Sherrilynne Starkie

Google’s new privacy policy

sherrilynne — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:04:59 +0000

Most Gmail users will have received at least one message from Google this week (I received ten) explaining the company’s new privacy policy. The company has more than 60 privacy policies tied to its various products and services and so, in March 2012, it will be streamlining this all down into one policy.

Many bloggers and Internet industry pundits are saying this new approach is all a little too ‘Big Brother’ for comfort. Maybe it is. But this unified approach seems inevitable considering Google ubiquity across the Web. The only surprise is that it’s not happened sooner than 2012.

For those who’ve not had the time to look at the detail of what Google’s new privacy policy means to them, here’s a short video explanation.

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Changes to Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service (emmanuelch.wordpress.com)
New Google Privacy Policy (takeovathasouth.wordpress.com)
Google’s New Privacy Policy Information is A Bikini. (ramanan50.wordpress.com)

Email marketing goes social

sherrilynne — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:15:23 +0000

Adding social sharing buttons to marketing emails significantly increases click-through rates according to a survey just released by GetResponse, an email marketing software company. In addition, recipients are more likely to share content on Facebook than on other social networks.

The survey showed that fewer that one in five email marketers actually include social sharing buttons within their content. Considering the exceptionally high performance results for newsletters that include social sharing buttons ( an average click-through-rate (CTR) 115% higher), you’d wonder why more email marketers are jumping into social.

Here’s a handy info graphic from GetResponse:
Related posts:

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Results Are In: The Most Important Email Metric (community.constantcontact.com)
The One Thing Most Social Media Marketers Forget [Plus Infographic] (jeffbullas.com)
Email CTR Boosted 115% by Social Sharing Buttons [infographic] (michaelhartzell.com)

SOPA explained

sherrilynne — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:34:33 +0000

On Wednesday of last week it went dark in many corners of the Internet. Thousands of websites went black in protest of a bill currently being considered by Congress in the USA: the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA). Here’s Clay Shirkey’s explanation of why SOPA affects us all…including folks outside of America.

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SOPA, PIPA and Online Piracy (siddheshabhivyakty.wordpress.com)
Day of Darkness: How Can You Help Fight SOPA/PIPA? (outspokenmedia.com)
Why SOPA Is Going to Screw Us All (disclose.tv)

Will the CoTweet gamble pay off?

sherrilynne — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:19:01 +0000

CoTweet, the easy-to-use and fantastically handy social media tool that lets many individuals to collaborate on publishing content on Twitter, is going the way of the Dodo in a few weeks.

Image via CrunchBase

ExactTarget, the company behind the tool, announced on its blog this week that CoTweet is being rolled into a new enterprise package called SocialEngage. CoTweet will cease to be and SocialEngage will not offer a free service.

The company had not published any pricing information for SocialEngage; it invites users to contact ExactTarget for more information.

The company says: “We want to express our sincere thanks to those who have helped us evolve CoTweet into the leading social media management solution. By bringing to a close our free product, we’ll expand our ability to focus on bringing you new innovations and cutting-edge products and features.”

Commenters on the blog are not at all happy. ExactTarget is being flamed on its own site for lack or pricing transparancy and commenters are trading information about free and low-cost alternatives to CoTweet.

It will be interesting to watch this play out. Will people be prepared to pay enterprise-type fees for enterprise social media software? How can ExactTarget hope to compete against a raft of very high quality free, or very low cost competitors like TweetDeck and HootSuite?

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Social Media expert versus Digital expert (meetkilah.wordpress.com)
The Single Most Important Twitter Tool for Ad Agency New Business (fuelingnewbusiness.com)
Social vs. Digital Definitions (pr-squared.com)

Search plus your world

sherrilynne — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:00:50 +0000

Google is personalizing search results by including more Google+ profiles, business pages, posts, and Google+ and Picasa photos in a significant new initiative called Search plus Your World.

Image via CrunchBase

It will allow each user to surface content that has been shared with him or her on Google+ along with information that has been shared publicly integrated into typical Web search results.

Three types of Google+ content will be included in Search plus Your World results: personal results, profiles in search and profiles and pages. Results may include non-public Google+ photos and posts that were shared with the specific user. Say, for example, someone searching for Sri Lanka will be served relevant holiday photos posted by anyone in the user’s Google+ circles. However these photos will appear only in the results of users with whom the they had originally been shared.

