A few months ago I came across an interesting site that takes RSS feeds and creates tag clouds (a map where the words used most appear larger) from the content it finds. I want to share how I've been using this service as a competitive advantage.

When you read a blog, even if you read it consistently over time, it is hard to see trends emerge. This tool makes it very clear what has a person's attention. Take a look at the following examples with blogs I read often and see if the cloud matches your perception of what you think they write.

Techno//Marketer:
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My del.icio.us feed:
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Conversation Agent:
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Logic+Emotion:
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Louis Gray:
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Web Strategist:
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Seth Godin:
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I hope this adds a new option to your toolkit and helps you to see things differently.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, tags, Techno//Marketer, trends, Visualization, Wordle

Recently, a couple of product launches have caught my attention and I noticed them (100%) because of social media. I saw them on blogs, through my feeds, in Twitter messages and on Facebook. I did NOT see them on TV, in a newspaper/magazine/billboard or even on a traditional website. A year ago, that may not have been the case.

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Product: Tiger Woods '09
Two videos have caught my eye. The first, Tiger walks on water, is a very cool example of a brand listening and responding using their assets. This could have passed Tiger by, but it turned out brilliantly. The second video is just odd enough to be passed along.

Interestingly, if you search "Tiger Woods 09" on Google, the walking on water video is the number 2 result.

Tiger walks on water

Tiger square peg, round hole

*Note EA Sports is a Fleishman-Hillard client

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Product: Nikon D90
I am an avid Nikon user and I am a huge brand advocate (you're generally either a Canon or Nikon person in photography). I had not heard about their newest digital SLR, the D90, until I came across a video by commercial photographer Chase Jarvis. Chase caught my attention last year with a very cool presentation to NYC's Photoshelter. He creates awesome videos that apply at all levels of skill level.

For the D90, Nikon asked Chase's team to evaluate the camera in a professional environment and they documented their experience. This, to me, gives the product instant credibility (I trust he would not BS me) and makes me interested. (Though I am really looking at their D300.) Nonetheless, I saw it on a blog which drove me to the product site which prompted me to write this post. Here is the clip. I love the espionage aspect and the fact that they turned this into content. Nikon uses the video on their D90 microsite as well as a dedicated site at www.chasejarvisandfriends.com

Marketing Takeaways:
Are you listening to what your top customers are saying online? Are you agile enough to respond without weeks of legal review? Are you engaging your evangelists to create real, pure branded content?

If you are I think you're in the minority of companies out there who get it. If you are not, what can you do today to make steps toward this? Maybe its listening, maybe its having lunch with an advocate. Doing nothing is the worst thing anyone can do.

Technorati Tags:
branding, Matt Dickman, micromedia, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer

When I took part in the first Age of Conversation project I never could have expected how rewarding it would be. To have contributed to a book with 100 other authors was great, but to have raised money for a great cause was amazing.

This year's book is destined to be even more spectacular. 275 authors are taking part in this new conversation, "why don't people get it?". Personally I wrote about the evolution of business models in the new digital economy. I can't wait to read the rest of the author's views.

Check out the amazing list of authors below:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost,   Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

Technorati Tags:
marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, ageofconversation

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Location awareness has a lot of potential to tie the gap between digital and the physical world. The iPhone's integrated GPS clearly hints to the future of mobile social networking. Fire Eagle (a Yahoo product) aims to make updating your location easy.

The service is very simple and has only one true function. Tell the world where you are. Once you tell Fire Eagle where your location is, they allow third parties to tap in and use that same data. This way you don't have to update your location on 4-5 different sites, it is done automatically.

Key Takeaways:

• Social utilities, like Fire Eagle, are going to make network convergence a reality
  
• The privacy settings that Fire Eagle uses are robust and should allay most fears of intrusion
  
• The open API they are providing developers has picked up the adoption rate and made some major players take notice
  
• Competition from Google/Apple/etc. will be quick to come about
  

As always, I want to know what is on your mind. If there is a video you would like to see me do just email me or leave a comment on the post.

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If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your preferred video channel:

Technorati Tags:
location, Matt Dickman, mobile, social media, Techno//Marketer, widgets, Yahoo, geolocation

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As a marketer and blogger, there is no shortage of noise about Facebook as a marketing platform. One of my struggles has been to decipher what is accurate and what is mis-guided hyperbole.

I took it upon myself to get some answers using Facebook's own ad targeting system and I created this abridged eBook for marketers to give you a snapshot of what the real face of Facebook looks like on a Global and US level.

Click either of the links below to download this 25 page eBook for free:

High-resolution eBook (3.1 Mb) | Low-resolution eBook (944 Kb) Picture 15.png

The eBook answers the following questions:

• What does the global population look like on Facebook?
  
• What percentage of the 90 million users are outside the US?
  
• Which countries have the highest percentage of their total citizens on Facebook?
  
