Posts Tagged ‘social media’

What better way to appreciate the creativity and energy of Emerson College than to engage with its students, faculty, and alumni online? That was the driving concept behind Emerson College’s new web presence, which made its debut this past month.

Virtually every page of Emerson’s new website includes related videos and links to the College’s Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, and ProArts Connect portals. Visitors can participate in the community within those sections and also by reading and commenting on the numerous blogs throughout the website. More from the team behind the work…

Andy, VP for Communications and Marketing says: “As the only college in America focused exclusively on communication and the arts, our goal was to highlight the community’s creative vision and outgoing personality by showcasing the work of Emerson’s students, faculty, and alumni.”

Marta, Web Content Developer says: “While the most critical function for any college’s website is to provide information, we also wanted to create ways for our visitors to participate in conversations, hear directly from Emersonians, and as much as possible, experience Emerson live.”

Erika, Senior Producer says: “Emerson College has many talented students and providing them with a means to showcase their work in a fun an innovative way, Emerson Live, was very rewarding.”

Dan, Developer says: “I really enjoyed building the home page main feature area. It was especially fun collaborating with our design team to achieve the impact of a flash feature while using only javascript, HTML, and CSS.”

Special thanks to the Emerson communications team as well as Chris, Erika, Katherine, Kiu, Dan, Alex, Ryan, Alexander, James and Josh for bringing the site to life. Nicely done.

New market research from comScore indicates that Facebook is ready to monetize its position at the center of the social media universe. In the first quarter of 2010, Facebook served more display ads than Yahoo or Microsoft earning itself a healthy 16% marketshare.

Now comScore didn’t include the extended content networks held by the two giants and the revenue generated by Facebook is not quite there yet but we predict digital marketers will see this news and add Facebook as a pillar of their digital media plan. We can’t wait to see what happen’s next…

Wall Street Journal: Facebook Makes gains in Web Ads
Social Media Today: Facebook is Now the Leading Publisher of Web Display Ads

This Monday Twitter fixed a pretty terrible bug that allowed people to force you to follow them. By simply tweeting “accept nytimes” the New York Times would be added as your follower. After the bug was resolved, for a brief moment everyone’s follower count went to zero. It made celebrities think Twitter had been hacked and digital marketer’s all over feel like they were having a heart attack. But rest easy everyone, you’re followers are back. Can you believe how far Twitter has come to get this reaction? We can.

Read More: Zero Followers? Twitter Fixes ‘Force Follow’ Bug

Health information is abundant on the web and we can only imagine this is for the better. Not only can you research the medication your doctor prescribed but you can chat about it with others who share your condition.

Recently Pew Research Center posted a finding that adults in the U.S. living with chronic disease are more likely to participate in online discussion but much less likely to actually have internet access. In fact, 81% do not have the ability to easily go online…

U.S. adults living with chronic disease are significantly less likely than healthy adults to have access to the internet (62% vs. 81%). The internet access gap creates an online health information gap. However, lack of internet access, not lack of interest in the topic, is the primary reason for the difference. Once online, having a chronic disease increases the probability that someone will take advantage of social media to share what they know and learn from their peers.

When other demographic factors are held constant, having a chronic disease significantly increases an internet user’s likelihood to say they work on a blog or contribute to an online discussion, a listserv, or other online group forum that helps people with personal issues or health problems.

Read the full article: Chronic Disease and the Internet

We’re always interested in understanding audiences and their motivations online. When thinking about your clients and customers it’s important to consider not only their desires in engaging with you but the barriers that might stand in their way.

The first step in any social media campaign starts with Facebook. With 350 million users they are undoubtedly the king of social media. But once you’ve got a Facebook Page, what do you do with it?

Know Your Audience
You want Facebook fans, sure but quality always wins over quantity. Be specific about who is reading, and tailor your writing to their needs.

Think Entertainment, Not Speech
Think of Facebook as your moment at the mic. Envision your audience in the room with you. How would keep their attention?

Relax and Roll Up Your Sleeves
While your team always conveys a sense of professionalism, the Facebook platform is very informal. So leave the suit in the closet, and think business-casual.

May Seem Obvious but… Be Social
Too often, we see posts that mimic a press release and end there. That’s like sitting in a bar with a friend who does all the talking. At the end of each announcement, ask a question.

Start Learning
Every organization is different, and how you should approach social spaces will reflect your needs and aspirations. There are no cookie-cutter solutions, so start the learning process and see what works for you.

We hope these tidbits help. To get your social questions answered, or for a more comprehensive social media campaign, we’re always here.

According to a research study performed by the Pew Internet and American Life Project:

Some 19% of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This represents a significant increase over previous surveys in December 2008 and April 2009, when 11% of internet users said they use a status-update service.

The median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has remained stable over the past year. The median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May 2008, and the median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40. Facebook, however, is graying a bit: the median age for this social network site is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.

Read more at: Twitter and Status Updating

There are leaders, and there are followers — and in the world of Twitter, there’s no shame in being the latter. Different people use Twitter in different ways, and for some, the joy isn’t so much in the speaking (”tweeting”) as the listening.

Some vocal folks who we (and lots of other people) follow:

• Pete Cashmore (@mashable) knows what’s going on in social media and often knows what’s about to go on, too
• Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) posts frequently, not only on his own book publishing company, but on the state of publishing, software, the open source movement, and “Government 2.0″
• Guardian Tech (@guardiantech): the UK newspaper’s take on tech, and its impact on culture, is broad and usually interesting, ranging from hospital equipment to comics as well as computers and the Internet

Who do you follow? We’re @digitalpulpinc.