Google search has been showing Google+ profiles for a few months, but now the names of people with G+ profiles will appear as part of the Instant’s auto-complete service. The new profile results will also include Google+ profiles of famous people such as authors, musicians, and actors.

Search plus your world can’t be good news for the other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as it prioritizes G+ content. Twitter did not renew its search agreement with Google last summer, and Facebook content is not indexed in the search engine in consideration of users privacy. Their content will be increasing difficult to see.

Users can opt out of the new service by adjusting their Google account search settings.

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What Marketers Need to Know about Google Search Plus (greatfinds.icrossing.com)
Dear Congress: It’s Not OK Not To Know How Search Engines Work, Either (powersthatbeat.wordpress.com)
Twitter accuses Google of warping search results with Google+ social data (100gf.wordpress.com)

Path: the sequel

sherrilynne — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:44:21 +0000

Well over a year ago a new social network, Path, was launched. It was positioned as ‘personal network’ and friends were limited to just 50, a number based on the psychology theories that 150 is the maximum number of social relationships any human can handle.

The launch had received a lot of positive coverage, but following the initial buzz things went quiet and Path seemed to be forgotten. That was until last week’s relaunch which repositions the platform as a ‘smart journal’ for use on smart phones.

Overall, its mission has not changed…to allow users to share highly-personal information with a small number of close friends and family members. The upper limit has been raised to 150, but most user have, on average, five to 10 connections.

Path, available for iOS and Android devices, also integrates with Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Tumblr to allow cross-posting to the social networks.

It’s very easy to use. The basic layout looks similar to Facebook and Twitter and it features a stream of posts that is generated by users and their Path friends. It has most expected features including buttons for photos, videos, people, location check-ins and updates.

In addition, Path allows users to post music with an in-built iTunes preview. There is also a sleep/awake button to keep friends informed with such events in a users life.

The more a person uses Path, the smarter the technology gets about the individual, and it will automatically update his Path with important changes to the daily routine. This feature might ruffle some privacy feathers.

My take? Personally, I really don’t think there is an urgent need for a new social network. But I’m game to try it out and see if it gains traction.

Path – Introducing Path 2 from Path on Vimeo.

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Make Way for Path; Social Networking Among the Most Loved Ones (devicemag.com)
Path the New Facebook (isaacloo.wordpress.com)
i enjoy using Path and you will too (karimkanji.wordpress.com)

Top Twitter trends for 2011

sherrilynne — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:24:05 +0000

This infographic describes the top trends on Twitter last year. It’s a snapshot of popular and youth culture. It’s probably an accurate reflection of users’interests; interesting that there are no major brands mentioned (other than sport).

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Top 5 YouTube videos: Justin Bieber vs Lady Gaga (examiner.com)

Casey Anthony’s video PR stunt

sherrilynne — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:23:56 +0000

Effecting a reputation recovery for Casey Anthony, the Florida mother who was acquitted of charges that she murdered her daughter Caylee, is a PR challenge that few would rush to undertake. One of most-hated people in America, reforming Casey could be an impossible task. However, I don’t agree. I believe there is every chance that she will find a way to leverage her notoriety to make a very good living as a result.

It seems an initial shot was fired over the bow yesterday when Casey’s personal video diary was ‘leaked’ on YouTube. Within an hour of posting, there was blanket coverage in the mainstream media and outrage being voiced all over the social internet. Once again, Casey Anthony has shot to the top of news agenda!

The 25-year-old was sentenced to four years in jail on Jul. 17, one year for each of the four fraud charges she was found guilty of, but she received credit for time served. She spent almost three years imprisoned while awaiting trial.

The new video is masterful. It’s shot in black & white giving it a moodiness and an air of’ ‘times past’. Well, it worked for Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz!

The content is good too. Casey comes across as very sincere (contrite even!). Her tone of voice is pitch perfect…quiet and calm. The messaging is spot on: Casey is lonely. Casey has nothing. Casey is forlorn. But also, Casey is hopeful and optimistic about the future. She says, “The good thing is things are starting to look up and things are starting to change in a good way. Let’s just hope they stay, that things stay good and that they only get better.”

So why has this happened now? Perhaps it’s because the day the video was made, October 13, 2011 co-incided with Blackberry’s global outage. This had at least two implications…Blackberry dominated the news agenda that day which risked Casey’s story being buried, and the Blackberry outage inhibited a lot of people seeing things online thereby limiting exposure for the video. Better to wait for a slower news day.

