Category Archives: Social Media

Ruby Tuesday’s missed opportunity

August 5, 2010
Written by:
Stephen Emlund
Filed under:
My Life, Social Media
no comments

Recently I tweeted about Ruby Tuesday and expressed my dissatisfaction for the service I received. For a company this large not to have a presence on twitter is a missed opportunity. Companies large and small should be using search.twitter.com to crawl twitter for mentions about their business. When someone is dissatisfied about their product or service and tweets about it, they should respond via twitter reply or direct message.

Let’s see how easy it is find dissatisfaction with Ruby Tuesday on Twitter – I searched ‘Ruby Tuesday service’ at search.twitter.com and found a few tweets – here and here. Why can’t Ruby Tuesday be on twitter and reply to them about what they can do to make amends?

This isn’t too difficult to do.

Godaddy.com does it.

Vistaprint.com does it.

Starbucks does it.

Social Networking, Blogging and You (or your business)

July 20, 2010
Written by:
Stephen Emlund
Filed under:
Clients, Creative Improv, Social Media, Viral Advertising
no comments

Today I presented to a group of teachers at Truman State University about using social networking tools and blogging to grow support for gecko mathematics – a unique math curriculum that was translated into English from Korean. Last year Creative Improv, the design firm I run built a website, blog and social network profiles for gecko math – we called it ‘Publish the Gecko‘, because it is a campaign to get publishers interested in gecko mathematics. This Summer, a grad-level course was put together to show elementary level teachers how to use this curriculum. I was asked to speak about the marketing of the curriculum through social networks and blogging and show the teachers how they might share things about the curriculum with their educator friends.

I will have a video of my talk very soon, but for now here is just a bit of what I shared:

  • TV, newspapers and radio used to be the global platform – today that global platform is the Internet – a world wide web filled with social networks, websites and blogs.
  • This new global platform allows ANYONE who has good content, products or services to gain support for free. This is HUGE.
  • Blogs – a successful blog is one that encourages interaction among the community of people with the same interest
  • Facebook – a way for businesses or organizations to reach their target audience on a personal level. It puts a face on an otherwise faceless corporation. If you have a business, you should have a facebook fan page and talk to your fans often and encourage feedback
  • Twitter – basically the SMS of the Internet – a quick way to share short messages. Retweeting or forwarding messages has huge endorsement power, because you are saying this person or business is worth paying attention to.
  • Retweeting has the power to make something go ‘viral’
  • All these online tools are a way to interact with a community of people online that have the same interests as you – whether it is someone else who shares your love for the Smurfs or someone who might be interested in your business, product or service. Dude, smurf it up!
  • Today, blogs, social networks and websites have provided the opportunity for anyone to pursue what you love – for more on this idea watch the following video (try to ignore the language)

Samsung Acclaim – my new phone

July 10, 2010
Written by:
Stephen Emlund
Filed under:
My Life, Photography, Social Media, Usability
4 comments

It’s no iPhone, but it’s still pretty awesome. Of course, my last phone was a flip phone with absolutely no internet access.

This is the first phone US Cellular is selling that has Google’s new Android OS. Being from Google, it integrates really well with any of your google accounts – gmail, youtube, voice, talk, etc.

The sheer awesomeness of the various apps is keeping me pretty intrigued! A few of my favorite apps -

  • The obvious – facebook, twidroid (twitter), email, youtube
  • Voice Search – simply say a search term and it searches google for what you said.
  • Your Navigator Deluxe – get directions, maps, traffic updates. You can say the city you are traveling to and it gets directions
  • CityID – find out where that unknown caller is calling from.
  • Air Horn – plays various loud air horns – perfect for when your coworker comes in to your office and farts (as happens to me daily)
  • Google Goggles – take a picture of anything and it searches google for it.
  • Google Sky Map – aim phone at the sky to identify, search and find various planets, constellations and stars!
  • Pandora - stream music as you can on pandora.com
  • WordPress – post to your blog
  • gStrings – tune any musical instrument
  • Solo lite – find guitar chords, and play an interactive guitar from your phone
  • Barcode Scanner – aim at any barcode and google search that item – whether it is to learn more about it or to compare prices online
  • Of course the phone also takes photos and video with a 3.2 MP camera. I can even post pictures/videos straight to this blog or facebook/twitter/etc

And now for a few photos:

Left: one of three home screens. Right: full list of all apps, available from the bottom slider arrow (seen on the left photo)

Has a full QUERTY keyboard along with a 3.2 inch screen

Left: Solo lite app that allows you to find guitar chords and play them on the interactive guitar

February 20, 2010
Written by:
Stephen Emlund
Filed under:
Social Media, Viral Advertising
no comments

As a business, using social media is ‘…about having a direct dialog’ with your audience.

Why businesses and schools need Facebook & Twitter

February 19, 2010
Written by:
Stephen Emlund
Filed under:
Social Media, Viral Advertising
no comments

Businesses who have an Internet presence (which should be every one of them or they are REALLY missing out) need to keep up with changes in the social media landscape and engage their audience where their audience spends most their time – Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Why should businesses be active in social media? So that when I tweet about how I’m upset with GoDaddy’s service, someone from the office of the president will call me and ask how they can help. YES, this actually happened to me, and it happened two years ago, before anyone really understood twitter. Or when I make a lame joke about OvernightPrints.com not shipping ‘overnight’ they will reply via twitter and ask my order number to check into it. Yes, that happened too.

What about universities? They need Facebook and Twitter to reach out to prospective students. When a high school student tweets about looking for an osteopathic school, some school like A.T. Still University could be using Tweetdeck to track the search term ‘medical school’ and reply to those students with info about their school.

And now for my shameless plug. Do you run a business and need a website or social media plan? Check out CreativeImprov.com