Email as a form of social media

Duct Tape Marketing has published an interesting post on the most neglected form of social media – email. The post points out that people have sent out email with ‘tell a friend’ or ‘forward to a friend’ buttons and links for years – as a result, it may well have actually been the first form of social [...]

Curators should credit their sources

On a slightly different tangent from my recent posts concerning the need to curate news sourced online, for accuracy and verification purposes, I was horrified to learn that popular Seth Rotherham of the award-winning 2oceans blog, had not been credited as a source in a ‘breaking news’ story in a local traditional newspaper. When confronted, the [...]

Let MiWay know whether they are going your way or not…

While MiWay insurance was previously among the leagues of local companies that received commentary on HelloPeter and Getclosure, the company has since decided to take a big, brave step forward and enter the social media arena, by creating a space on its website, where customers are free to have their say for all to see.
Named ‘compliments and complaints’, [...]

Being an open book could be risky for your career

According to an article on MyBroadband, job-seekers are being warned to avoid posting compromising photos and status updates, and even innocuous details like hobbies; political opinions; and personal lives, on social networking sites like Facebook as it is a growing trend for employers to routinely check potential employees’ backgrounds by doing online searches, sometimes even [...]

Caster’s media frenzy sparks online discussions

You can be forgiven for not having heard of the Caster Semenya controversy last week – but only if you were living under a rock. After her 800-metre win at the world championships in Berlin, Semenya was hit with allegations that she is actually a ‘he’, based on her gruff voice and musculature. The story [...]

The snowballing social media space

Mack Collier of The Viral Garden blogs that Social Media isn’t going away, so we should ‘either get on the bus, or get left behind’.

He adds that people who are constantly using social media for their campaigns (thinking that it supercedes all communication tools that came before it); as well as those who keep pointing out [...]

Help for publishers struggling through the financial crisis

Call it what you like, but there’s no doubt that most industries – not least of which the publishing beat – have been hit hard by the recession/ credit crunch/ ‘tough financial times’.
There’s talk of big-name newspapers and magazines letting go of their print editions completely as they’re just too expensive to print and distribute, and [...]

Online business card for your online contacts

Mashable, The Social Media Guide, recently blogged about Card.ly, which lets social media mavens quickly create virtual business cards or online portfolios, which contain contact info from all of their social networks (Facebook address, Twitter account, and the like – there are close to 50 to include), as well as a short biography. There’s a [...]

Warning: curate the news you source online!

Today’s Business Day featured an article by Anton Harber, the Caxton Professor of Journalism at Wits University. Titled ‘The story of citizen journalism, as it unfolds’, it provides a word of caution and emphasises the need to curate (love this term!) all news you access from websites and social media sources, such as Twitter; Facebook; [...]

Have you tried blerping yet?

Media Update has recently subscribed to Blerp – a social networking website that allows you to start discussions right on top of your favourite websites. Unlike typical web comments, you are in full control and you can post on any webpage you choose, regardless of whether it permits user feedback. In other words, Blerp transforms [...]