Will the reformed Casey Anthony become a social media celebrity and be able to achieve a viable payday? It’s too soon to tell, but it’s definitely a possibility. She was found ‘not guilty’ by a jury of peers and so is free to do what she wants’once she’s finished her current probation. She’s had enough time out of the limelight yet, she not been gone so long that people forget her. And, she seems to be getting some excellent PR advice and assistance which will help.

Although the public might hate her, fascination with Casey Anthony remains strong. This could actually work!

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Casey Anthony Posts Video Diary (5min.com)
Casey Anthony Video Diary Surfaces Online (justjared.buzznet.com)

Disney, Facebook top social media awards

sherrilynne — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:32:56 +0000

The Best of 2011 Track Social Awards, acknowledge the brands that have achieved the greatest social media success over the past year including Disney, Facebook and United Airlines.

Image via CrunchBase

Track is a social media intelligence platform for business, and it uses millions of points of social media tracking data to create a map of business activity across the social media called The Social Brand Universe. Here’s a summary of 2011 winners:

Disney sweeps three prizes including the Grand Award for Annual Social Media Audience Growth with 23,135 new interactions per day. The entertainment brand also took the top spot in two Facebook categories for 2011. With 17,716 new fans per day, Disney has won the Facebook Audience Growth Award. The company also picked up the Facebook Likes Per Post Award with a phenomenal 30,291.9 Likes per post.
Facebook itself has won the Facebook Comments Per Post Award with an average of 4,346.2 comments per post. (Well, if any company should ‘get it’, it’s this one!)
The prize for Facebook Comments Per Post Per Fan Award goes to the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida. With 10.7 comments per post per 1000 fans, the Casa Monica Hotel is a great example of a small, niche brand effectively using social media to achieve big results.
Another small brand, Swiss engineering firm Holcim, picked up the Facebook Likes Per Post Per Fan Award with 19 Likes per post per 1000 fans.
Vogue Magazine has won the Twitter Audience Growth Award for picking up 810,060 new followers.
Continental Airlines (now United Airlines) demonstrated has won the Twitter Retweets Per Tweet Award with 212.0 retweets per tweet.
Apache Software Foundation wins the Twitter Retweets Per Tweet Per Follower Award with 3.76 retweets per tweet per 1000 followers.

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Retweetable Twitter Apps – use with caution (meetkilah.wordpress.com)
10 ways to be grateful on Twitter (creativeramblings.com)
Want to Be a Good Social Media Marketer? Don’t Do This. (community.constantcontact.com)

IABC Ottawa: Celebrate 2012 with communications experts

sherrilynne — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:00:11 +0000

IABC Ottawa’s popular ‘Networking in the New Year’ event is back for a third year!

Here are the top three reasons to register today:

1. One venue and six industry-leading communications professionals will strengthen your knowledge base for 2012.
2. A diverse mix of colleagues and friends will empower you to truly mix business and pleasure.
3. Tasty cocktail-style nibbles in a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere means you won’t have to fret about dinner plans.

This event is all about two pillars of IABC: professional development and networking. We’ve lined up a stellar group of communications experts who will be stationed around the room to engage in discussion and answer your questions.

This year’s experts are:

Rob Woodbridge, Founder and Senior Mobile Strategy Consultant, UNTETHER.tv/Untether Mobile: Mobile marketing.
Isabelle Des Chenes, Vice President Market Relations and Communications, Forest Products Association of Canada: Communicating from a national association.
Susan Murphy, Partner, Jester Creative: Content Marketing–Sharing stories that are clear, compelling and inspiring.
Yaroslav Baran, Principal, Earnscliffe Strategy Group: Effective government relations.
Kelly Kubrick, Owner, Online Authority: Web analytics for communications professionals.
Sherrilynne Starkie, Account Director, Thornley Fallis: Twitter–Everything you wanted to know but are afraid to ask.

When: Wednesday, January 25, 2012, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Where: Events In Style, 107 Murray Street

Note: parking is free on the street after 5:30 and there is a paid city lot a block away on Murray and Dalhousie.

Early Bird Registration (no later than midnight on Sunday, January 22, 2012):
$40 – members │$25 – students │$50 – non-members

Late and on-site registration, add $10. Register here.

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A good time for IABC accreditation (nevillehobson.com)
IABC Morning Managers Meeting (newmanpartnership.wordpress.com)
Social Media (prspotlight.wordpress.com)

Sherrilynne Starkie

Google’s new privacy policy

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