In the current Cellphone War, Verizon has dropped the atomic bomb of marketing on rival AT&T. Marketing wars are fought with lots of words, but wars are won when you combine your words with a visual. Verizon has done just that.

In old media news: After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday’s Web Site. In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Those of us with half a brain assumed from the start that no one would pay for a product that they can get for free elsewhere. Easy lesson to the wise…hard lesson to the not-so-wise at Newsday…

Facebook Pages present a massive opportunity for brands to directly engage with their existing and future customers, even the occasional passer-by. This conversation brings with it the power that all other social media tools and platforms provide which is why this latest release of Facebook Pages is so important for brands. Yes, changes will come to the Pages product over the coming months and years but as many early adopters know, it’s often best to wait until the second version of a product arrives. Now that the second version of Facebook Pages has launched, it’s time for you to take your brand to the next level.

While small businesses have a huge opportunity to take advantage of the Facebook advertising platform, many large brands are interested in growing their presence on the world’s largest social platform. For those companies there are many opportunities and the challenge is not determining whether or not to be on Facebook but what the best approach is. In this article I’ll outline each of the campaign types, as well as some of the pros and cons of each type.

Social media has a loyal tribe of disciples. We follow each other on Twitter, connect on Facebook, read each other’s blogs and listen to each other at conferences. We provide each other moral support and though we are a minority, we have religion and we are here to change the world (I’m not joking). Most importantly, we share stories. These stories are all about finding common ground and building a defensible position on the what/why/how of our new orthodoxy; what is “social”, why you need it, how it actually works and how you measure it. In this giant food-mill of collective meaning making we are defining the significance of new terms and putting our arguments to the test. Like any self-interested group however, we easily slip into dogmas that serve our purposes but may not serve our clients. Lately I have become increasingly aware of the oversimplified answers that social media consultants apply, often regardless of business context.

It’s a new year and a new decade, no less.  I always look forward to the new year as a clean slate and a fresh start!  So, seize the opportunity to begin again and be happy in it!
Our Kung-Fu is strong–or so says the headline of our team blog home page.  Being the most mature [...]

Business case study writers, start your engines! Dominos Pizza (DPZ) is embarking on an advertising experiment that will make or break the idea that brands should be honest about their failings. You’ve probably seen the company’s TV commercials for its “revamped” new recipe pizza. But have you seen the longer video (see below), in which executives and customers describe Dominos old pizza as “cardboard” and “the worst excuse for pizza I’ve ever had”?

Everybody knows the rule. When you do something wrong, you say you are sorry. As a society we love to scold but we also love to forgive. But how, when and why you say you are sorry also matters. Say it when you don’t have to and you create guilt where it may not have existed before. Domino’s goes out of its way to portray its guilt and lack of action for decades. And in the process mocks the stupidity of its customer base.

It looks like this was the Christmas that social media overtook the traditional web. The main Google page has been ranked the most visited site on a daily basis for U.S. Internet users. That statement has held true for 364 days of 2009. Google’s dominance of “all category” visits was disrupted when Facebook visits surged on Christmas Day. Facebook was able, albeit by a slighter margin, to recapture the #1 position on Friday, New Year’s Day.