Your Personal Social Newspaper

You read the heading correctly.   You can create your very own social newspaper based on what your friends post on Facebook!  How perfect is that – especially for those of us that are busy and sometimes miss what’s going on in our newsfeed!

The site is called PostPost.

It takes links, photos, and videos from your friends’ posts, and collates them onto a page.  From there you can move your content between sections, decrease/increase the social newspaper size, and funnel or block posts from certain sources.   The best comparison is that it’s like the Flipboard on the iPad – but accessible through your browser.  And what’s great about it… it’s free, and you only need to sign in to your Facebook account.

You can also check out paper.li – which does the same thing for Twitter.

Go ahead…check it out and have some fun!   Let me know what you think!

Airlines, Politicians: New Use for Twitter

Companies and individuals are continuing to get comfortable with Social Media.  Different industries are discovering ways they can utilize certain tools.  There definitely is not a cookie-cutter approach with your online communication strategy – just suggested guidelines.

Anyway, a recent Social Time article shared a new way airlines and politicians are using Twitter.  With the winter weather affecting so many people’s flight schedules, it’s a great tool to allow passengers to check if flights are on time/delayed or to share a complaint (which gets handled).  This is interesting to me, since my brother works in the airline industry.

Here’s the article:

Airlines

The good- Delta (@Delta), the twitter feed of this airline company is responsive to each customer’s complaint.  Passengers are asked to send in their flight number so that the flight can be checked to see if it has been delayed or canceled.  Delta offers apologies and to reassure passengers that the flights will be back in service as soon as possible that is if the news is bad for your flight.

The ok – JetBlue (@JetBlue), instead of using direct tweets as Delta has successfully done this past week, JetBlue has decided to use the direct mail service of twitter to help passengers whose flights may have been delayed or canceled.  While it may not be as quick as Delta, at least JetBlue is offering personal responses to each of its passengers.

The bad- Continental (@Continental), while attempting to be a participating company on twitter Continental unfortunately has dropped the ball.  Instead of answering concerned passengers tweets or even direct messaging passengers, Continental has chosen to answer tweets with a standard response of “Our Social Media team is unable to rebook or give info on individual flights. We know this isn’t what you want to hear.”  They are right, many passengers would prefer a personalized response like the other airline companies are offering during this blizzard.

Politicians

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was facing criticism for not responding fast enough to the winter storms that have descended on New York City in the past; the mayor’s office, in response to the complaints, set up a twitter feed, @311NYC.  This twitter feed allows New York City residence to post complaints, concerns, and questions.  While the program has been put to great use during the rest of the year, it is during the winter storms that 311NYC is most effective.  An example of its usefulness waswhen the mayor announced via twitter @311NYC that the parking meters will be turned off today due to snow removal.

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker has also used twitter effectively.  Instead of setting up a twitter feed to answer questions and to alert the community of issues, Mayor Booker has his own twitter feed.  Any resident of Newark just needs to send a tweet to @CoryBooker asking for assistance in clearing their driveway, and help is on its way.  The Mayor will either come by and help the resident himself or have a member of his constituency come by to offer assistance.  Mayor Booker is hoping that his hard work during the winter pays off for the rest of the year when residence find something to complain to the city about

How else could your industry use Twitter and Social Media tools?   AND, as a passenger…what other ways could airlines use social media to better serve you?

NEW FEATURE: Facebook & Twitter Integration App

The latest buzz in the social media world is the announcement from Twitter to launch major upgrades  to their Facebook & LinkedIn applications.  After Facebook & Twitter get some bugs worked out, you will be able to automatically follow your Facebook friends on Twitter.  The application will allow you to see which of your Facebook friends have a Twitter account, and then decide who to “follow.”

Also, last month Twitter vamped up it’s LinkedIn integration to give you the capability to do the same thing.

Check out the Mashable article about the new applications.

The new Twitter/Facebook application can be found at: http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/

Businesses: Pay Attention to “Sweetheart” Clues

The love-commercialized holiday is fast approaching.  Some call it Valentine’s Day, and other’s refer to it as Single Awareness Day.  Either way, we all can relate to receiving at least one box of those “Sweetheart Candies” every year (if not, I’ll send ya one, just email me :) ).  You know, those pastel sugar hearts with those mushy sayings: “Be Mine,”  “Be True,” “I love u,” “Kiss Me” …

Well, every business person should be paying close attention.  Because, as society & the way we communicate changes — so do those little heart messages.   Every year, some quirky messages are added, while others are retired.

For instance, in the early 90’s, NECCO added “Fax Me”… then it was “Call Me”…. and “Email Me.”   And those messages weren’t only for little Billy via little Susie…they were clues to businesses!  If a business back then wasn’t utilizing faxes, phones & emails, they probably got ‘dumped’ rather quickly.

NOW…guess what’s on this year’s Sweetheart candy?!  That’s right…a SOCIAL MEDIA phrase:

“Tweet Me”

A clue to any business that’s still on the fence about adopting social media.  “This is an indication of the new media yet to come,” stated Patricia Martin, cultural guru and author (USA Today).  Sweethearts definitely has and continues to keep the pulse on the heartbeat of the nation.

[Please check out the full article in the  USA TODAY (Bruce Horovitz): An eat-able, tweetable sweet treat.]

So pop open your box of Sweethearts, and start tweeting some sweet content…(okay, set up a strategic plan first if you’re a business).  :)

And consumers, if you notice that one of your favorite brands isn’t communicating with you through some sort of social network, send them a box (maybe tape or glue the “tweet me” heart to the outside, haha)!  ;-)

Here’s to a SUPER SWEET 2010!

**Interesting Fact:  The odds of picking a “Tweet Me” Sweetheart candy is about 1 in 80.  There are 79 other phrases in use this year!

Company TWEETS itself to $6.5 million in sales – What!?!

Ahh, the sound of birds chirping, all the way to the BANK!  Hope your company has a 2010 social media plan … and is open to employees “tweeting”  while they work…

Dell Tweets Itself $6.5 Million in Sales

(CMS Wire) Who says Twitter is a waste of time while you’re at work? At Dell, they aren’t saying this after the company said they earned US$ 6.5 million on sales of computers on Twitter. The US computer manufacturer uses Twitter to reach out to perspective customers by offering promotions and deals on computers, accessories, software and more.

As noted by Bloomberg, Dell’s number of followers on Twitter has risen 23% over the last quarter and now is hovering around 1.5 million followers. How does Dell do it? The company has around 100 employees sending out tweets across 35 different Twitter accounts, by business segments.

While the US$ 6.5 million is only a small fraction of the US$ 61.1 billion in overall sales last year, using Twitter to generate revenue in the millions is a step forward for social media marketing and shows the outreach potential of the “social web”.