twitter. (Follow me @emd5005).

I’m on it as much as possible. I love learning what others’ are doing with their days, how they are doing, and why they are doing it. I even love the occassional retweet of a killer article or blog post, or learning about how a plane “landed” in the Hudson River before it was being reported by the television news.

Ten Reasons Why I Love Twitter

It serves as my virtual group of cubicles. Since I work at home, I miss the social aspect of the office. I miss sharing the cool sites I find, and stories about my dogs, and stories about others’ lives. Twitter provides me with a virtual version of the talk over the water cooler.
My friends keep me company. Yes, this is extremely similar to the first point. But not only do I like communicating to my virtual office, I love hearing the office buzz.
My friends recommend only the best sites. And the best sites usually have a RT (retweet) in front of them.
Provides me with a polling audience. Do you need a few quotes for a blog post? Just ask your followers what they think and you’ll have an instant array.
Answers my question immediately. If I need a definition of something, or advice on the SAP software I’ve been working on, etc, I ask my twitter audience first. Even with as small a audience that I have (143 followers)- there’s always somebody that’s willing to help out.
To use as a search engine. Sometime, if I need a quick question answered quick, like who won Best Actor at the Oscar’s last night, I ask Twitter instead of dealing with Google.
To search for somebody that can help me. Twitter is like a directory of professional help. Need a superb press release writer? Shoemoney asked and was immediately bombarded with referrals for @newspapergrl. Need a company to sell you live rock for your saltwater aquarium? I didn’t even ask and I got contacted.
Great place to announce blog posts. Twitter can be just another medium, and a successful one, to announce your newest blog posts to the world. Using Twitterfeed, you can set your Twitter account to do this with no effort from you.
A terrific way to communicate with your favorite brands. Follow @starbucks, or @JetBlue for a truly personalized and interactive conversation with the companies.
Endless Possibilities. With Twitter improving, and hundreds of Twitter applications being created, who knows what we’ll be able to do with twitter in 6 months. The thought of its potential is overwhelming.

What I’ve Had Enough Of

But I have to say it-I’ve had enough of Twitter. It’s the next big thing, and every big social marketer won’t shut up about it. In my RSS feed- it seems as if 25% of the posts are about Twitter. And that would be great if they were all unique takes on the subject. But there’s countless twitter posts on how to get people to follow you, how to use it for marketing, and how often / if you should retweet.

1 Thing I Hate About Twitter

Enough is enough. I’m on Twitter Overload. Stop telling me how twitter is like your uncle Fred.

Dazzle me. Give me a formula for your likelihood to be retweeted, and how to be a good dog on twitter, but don’t tell me again 10 easy ways to get people to follow you.

If you’re going to write about Twitter, Don’t fit in with the clutter. Stand out from the crowd and dare to be different!

Some Posts About Twitter I Really Love

JetBlue Engages in Real Conversation on Twitter- a real story about a JetBlue conversation originating through Twitter.
5 Interesting Uses of Twitter- Some interesting takes / cases on the Twitter concept.
Journalists Still a-Twitter About Social Media- a post on PBS’s Mediashift claiming Twitter is “journalism’s Obama.”
Twitter to Start Charging Companies for Having an Account? News stories is something I don’t mind reading about Twitter.
How to Not Pay Attention on Twitter- a story about how not paying attention to the twitter conversation, and then jumping in, can be embarrassing.

Your Input

What do you think about all the Twitter posts that are saturating the blogosphere? Do you not mind them? Welcome them? What are some of your favorite Twitter posts? I’d love to read them, and post them here for others to read, as well!

Super Bowl XLIII Ad Reaction- 2009 Wrap-Up

Erica DeWolf — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:30:59 +0000

All in all, I think there were some very effective and entertaining ads in this year’s Super Bowl. The ads were a great hit! I want to share with you my favorites, in no particular order, from this year’s super bowl, and I hope you’ll share yours with me, as well!

See you next year!

Dorito’s “Free Doritos” Ad, Created by the winner of the Crash The Super Bowl Contest

One of the biggest reasons I like this ad is because it is user generated content- it was created by a contestant in the Crash the Super Bowl Contest.

Bud Light Conan Swedish Ad

The premise is that Conan O’Brien is persuaded to appear in an odd Bud Light ad that would only air in Sweden, but it airs in Times Square in NYC. I love Conan O’Brien, so this cracked me up.

Mr. Potato Head Bridgestone Tires

This is just nostalgic and makes me giggle.

Cars.com David Abernathy

I’m not sure why I liked this one so much, but it was clever and deserved to be on my list.

I liked many others, but didn’t want to bombard you with even more videos!! What did you think? What were your favorites and why?

Super Bowl XLIII Ad Reaction- Part 3

Erica DeWolf — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:30:59 +0000

I had to say that I was honestly disappointed by the e*trade baby ads this year. I think they knocked it out of the park last year with the clowns and cute baby spit up. I think they set themselves up to fail by staying with the same campaign then finding some fresh new angle.

Don’t get me wrong, these were very cute, and I love singing babies. But I don’t think anything could top underestimating the creepiness of the clown.

“E*Trade Singing Baby”

“E*Trade Golf Baby”

Did you like these ads? Were you disappointed when comparing them to last year’s?

