Statuzer, a new interesting Twitter client

Published by thien avril 10th, 2009 in Non classé. 2 Comments

Maybe I’m a little bit oldschool, because I still update my Twitter status via my web browser whereas everybody seems to enjoy using tools like Tweetdeck, Twitterfeed, Twirl etc. I’m sure that’s very useful, but it’s not yet in my habits. Maybe I’d rather  try. But I tried! Let’s try harder! By the way, if you want to know the 20 Most Used Twitter Clients, here is the list (source).

20-most-used-twitter-clientsThis morning, a friend of mine (@textoo) tweeted about a new Twitter client that he developped, called Statuzer. As it’s birthday and he asked his followers to test his new baby, I did it. And I have to say that it’s pretty cool. It offers a list of interesting functionalities as :

  • Customizable interface
  • Play directly songs from song.ly & tra.kz
  • Music search with Jamendo
  • Display directly images from Twitpic
  • Display slide shows from Youtube
  • Twitter Trends
  • Contacts Groups management
  • Hashtag use
  • Twitter Search integration
  • Notifications
  • URLs previsualization
  • Images/webcam uploads (+transfert to the photo profile)
  • Multi-accounts
  • Search filters
  • MinUrl & TinyUrl converted use

…

if you want to try Statuzer, you can download it here.

Take a look on mine.
statuzer

Can we oblige our customers to use social media?

Published by thien mars 31st, 2009 in Reflexions and Social Media. 0 Comments

Leading some interviews last week with my new customer in order to know him better, I realized that if most of employees use Facebook, it’s mainly in a private capacity. They have no blog, no twitter account, no time, no interest for social media and yet they need to communicate to be recognized as the leaders of their field. It’s not really easy to sensitize scientists to social media. Firstly because I need to explain them precisely what it is and how it can really be helpful for them.

I think it’s hard to make people mix personal and professional content in tools they chose to use consciously. We can’t lay down rules just because it’s written in the strategy.

I have to admit that myself, I hate the fact of being obliged to tweet something or post a link just because I have to do it.

For me, a brand who communicates on social network only as a brand neglecting the voice of his employees loses some value added in its reasoning.

Maybe I’m wrong.

I’m just wondering how I will convince these scientists to tweet or to use filters in Facebook (they discovered recently that they could use “Friends List” to separate different group of people) to extend its use.

Of course, I’m aware of the fact that a twitter account of a facebook group may optimize their SEO, but maybe it’s also my role of being the best story-teller so that they have fewer constrains.

Become better listeners

Published by thien mars 3rd, 2009 in Management. 0 Comments

I totally love this presentation made by Mat Zucker (Agency.com) and Bryan Fuhr (AKQA) for Miami Ad School. They explain to us how important it is to be great listeners. As we all could have noticed, it’s not so easy, especially when you have to listen carefully all the protagonists who orbit around your work environment : your boss, your colleagues, your customers, even so all the persons who can improve your skills and understanding of your business. I like the postulate of slide 42 : “You don’t need to speak Flash, But you need to speak technology”

Listening for better Communicating

Women! Where are you?

Published by thien février 18th, 2009 in Reflexions. 0 Comments

wecandoitposter

I read loads of blogs. Everyday in my bloglines, thousand of posts make eyes of me. I scan them quickly and pick up the information which interest me. Twitter became also a great source of information. People share links, articles, often great posts. Yesterday, Michelle Blanc, a famous french-speaking expert in online marketing shared a post about the blogosphere who becomes more open to women. In this post we learn that blogosphere is divided into 3 parts : blogs written by men, blogs written by women and mixed blogs. If I try to interpret what it is said :

  • Men are geek
  • Women speak about “girly subjects” (fashion, sewing, cooking…)
  • Some blogs come from Venus, others from Mars (Doesn’t it sound familiar?)

And the author adds :

Et on se doute bien que le mec ne va jamais lire ou s’abonner à un blog de fille et vice-versa.

Understand : we may guess that a guy will never read or subscribe to a blog written by a woman and vice versa.

In my opinion it’s less a question of gender than of interest. All that is simply logical and mathematical.  I’m a girl but I read more men’s blog because subjects I like are handled by them : hi-tech, social media, web 2.0, music etc.  Men can talk about beauty cream and women about cars. It’s just that dispersion is not the same.

We discover, from a classification made by Twingly that the first blog of the  top 100 of most popular blogs written in french is hold by a girl, Ma vie est tout à fait fascinante, a comic-blog drawn by Penelope-Jolicoeur. The first geek-woman only appear at the 43rd position, it’s Michelle Blanc. I’ve read her blog for a long time now and this is a really good one! Even if  in this classification, half of blogs is female, I want to know where women really are. I don’t talk about quantity, but representiveness. I think that men are actually predominant when it deals with web 2.0, politics, hi-tech… Are women more shy? Fortunaly, in my RSS feeds, I read wonderful women’s blog as Michelle Blanc, Maria Reyes-McDavis, Shegeeks etc. But not enough in my liking. And you? Do you read a lot of women’s blogs? Do you have some to recommand me? Are they representativ of blogosphere?

