Åsa Johan › Comments

One of the more interesting booths on the BlogWorld show floor was the US Army booth. You might be asking what’s the Army doing at a blog conference. Well, the US Army seems to get it. They need young men and women to join them and help protect our country, and they know that these young people are spending their time on the social web. - Åsa Johan

Hyatt’s Boston-area firing of nearly a hundred housekeeping employees has demonstrated how a management decision, perhaps thought to be a merely local action, can reverberate around the world and threaten the foundations of an otherwise respected brand. The Boston Globe broke the story in its September 17 edition and the very next day, at 6:24 pm September 18, an unidentified individual registered the Web URL www.hyattboycott.com, which is now pumping out support for the terminated employees and spitting venom at the hotel chain. - Åsa Johan

Power Reviews just launched a service for retailers called Brand Connect, which offers a two-tiered approach to reviews: Listener, which will track what customers are saying, and Megaphone, which allows reviewers to push their reviews out to their social spaces like Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Their website didn’t offer any sort of demo of the product, but this blog post on Cnet had a few screen shots to offer. I also snagged some screen shots of the reviews in action from the Fetchdog site. - Åsa Johan

The Hyatt Regency Boston, the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, and the Hyatt Harborside fired 98 housekeepers on Aug. 31, replacing them with $8-an-hour employees from Hospitality Staffing Solutions. Many had been cleaning rooms at the chain’s hotels for more than 20 years and earned about $15 an hour. The criticism unleashed at Hyatt Hotels has been unrelenting and merciless, fueled through social media channels. The Consumerist, Executive Nomad, and the Harvard Business Review (Lessons From Hyatt: Simple Ways to Damage Your Brand) have weighed in, along with national news outlets, since the story broke on Sept. 17. Facebook groups have cropped up to “Save the Hyatt 100.’ On Tuesday, Massachussetts Governor Deval Patrick threatened a government boycott of the hotel chain. Taxi drivers are boycotting Hyatt and the protests have spread to Chicago. - Åsa Johan

FACEBOOK, by virtue of its 300 million strong user base and built-in viral marketing features, is an appealing target for investor relations officers who want to market their companies to a wider audience. - Åsa Johan

According to the 2009 Nexxar online annual report survey, there has been a modest improvement in the number of companies that are providing at least some of their reports’ content in formats that meet the basic usability needs of investors. - Åsa Johan

Jetblue , Southwest and United are the most active airline brands on Twitter with approximately 1M, 460K & 30K ‘followers’ respectively (at the time of writing). Leveraging its ability to track consumer behavior across the internet, Compete measured the directional potential for twitter traffic to drive airline business by quantifying the extent to which shoppers of these airlines also visited Twitter. - Åsa Johan

Here, McIntyre, a PRSA member, tells Domino’s side of the story and takes us through the step-by-step process of the crisis — from his initial reactions to the videos to the way that Domino’s implemented its crisis communication plan. He also speaks of the media’s criticism of Domino’s during the first 24 hours, provides advice to others who may find themselves in similar situations and explains what he learned about crisis management and social media from this experience. - Åsa Johan

The data was crystal clear: Companies that blog have far better marketing results. Specifically, the average company that blogs has: * 55% more visitors * 97% more inbound links * 434% more indexed pages - Åsa Johan

The online encyclopedia is about to hit 3m articles in English – but growth is stalling as 'inclusionists' and 'deletionists' fight for control - Åsa Johan

Starbucks has been racking up accolades in the digital and social media space. As of July 23, the coffee chain surpassed Coca-Cola as the most popular brand on Facebook, with more than 3.6 million fans, per InsideFacebook.com, an independent blog that tracks the social networking site’s developments. It was also named the No. 1 “most engaged brand” in a report published by Altimeter Group last month. These recent feats are the result of Starbucks’ aggressive digital and social media strategy, said Starbucks digital strategy director Alexandra Wheeler in an interview with Brandweek. - Åsa Johan

The tech press is buzzing this week with the news that a senior Apple (AAPL) vice president took the time to e-mail a blogger. The senior VP was Phil Schiller, one of Steve Jobs’ top lieutenants. The blogger was Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, one of Apple’s staunchest defenders. The issue was Apple’s apparent censorship of an iPhone dictionary called Ninjawords that included some four letter words you won’t find in Webster’s Collegiate. But this isn’t really about a bawdy dictionary. It’s about a public relations problem that has already triggered a federal investigation and now threatens to spin out of control. - Åsa Johan

* Consider the drawbacks: cost, resources, and client interest * The more comfortable your team is with social media in their personal lives, the easier it is to sell * Social media requires constant attention and updating, and your staff needs to be prepared - Åsa Johan

