"people keep asking about how to start a personal brand... without having a clear understanding of what comes before that, which is actually knowing something about something... To position yourself as an expert is difficult, but most people aren’t asking the first important question, which is: expert in what? ... You have to earn the privilege…

"Starbucks’ first-ever brand campaign, Meet Me at Starbucks ... showcases stories of how people use Starbucks as a meeting point, with an emphasis on the idea that technology brings us together, but there’s nothing quite as authentic as an in-person cup of joe. ... an incredible job of striking an emotional connection with people by associating t…

"reach is an easy-to-see vanity metric and not what you should be focusing on.... Facebook Insights provides some handy numbers, but the most useful ones are somewhat hidden." - 6 tips on Facebook analytics and going beyond...

"Considering these difficulties it is, at best, disingenuous and at worst, fraudulent to claim that findings of such social media analyses are what “people think” " - Representation and the true value of social media data in an election | Gareth Ham | LinkedIn

"Rather than publishing and aggregating news on a central site, the idea is to take the information to existing communities on the web — distributed journalism... The specific focus is on providing context around breaking stories ... the number of sources and reporters on the story grew quickly over a number of days. That created challenges in se…

"Here’s a brief summary of a few questions we like to ask ourselves when testing. - Which one thing will you be testing? - What metric will be my best measurement of success? - Do I have enough data to assume this result will be true and repeatable for everyone?" Provides 10 top tests for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and G+.

Begins with a beautiful rant on technology's tyranny in individual and collective life: "Journalistic institutions slowly transform themselves into silent sweatshops in which words cannot wait for thoughts, and first responses are promoted into best responses, and patience is a professional liability... Digital expectations of alacrity and ters…

Here's a conundrum for you. And a probably quite dangerous post for me.

Fairly typical piece on integrating social media into organisations to improve customer service, employee productivity and sales. These points have been made before, but this article brings them together well and provides plenty of links to the underlying research, which makes it useful if you need to supporting arguments for change management. -…

"Here are 14 of some of the most recent changes to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and Instagram that social media marketers can benefit from."

Good overview of the year+ - long debate about comments, trolls & social media, "from the baby-and-the-bathwater dept ... This sudden disdain for traditional comments raises the question: is Facebook somehow immune to stupid comments? Is forcing all news conversation on to Facebook's terms really an improvement in meaningful dialogue?... It's lik…

" four ways to use visual content to expand your reach and improve social media results" Pretty standard stuff, but "3. Convresation starters" should be used more. - How to Use Visual Content to Improve Social Media Results

"we’re collecting all the Facebook algorithm factors, updates, and changes that we can find and placing them here in this post for easy reference." - Inside the Facebook News Feed: A List of Algorithm Factors

"We recently updated the guidance for using digital and social media. " - 7 social media myths | Civil Service (gov.uk)

"Starting in January, in another blow to organic reach, users will see fewer posts that are solely focused on sales or sweepstakes or reuse ad copy.... hundreds of thousands of people said they wanted to see more stories from friends and Pages they care about, and less promotional content.” Well, duh. Who actually WANTS to see promo junk? Be use…

Interesting reaction to Reuters, who argued "Much of the well-informed and articulate discussion around news... has moved to social media and online forums... But is that enough justification for giving up comments? ... not everyone is on Twitter, and not everyone is on Facebook, and so any conversation or interaction that occurs there will be in…

(Editor's note: Ms Swift is apparently a pop star) "The most successful businesses today are movements more than companies. Movements don't market. Movements inspire and engage. They create an emotional connection through storytelling. Not stories to be enjoyed passively but stories we see ourselves in, stories we can actively participate in...…

"Cell phones and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are playing an increasingly prominent role in how voters get political information and follow election news, according to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center." Interesting that Republicans are more suspicious of "traditional media filters", given Fox News. - Cell Phon…

An organisation which cannot remember cannot learn; an organisation which cannot learn cannot improve.

"It's also possible to see Rooms, Ello, and Tilde.club as a rebuke of the new internet _ a place dominated by designed-by-committee apps that raise millions before the first users even sign up, where interactions are either real and largely mundane (Facebook, Instagram, most of Twitter), or shadowy and toxic (Yik Yak, Reddit, 4chan). These new exp…

What happened when 60 odd people had a go at the Participation mindmap?

If you care about EU democracy you need to care about European media, particularly as the upcoming US media invasion gets underway. They'll be pushing on an open door when they get to Brussels.

"If you’re thinking of organizing an AMA for yourself or your company, here are some suggestions for making it a good one. "

Just substitute 'governments' for 'businesses' and 'brands', 'citizens' for 'customers', and 'policy' for 'product' in this excellent HBR post: "Businesses need to take Ello and its manifesto as a wake-up call to rethink the way they use social networks to reach customers... That means stepping back from the relentless quest for followers, click…

"Roughly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults use Facebook, and half of those users get news there — amounting to 30% of the general population. YouTube is the next biggest social news pathway ... users who arrive via Facebook spend far less time and consume far fewer pages than those who arrive directly. The same is true of users arriving by search..…

"But for those searching for what's next, Ello is not it. There have been a few versions of this virtuous social network before—from Diaspora (forgotten), App.net (oof), and even Path (oy) ... [Diaspora] was intended less as an imitation of Facebook than as an escape route from it... New York magazine wrote almost four years ago to the day."

"This is a Big Deal for a lot of people right now, because the software companies that support our social lives have become so evil and pervasive and controlling in recent years." - What Does Ethical Social Networking Software Look Like? — The Message — Medium

"A good social media manager doesn’t have to have experience in the subject matter; they know how to do their research, build personas, adapt and be creative... Not understanding target demographics is like playing darts without a bull’s eye." - The Psychology That Informs Social Media | Social Media Today

As I mentioned in my previous post, the past couple of years have seen a lot of innovation in online content strategy, coupled with growing disenchantment with "Big Internet".

B2B once meant 'Business to Business'. After the first online bubble popped, it became 'Back to Banking' (alongside its close cousin 'Back to Consulting'), as legions beat a retreat to the safety of corporate life. And now, perhaps, it means Back to Blogging, and apparently not just for me.