• What is the age/gender breakdown of the US Facebook population?
  
• How many members are over the age of 25/30/40?
  
• What options can I use to reach my audience?
  
• How targeted can I get in order to avoid waste?
  
• How much is it going to cost to reach them?
  

A couple of interesting points that struck me:

• 25.33% of Canadians are on Facebook compared with 9.47% of Americans and 0.01% of people in China
  
• The US has the highest number of users on Facebook at nearly one third of the total user base
  
• There are more women than men in every US age category
  
• 84.07% of US Facebook users are under 30 years of age
  
• There is a distinct "long-tail" pattern when you look at the adoption levels of countries
  

This is a report that I will be updating on a monthly basis to show how the population is changing and how marketers can respond. Is there anything else that you want to see?

UPDATE: Jeremiah Owyang has a great post today on new "engagement ads" from Facebook. Will definitely keep you posted as these roll out into beta.

Technorati Tags: advertising, Facebook, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, trends, Face of Facebook

In the four plus years that I have been writing this blog, I have used stock templates for the basic look and feel. I am planning to change that very shortly and I wanted to give you a peak at the new logo. This is an exercise in branding and will allow me to do some much needed re-organization to the structure of the blog.

This is LONG overdue. Let me know what you think!

UPDATE: I forgot to give props in the original post to Luke Armour who helped me get this thing done. I went ahead and rolled out the new design tonight. More updates soon.

Technorati Tags:
design, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer

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Online etiquette is a fine line. Etiquette in social media is an even finer line still. I've noticed a particularly annoying trend emerge over the past couple of months and I wanted to bring it up to get it out there and get your take on it. It's thank you spam.

I am seeing thank you spam more and more as people connect with me in social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Here's how it plays out on Twitter.

1. A person follows you on the service and that sends you an email
   
2. You click on the email and go to their Twitter profile page
   
3. After vetting the person to your satisfaction you follow them back
   
4. Shortly thereafter you receive a direct message from that person with a greeting and link to their site
   
5. This direct message lands in your email and SMS (depending on how you set it up)
   
6. You are summarily annoyed
   

The reason it is annoying is that I am not asking for the pushy marketing message. I checked their profile, clicked through to their link and followed them. I don't mind people sending direct messages saying hello (though a short reply would suffice and not hit me visa SMS or email), I think it's quite nice. However, the push to a link turns it from a conversation to a sales pitch. This same type of pitch happens to me on Facebook and LinkedIn too. Those people are quickly blocked and/or decoupled.

I try to interact with people online as I would with you in person. The real life example of this type of introduction is when you go to an event, meet someone and they are immediately telling you all about themselves (usually while looking around for the next victim), not listening to a word you are saying.

Just so you can see what I am talking about, take a look at the following direct messages that I've received over the last month+. The images and names have been obscured to protect the individuals. (They know who they are.) Keep in mind, this is the very first contact that I am having with these people on Twitter.

What are your thoughts on this? Am I off base? What are your Twitter/social media etiquette tips?

UPDATE: Loic Lemeur is also seeing this trend.

Technorati Tags:
Facebook, Matt Dickman, micromedia, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, Twitter, thank you spam, LinkedIn

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If you are familiar with project management theory, you know the " project management triangle". The triangle (see the diagram at the right) theory states that on the there are three forces in the outcome of a project and that they are dependent upon one another.

Those forces are Quality, Cost and Time. The theory states that you can have any combination of two of the forces in your favor, but the third will suffer. For example, you can have a project that is high quality with fast delivery, but you will pay higher costs for it. Similarly, you can have a project that delivers quickly at a low cost, but the quality will suffer.

I found this to be a great analogy for blogging (and others spending their free time in the social media space) as I work to pick up my level of posting here. So here is what life looks like when it is in balance. Note that work, personal life and the blog are in harmony. This is the ideal state to get to, but is extremely challenging to achieve. If you don't blog, this could represent your online activity on social networks or on Twitter, etc.

I try to maintain the time I dedicate to my family, so the next two diagrams only have two variables that change, blog and work. For me, those two forces compete for attention and are difficult to balance.

When work starts pushing, the blog has to give a little. Late nights, travel and work volume all play a role in how balance is maintained. I usually blog early in the morning or between 10pm and 1am. When you're working long hours, however you don't feel like staying up later than you have to.

Conversely, when the blog takes priority, work has to push a little. Obviously I am not shirking anything at work to blog, but some days the time is easier to find than others.

This post came from my proactive goal setting to get back here and to blog more often and re-engage as much as possible. I can't tell you how much I value your readership and absolutely feel stressed when I know I should write a post, but I can't keep my eyes open any longer. I have not moved to Twitter (as others claim to have done to explain their decreasing blog volume) this blog still gives me the most value and I hope you feel the same way.

More posts coming soon. Thanks for reading!

Technorati Tags:
Matt Dickman, social media, Techno//Marketer, blogging, balance