Building relationships and engaging with mavens is a focus of every marketing and PR program. Marketeers and PR practitioners everywhere want to believe that they are they influence the Influencers, but we know that others also play a large role in helping Influencers form their opinions. Reaching and influencing the original idea creators or trend-spotters is often an effective way to communicate with the more vocal Influencer. - Åsa Johan

There may be one more sure thing in life beyond death and taxes: spammers. Twitter is of course no stranger to the scourge, and TweetBlocker is a new tool designed to help you get rid of any spam accounts you’ve inadvertently managed to follow, whether in haste or through the use of auto-follow. - Åsa Johan

JetBlue and United airlines are offering their Twitter followers first dibs on some discounted fares, using the uber-trendy form of messaging to quickly connect with customers and fill seats on flights that might otherwise take off less than full. - Åsa Johan

But what happens when an organization isn't smart about customer service, Social Media or PR? Horizon Group Management provides us with a case study to monitor and evaluate. While a great deal of damage has already been done in just the first day of Horizon's PR crisis, there are steps the company could take quickly--as in tomorrow!--to begin to mitigate the injury to their reputation and business. - Åsa Johan

I was intrigued when I saw an email from eMarketer this week titled Social Media Best Practices. eMarketer had an article about a survey last year of social media marketers by MarketingSherpa. The survey looked at the effectiveness of social media marketing. - Åsa Johan

WordPress is a nifty software for managing content, or blogging. Due to the fact that it is open source, many say that it is not the best choice for a serious project due to insecurity and bunch of other nonsense reasons. To prove those points wrong and show you that WordPress can be used for serious projects that can go big scale, we are highlighting the most popular brands that are using WordPress. - Åsa Johan

We can confirm the shift from shareholder to stakeholder society. The expectation of business has expanded, rendering Milton Friedman's famous assertion from the 1970s about the sole social responsibility of business being to make profit as antiquated as the bell bottomed trousers then in vogue. The most important stakeholders are customers (70%), followed by employees (58%) and investors (49%). In an interesting cultural shift, the Chinese rate shareholders at top of the stakeholder list. - Åsa Johan

A natural progression of SEO is a holistic approach that considers all of a company’s searchable assets that can be keyword optimized and promoted online. Standard optimization of content in the form of web page SEO is a starting point that can be extended to various media types that are increasingly prominent in both standard search as well as media specific search such as images, video (see below for 5 video DAO tips) and audio. Digital Asset Optimization (DAO) can be applied to various document/file formats such as RSS, MS Office, Flash, PDF, etc as well. - Åsa Johan

If you haven’t heard the story yet, a Chicago real estate company called Horizon Realty Group filed a lawsuit against one of its tenants on Monday. She apparently made a snarky remark on Twitter, claiming that the company “didn’t care” about mold in her apartment. - Åsa Johan

For Facebook marketers, mastering the way you share content on your Page’s Wall – arguably the most important feature on Facebook, since updates flow directly to users’ home pages – is crucial. Here are eight tips for effectively updating your Facebook Page. - Åsa Johan

B2B Marketers, stop guessing and start monitoring! Social Media, that is. By monitoring social communities, you can better understand where conversations are taking place, by whom, and the topics being discussed. Learn more about your customers’ needs, wants, issues and frustrations – then integrate these findings into your search marketing program. This can help strengthen your brand and improve overall online performance. - Åsa Johan

When United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago damaged Dave Carroll’s $3,500 guitar last year, he tried to get his restitution from the airline the old-fashioned way. But after months and months of phone calls and faxes with various customer-service representatives, the airline refused to accept his claim. So Mr. Carroll, a professional country music singer from Canada, channeled his frustration into a song and a video, which he posted on YouTube. - Åsa Johan

YouTube’s not just for posting silly videos of sleepwalking dogs and other embarrassing moments — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. You can use it to show off your expertise, share knowledge, market your products and connect with customers, colleagues and prospects. - Åsa Johan

Reports from Inside Facebook earlier this year have shown the growth in Facebook use amongst users over 35 and baby boomers especially. Now, a new study from Anderson Analytics shows how different generations are using social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. - Åsa Johan

It should come as no surprise that Facebook (24%), email (11.1%), and Twitter (10.8%) are among the most popular methods for sharing content on the Web today. This is significant information for any Web publisher or other organization that seeks to provide content for its users to share across the Web. - Åsa Johan

LinkedIn has just rolled out Custom Company Profiles to help you make your company profile shine bright and attract would be applicants with targeted content, better visibility, and more modules. - Åsa Johan

Twitter Tools with descriptions of tools by category - Åsa Johan