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The Buzz Bin

Musings and analysis on marketing, buzz, social media and Washington, DC.


Inside Mashable’s Summer of Social GoodJuly 1

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Maybe you’ve noticed.  There’s something special going on at Mashable: The Summer of Social Good initiative. The uber technology and social media blog has created a charitable fund to benefit The Humane Society, LIVESTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF from June 1st until August 28th, 2009.  And while raising monies directly for these organizations, the media site has done more, already highlighting more than hundred voices and organizations in the social good movement.

Adam Hirsch Mashable Second in Command and COO Adam Hirsch took some time out of his bus

The Herculean Effort to Stop Ignoring CustomersJune 30

3658269481_f5fc101e5f.jpgIf social is but a channel, then the real issue for companies lies in embracing feedback from their most important stakeholders: Their customers.
That was the focus of the Forrester Customer Experience Forum last week in New York City (photos here).

Organizations struggle with corporate barriers to moving towards their customers. Controlling the experience has long been the domain of various departments from product marketing to customer service. Giving stakeholders a voice in that process — via phones, email, mail, participation and yes, social media — has been the antithesis of many corporate cultures for decades. Yet according to Forrester, by failing to embrace their customers and bulwarking their experience, companies are denying themselves serious benefits:

  • 14.4% of customers would purchase more
  • 15.8% of customers would be less likely to switch brands
  • 16.6% of customers would refer the brand more often
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Yet in spite of these beneficial numbers, progress seems daunting. During the Chief Customer Officer panel (yes, this is a


The Mobile Revolution AcceleratesJune 29

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The mobile Internet revolution continues to accelerate, fueled by the latest smartphone releases from Palm, Apple and Blackberry. It’s not so important whether people prefer Blackberry, Apple or Other. What does matter is the functionality these phones bring to the market. With computing capability, broadband Internet, and GPS location ID, smartphones are capturing market interest to the tune of 25%.

Some — including the New York Times — feel Internet-savvy mobile phones have become a necessity. Most importantly, they are finally realizing the much ballyhooed promise of the mobile Internet. Between stellar applications developed for the iPhone and other platforms to mobile social networking, people are engaging online using their phones more than ever before.

Communicators should be paying attention to the increasingly mobile Internet. In last year’s Pew Future of the Internet study, 67% of the 1000+ visionaries through the Internet would be accessed primarily

Five (+ One) Green Initiatives on MashableJune 24

456531371_599a6f069f Last week, Mashable highlighted 75 Twitterers talking green online, but they’re not the only ones. Now with the increasingly widespread proliferation of social media in the corporate world, nonprofits and companies are getting into the mix, too. So I teamed with Mashable to write up five organizations – the United Nations, Dell, Greenpeace, the Environmental Defense Fund and GM – that are using social media to affect ecological change. Check out the post (Image courtesy of Axel_D on Flickr).

Since publishing on Mashable, another initiative has come to my attention that you can participate in today. charity: water is developing a gelaskin to raise money.  They’re asking Internet citizens to vote on which skin

What Happened to the Collegial Marketing Blogosphere?June 23

What’s happened to the marketing blogosphere?  Our conversations in posts and on Twitter used to be so dynamic.   Our corner of the blogosphere used to be a nice place to be, a collegial debate on the future media and communications. When we had spats, we made up.

Now it’s just downright snitty. The confluence of many new, inexperienced voices and folks pretending to be social media aficionados has created a much different kind of place.  Now it’s about looking savvy at others expense, garnering the biggest follower count, and throwing back handed comments. Increasingly, I find myself walking away from the Twitter marketing conversation early in the work week, and completely avoiding it during the weekends.

Joseph Jaffe and I discussed this change at the Forrester Customer Experience Forum this morning: