Month: September 2011

The rise and rise of Sina Weibo

If you want get an idea of which major brands are doing what in China with Sina Weibo, the front-runner in microblogging in that country,  AdAge.com has a compelling feature that highlights what Starbucks and many other consumer brands are doing in tapping into China’s online culture and connecting with people on their terms: […] Starbucks is the "clear leader," [digital marketing consultant Eugene Chew] said. "They were one of the first to go into location-based [marketing], one of the…

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Mayo Clinic sets a high bar with social media

Using social media in highly-regulated industries such as healthcare is fraught with hurdles and pitfalls for the unwary communicator, especially where it involves engagement with patients. In an industry that still has no official guidance on how to use social media in major countries, it’s little wonder that mistakes can happen and FUD takes centre stage. Still, there are a number of bright spots in the healthcare industry, dominated by individuals in organizations who have simply zeroed in with a…

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It’s time to experiment

Recently I visited PeerIndex at their office in the TechHub in east London (aka Silicon Roundabout). They wanted to interview me as part of their video interview series, to talk about digital, social media, public relations and more. That interview has just been published. (If you don’t see the video embedded above, view it on YouTube.) It runs just under four minutes and I offer some opinions and views on these topics they asked me about: Why did people begin…

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Social trajectories and the ones that matter

This chart showing the share of time spent online by US social networkers is interesting in that Facebook’s usage-growth trajectory is consistent over quite a long period, three years or so. The overall picture suggests that there are only two dominant players that matter – Google and Facebook. AOL looks in terminal decline with Microsoft not looking much better. The surprise could be Yahoo which is still up there just behind Google Sites (I’m not entirely sure what “Google Sites”…

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The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #618: September 26, 2011

Content summary: Some immediate changes to format as a result of feedback from the listener survey: topic links as Delicious bookmarks, News That Fits up front and listener comments moved back; Ragan promo; News That Fits: discussion on Facebook changes and implications for communicators including listeners’ opinions; Dan York’s report also on Facebook with a focus on the OpenGraphAPI and control of our data; listener comments and discussion; a teaser of the results from the FIR Listener Survey 2011 and…

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