by joemagennis on October 13, 2009
Be Fluid For Your Community [18:24m]:
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This week on the Overflow Podcast we take a look at a web community that Fluid Media has built called Baseballisms.com, as a way to demonstrate the need for adapting, organic, and of course Fluid approaches to your web presence.
Based upon this real case study with our own baseball community, we can attest firsthand to the fact that no matter how great the original concept for a web site might be, it will end up morphing and changing to meet the needs of the audience. If the site does not adapt, chances are the growth of the community will be severely limited.
Baseballisms started as a site where we attempted to collect email addresses to distribute daily messages containing public domain content. Instead it has become a fan based community where our content is supplemented by user generated content.
We believe that putting the web site on the Wordpress blogging platform, and now using the Thesis Template, we have been able to maintain a level of flexibility that would otherwise have been hampered by developing a traditional html web site.
Fundamental branding however is important to establish a strong foundation. This actually allows for flexibility to make modifications to the features and services provided by the web presence. Keep good branding tactics in mind from the start such as fonts and color choices, multiple applications of logo, a strong tag line .. all of these things can help to maintain a consistent message even while being fluid in other areas.
In the end, be solid and fundamental in developing your brand initially, so that it allows you the freedom to be fluid so you can adapt to what your community is telling you that they want you to be.
The opening and closing theme for the Overflow Podcast is called The Information Age, by Anthony Fiumano and you can find it at the Podsafe Music Network.
You can subscribe to The Overflow Podcast directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.
by joemagennis on September 11, 2009
Speculating on Social Media Impact during 9/11 [26:48m]:
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What would have happened during the events of 9/11 had today’s social networks been in use eight years ago today? That is the question that Cameron and Joe address in this week’s Overflow Podcast on the anniversary of the attacks.
During the podcast we recollect our actual whereabouts on that day, and what we were doing on the moment we first were made aware that the Trade Center had been hit.
We try to make complete speculation about how we would have witnessed the scene if there had been Twitter, Facebook and probably most importantly YouTube on that day.
In many cases we have said that social media has been better at capturing live events instead of traditional media, however in this case the second plane hitting the tower on live television could not have been any more powerful. Technology would have provided more eye witness accounts at ground zero and we might have experienced the horror to an even greater degree as video became available.
It is possible though that GPS technology, Google Latitude, Brightkite or other location based technologies could have helped loved ones locate each other.
We also cannot forget the millions of people not directly impacted by were stranded in airports around the country, the personal stories that they experienced would also have been included in the social media distribution of meta data.
We have discovered a repository of 9/11 videos that is being powered by our friends at Magnify, and is part of the Camera Planet Archive. At this web site is some of the video that might have been distributed almost in real time on that day of September 11, 2001.
This repository is a powerful effect for the future generations so that they can understand what our experiences were like as it happened. It underlines the importance of a project like StoryCorps which provides a way to capture our personal histories.
Would these tools have helped in the healing process? It probably would have .. we would have reached out to the friends that we have made online using the social networks.
We also have to consider the global social networks that we have grown as we would have been able to witness the events through the eyes of the world.
How do you think the technology would have changed the national experiences on that day in September 2001?
The opening and closing theme for the Overflow Podcast is called The Information Age, by Anthony Fiumano and you can find it at the Podsafe Music Network.
You can subscribe to The Overflow Podcast directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.
by joemagennis on August 21, 2009
Skype for Virtual Communication [22:42m]:
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This week on the Overflow Podcast, we get into one of the tools of the trade. 
We tend to talk about high level social media strategy or changes in the marketing landscape, but we don’t want to forget about how we are able to make this whole thing happen. Cameron and Joe focus on using Skype for personal and business on this week’s episode.
It also came up that I recommend the use of the Plantronics 470 USB headset (paid link) for recording podcasts, and while we’re at it I’ll also throw in the recommendation for Logitech Quickcam MP (paid link).
After our decision to take our marketing office to a virtual environment, we needed to have the ability to communicate via video conferencing as well as a simple solution for recording our weekly podcasts. Skype easily meets both of those requirements.
Cameron shared a family holiday scenario for using Skype to bring all family members into the celebration, no matter the geographic difference.
There is also a simple Skype add-on called Pamela (paid link, again) to help with the recording process. The software is a simple download and install, that records your calls and saves them in an MP3 format for editing and production. If you have any additional questions about creating a podcast, please contact me at jmagennis @ befluid <dot> com.
This functionality, combined with cell phones and now Google Voice, is making the old telephone closet, and eventually our telephony provider obsolete. We anticipate going away from our VOIP provider as soon as we can port over our numbers into Google Voice.
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The Tattoo Argument
by joemagennis on August 28, 2009
For the second time this year, Cameron and I have presented to a classroom of students at the Art Institute of Atlanta. We are invited by our friend Larry Stultz, Department Chair at the Institute, to discuss real world implementation of Social Media Marketing.
As much as we are able to provide information to the students during these discussions (btw, we always have the group re-arrange the furniture into a circle so that we are discussing, not presenting), we are able to get back just as much feedback on what is working for this particular demographic.
This week on Overflow we discuss our impressions of social media networks through the eyes of this group of students.
The most prominent feedback was the widespread immersion in the use of Facebook versus the total disregard of Twitter. The take away seemed to be that Twitter was just another place that needed updating, and everyone that needed to be kept abreast of their actions was already part of their Facebook network, so Twitter was just a duplicate task.
This finding is reinforced by an article in the New York Times just this week regarding the “driving force behind Twitter“.
The students were not aware of the search and conversation (hashtag) capabilities of Twitter that provides much of it’s value. They were also not aware of the acquisition of FriendFeed by Facebook at all, and the additional features that it will bring to the network, such as real time search.
This may also reflect the theory that at a young age, the most important measure of value is to have a popular group of friends. Everything that a young person does revolves around friends and family, precisely the type of influencer relationships found on Facebook. Twitter tends to be more self promotional, news gathering, research driven, and less concerned with relationships. The difference between the use of Facebook and Twitter may simply come down to the hard wiring of age.
We did get into the topic of job search and employers use of social networks
to review the “character” of potential hires. Of course, the students felt that it was not a fair assessment but agreed that some form of constraint must be applied when posting on line. They believe that at some point in the future the playing field will be balanced where both employers and employees will have things in their lifestream demonstrating questionable behavior.
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