Super Bowl XLIII Reactions- Part 2

Erica DeWolf — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:30:37 +0000

I recently visted SeaWorld in Orlando Florida and was able to visit the Clydesdale Horses. I had been around horses before, but never clydesdales. They are HUGE, beautiful creatures, which allowed me to enjoy the Budweiser Clydesdale ads even more.

Budweiser “Clydesdale Stick” This one especially made me laugh out loud, because I’ve seen my black lab attempt to carry around sticks, or logs, this big.

Budweiser “Clydesdale Generations” A modern day clydesdale reflects on his ancestry. I think this ad really highlights the majesty of these horses.

Budweiser “Clydesdale Circus” The circus and a Clydesdale’s love leaves town, but love and clydesdales know no boundaries!

Did you like this year’s Budweiser Clydesdale ads? What ones did you like from the past?

Where Were the Miller High Life 1 Second Ads?

Erica DeWolf — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:00:29 +0000

A few days before the Super Bowl, I caught this commercial of the burly High Life delivery guy talking about the ridiculous $3 million that advertisers are spending on 30 second commercials in this year’s Super Bowl. He started talking about how all Miller High Life would need is a 1 second commercial, along with copy asking us to watch for these 1 second ads during the big game.

Miller High Life Superbowl 1 Second Ad Intro Advertisement

That’s the last I heard of it, although I was very excited. I visited the site, www.1secondad.com and previewed all of the “1 Second Ads,” the day of the game. I eagerly watched, or listened for them during the game, but I missed them. Or, they didn’t air in my local market, because, apparently,

“MillerCoors must buy the commercial time through local market NBC affiliates because the brewer’s top competitor, Bud Light brewer Anheuser-Busch of St. Louis, has an agreement that makes it the exclusive national alcohol advertiser for Super Bowl XLIII in 2009″ (The Business Journal of Milwaukee, 01/20/09).

I was disappointed, and wished I had seen the ads during the actual game, but I am still excited about the campaign, as this is something unlike I’ve ever seen before, and an excellent example of achieving attention through viral or word of mouth means.

The Official Miller High Life 1 Second Ad

A Collection of Miller High Life 1 Second Super Bowl Ads That Didn’t Make the Cut

What do you think about this technique? Do you think it worked? Do you think it didn’t work because it had to purchase ad time through local markets? What would you have done differently or the same?

Super Bowl XLIII Ad Reactions: Part 1

Erica DeWolf — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:31:54 +0000

I hope everyone enjoyed the football portion of Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday, as it was a great game! However, I was an Advertising undergraduate major, and currently work in Marketing, so I have to say that I have more to say about the ads then the actual game!

I was extremely pleased to see some creative and new NBC promos, created especially for the SuperBowl! I believe they did an excellent job with these, although the LMAO ad was a little corny- but it still made me laugh.

What did you think about these NBC promos? I don’t recall the hosting network having ads like these in the past. I also think that this was an ideal time for NBC to do these types of ads, as they’re doing all the host rearranging within their late night lineup.

“Have You Tried Conan O’Brien?”

“Jay Leno @ 10″ –> I love this ad b/c it’s creatively put together- I didn’t catch all of the copy the first time I saw it.

And finally, “LMAO” which was corny, but got a chuckle out of me the first time I saw it! This is not the ideal network promo ad during the superbowl, which is why I like it.

What did you think about the NBC Promo Ads? Did you like the Heroes Football Promo, or maybe the other Conan ad?

Google Bought Feedburner…now where’s my subscribers?

Erica DeWolf — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:21:42 +0000

Google Acquired Feedburner

I love Google. I use Gmail exclusively, and practically drool everytime a new feature comes out in Gmail Labs. Google is so innovative, i don’t have time to keep up with everything.

I even missed the news that Google acquired Feedburner (by the way, can anybody find the official press release announcing this?).

And I somehow missed the fact that those of us that use Feedburner are required to manually transfer our feed over to feedburner.google.com by clicking a button in our account at feedburner.com.

I was first made aware of this by this post from Michael at Pro Blog Design. I decided to follow its advice and switch over my feeds to eliminate any potential problems I may have had in the future.

I don’t log in to feedburner very often, so it was a major surprise to see that my feeds had dropped about 50%…and then went back up…but then dropped again (apparently due to the weird things going on with the whole switch to Google).

After I manually switched my feeds from feedburner to feedburner.google.com, as per Michael’s instructions, my subscribers dropped even more…and then more! The green line in the image below shows what my subscribers have been doing.

Feedburner Funkiness

This is disturbing to me. Not only because I didn’t know where my subscribers went, but because I think Google is handling this very poorly. Can anybody point me towards Google making us aware of this fact and telling us not to worry? If there is one out there, they should make it easier to find.

After doing a little more research on this subject, I found this post by Patrick Altoft of blogstorm, which seems to hint at the fact that the reason my subscribers have dropped is because, once on the Google server, your subscribers using iGoogle and Google Reader to receive your feed are not being recorded.

Dear Google- please write a press release, or contact us via email to let us know what’s going on with Feedburner, if you’re working on it, and when things will be resolved.

Is anybody else having trouble with feedburner’s transfer to google’s server? Have any resources you can direct us to? Please share in the comments section!

Update: As of Friday, January 23rd, my feeds were restored, and everything is back to normal!