Word of mouth can also be bad for you

Published by thien février 16th, 2009 in Buzz marketing. 2 Comments

cell-experience
This week-end, with some friends, we had a conversation which drove us little by little to the concept of word of mouth. We spoke first about movies, and we finally come to buzz marketing. When we talk about word of mouth,  we came to the conclusion that it’s not simply the fact of talking about something but something more,  recommending a product, someone, or an experience. Because this two actions are very different. For example, I can say : I saw the movie He’s just not that into you yesterday and it was not bad as I expected. Or… Yes Man is a really good movie, you have to see it! This two affirmations can engender two different actions for the person I’m talking to. The power of word of mouth has the ability of encouraging someone to do something. Simple conversation vs recommendation. Inaction vs action. Then, we talk about a French viral marketing campaign called The Cell Experience. Have you heard about that? A man is locked in a cell during 5 days and the more people connect on the website, the more he experiences stupid things. If he holds on until the end, he wins 5000 euros. I don’t really know why people have so much passion for this, except to face human stupidity. Is it voyeurism? Is it a good campaign?  Which link with the advertiser who is a content provider for mobiles (Zaoza)?
Hum. Let me depict you the situation.
1000 visits > They put heavy metal in the cell during 2 hours
5000 visits > Two beautiful girls come to wax him
22 000 visits> A man who ate chili during 4 days shares the cell with him
30 000 visits > We make him eat foul courses
45 000 visits > a goat enters in the cell
60 000 visits > a bear attacks him
70 000 visits > he has to wear a sumo wrestling costume all day
80 000 visits > he has to cycle 10 km
90 000 visits > food battle with sexy girls
100 000 visits > we cut him an arm

Is it the kind of campaign we need to make people speak about you? Yes, saturday we spoke about that but we thought it was completely stupid. This morning, I watched an interview of the man, the guinea pig. He told us that he accepted to do that to do somebody a favour. Some days ago, he still worked at mac donald but he couldn’ t refuse the proposition ’cause he was practically obliged to do this. I have no sympathy for the man, nor for the campaign or for the brand. Of course, this is called as “viral marketing campaign”. But according to how you receive it, it can service or deserve your image. It’s a great example of how people can talk about you but not necessarily positively. Buzz yes. Word of mouth? Yes if we consider that word of mouth can spread bad opinions. Moreover, when the speaker asked him if he was afraid of seeing his arm cut, he answered “we know that they won’t reach 100 000 visitors”. In his place, I wouldn’t be so sure…
Fake or not, I’m not really convinced.

12for12k Challenge, use Social Media for Good

Published by thien février 9th, 2009 in Social Media and Video. 2 Comments

Social media belongs to my job. Everyday, I help companies to improve their online communication,  optimize their visibility, manage their digital identity. I recommend them to have a twitter account, to be present on Facebook, to engage conversations with their customers on a blog and so on, after defining a specific strategy. We use the tonne of informations we gulp down from our rss feeds to advise them the best thing to do.  I do the same. I need to look after my image, online and offline, bothline as Laurent said. But when comes the evening, I ask myself, if I made something to make the world change. Some experiences showed us that social media can be used to help people in a good way. Not only companies. For instance, Social Media for Social Change raised over $20 000 last October during a charity event for Jane Doe Inc., a Boston non-profit dedicated to ending domestic violence and sexual assault. In a other context, David Armano used his network and raised $9000 in few hours to help a family in need (we can see that he raised over $16 000 for now).

12for12kThat’s why, when I read that Danny Brown launched a charity project called 12for12k challenge, I wanted to know more about this. The topic is simple : combining social media and fund-raising to change the lives of millions worldwide. 12 months //12 charities // 1200 people // $10 per person // $12,000 per charity. Isn’t it a great idea? I would like to see more initiatives like this. Aren’t we story tellers. So why wouldn’t we write stories which depict a better world?

If you want to understand better the project, take a look to this promo video :

bloxxID, a new social network

Published by thien février 6th, 2009 in Services and Social Media. 0 Comments

bloxxid
My company launch today a social network “new generation”. I know what you think! What does it mean?  I will explain a little bit further. For the moment, we release a private beta test open to 500 persons. Some conditions are required:

  • the test must be done on firefox
  • you must belong to a french firm

The service : a social network.  Its name : bloxxID. The targets : people who want to acquire business contacts, related to their economic affinities and who want to optimize their online visibility. Why did I use the word new generation? ‘Cause the service  has been built with an innovative concept.

