10 Misconceptions about Web Privacy

The debate over Web privacy has given rise to a number of misconceptions about how personal information is collected and used by Web firms. Economics professor Paul H. Rubin has written a good article in the Wall Street Journal about the 10 Fallacies about Web Privacy.
I especially like the one that talks about the idea [...]

Future of Retail - Selling Transparency

New vegetarian restaurant chain, Otarian, has locations in both London and New York, and are placing their sustainability and eco-friendly values front and center – the carbon footprint of every item it serves is clearly displayed on the menu.
The idea is to educate its customers about the environmental impacts of what they eat and encourage [...]

Brand Implications for New Facebook Questions Feature

A few days ago Facebook launched “Questions”, a new feature intended to allow users to ask questions to the Facebook community.  Currently, Questions is available in beta to a small amount of users in the U.S. and the U.K, but is planning to make the feature available to everybody in the near future.
Since Facebook users [...]

social media masterclass part VIII

Bernadette Schwerdt interviewed me for the Better Business Social Media Small Business Masterclass, here’s Part VIII.
Question: How do I educate my management that we no longer can control the message and at the same time want to encourage consumer comment about our brand, products/services?
It’s not easy selling social media to senior management and don’t expect [...]

How to make your social media outreach transparent

It’s become a common tactic for marketers to send influential social media types free products, hoping they endorse the product on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and anywhere else online.
Perhaps consumers have become skeptical from seeing one too many upbeat tweets and blog posts from someone they’ve friended sharing their love for a brand or product.
The key [...]

Transparent Twitter

Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter,  in a recent video interview by Bloomberg, described the way Twitter operates as: ‘everything we do is public’ - accounts are public, tweets are public and searchable, in fact the Library of Congress will be archiving all tweets.  Every day millions of people use Twitter to create, share and discover [...]