One interface, several uses :

  • Find business contacts
  • Create your website (s)
  • Create your blog (s)

After the subscription, you will define your ecosystem (s) : activity //  product (s) // typology of people you want to work with.

The service works with an algorithm which has been specifically developed. Once you defined the required specifications, the service propose you some pertinent contacts. You choose those one you want to insert in your network. The reason why this service is only dedicated to french firms is that because you have to provide during the subscription some administrative data relative to our legislation (code naf, n° siret). We certainly internationalize that for the future.

We hope that this interface will help what we call in France TPE/PME (small companies) , but also big companies. We wanted to make a simple and intuitive interface. You may find this too simple if you are a “web 2.0 expert”. But we really want to talk to novices.

I’m really impatient to get some feedbacks from the first beta testers.

Wait & see.

Hulu! Hu!

Published by thien février 5th, 2009 in Video and ads. 0 Comments

I really love this Hulu’s Superbowl commercial! Isn’t Alec Baldwin persuasing? :)

Trust or fear?

Published by thien février 4th, 2009 in Social Media. 2 Comments

On David Armano’s blog, I discovered his Profesionnal Prism of Trust.

prism

Ironical and interesting. Personally I don’t trust neither doctors, nor bankers. Social Media is what I know the best in this diagram, so it’s less hard for me to understand the ins and the outs of this. We trust what we experience. I can imagine that if your company is sick, you won’t turn to a social media expert first, even if now it wouldn’t surprise me. Social media is a part of a global strategy, not a magic formula nor a  scientifically proved theory. I can clearly understand why people can be reluctant or afraid of using this kind of tools.

  • It’s hard to measure very precisely the results
  • social media:  conversation + speed= very quick spread. Your reputation can be undone in a snap
  • when you hear all the social media experts, they advocate transparency. But how being completely transparent without making mistakes?

Etc.

By the way, you can find in an article of socialmediatoday.com 15 reasons why companies may fear social media.

Obviously, you can’t trust someone (the social media expert) who can’t assure you that he controls completly what is said on you/your image/ your reputation. We can only anticipate the worst (or the best) scenario, but not write it.

Stop being a celebrity but a human being on social media

Published by thien février 3rd, 2009 in Twitter. 0 Comments

demi_moore
Well. I’ve just read a very interesting post on Sarah Tampa’s blog, Twitter goes Hollywood. I’d like to begin with her conclusion : “Stars, they’re just like us”. Indeed! Why wouldn’t they? Actors, Singers, politicians.  Having a blog, a profile on facebook even a twitter account. Why not? They’re human, hu!  But most of the time, admit that our first reaction is to think :

  • oh they’re not real but it’s  a fake. Especially when you find 3 Britney Spears or 5  different Nicolas Sarkozy.
  • they don’t take care of this themselves. Oh yeah, even online you can have a ghostwriter.  Or better, your webmarketing manager tweet in your place. What a class!

Seriously, we think that they don’t have time or no interest to use social media, unless to promote themselves or claim an opinion (eg. politician).  I lump together celebrities and politicians ’cause they seem to me both unapproachable. More and more often I hear people say, when a politician begins to follow them, is he the real one? Why does is follow me. It’s suspicious. Legitimate reaction.  Politics is not really my hobby, so no politician will follow me. That’s why I ask to Laurent François who is more politically involved. And he told me : I don’t believe in this anymore. There were many fakes, between those who don’t answer me or the others who deceive me. Only local representatives seem to be more real. It’s all what I thought. People are cynical about speaking with “celebrities” on social media.

There’s something unreal or more, hypocritical in their approach. In my opinion, we face up to a lack of authenticity. We feel we’re getting ripped off. That’s a shame. They’d like to use social media differently from traditional media but they actually don’t change anything. Social media are such a great conversational interfaces but they waste all the advantages they can provide them, staying in a logic of people who doesn’t really understand what social media are.

They are humans but lack humanity. They don’t use twitter or facebook because it’s a very cool way to discuss with people, but because it’s hype, or ’cause it’s a great marketing argument. FAIL! They can’t say that they try to understand us without really discussing with us!

I suppose that real celebrities have something to protect. Especially their privacy. Imagine that stars will tweet what they do. Who will be interested in gossips and reading tabloids anymore :) Imagine the script. I guess if I would be a star I would have a protected my twitter if I use it as a person and not as a celebrity.

Nice to find a guy who seems to be the real Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. Even his girlfriend Demi Moore who is totally converted. Of course they have less followers than Kevin Rose, of course, they need advices to be a profesionnal of Twitter. But they’re so engaging! I think I prefer this kind of genuineness.


About

Webmarketing manager in Paris. Addicted to social media & all what build this amazing conversational web. So many things to learn and discuss. Let’s do it together!

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