Thoughtpick: A unique perspective of the Web and social media...
A unique perspective of the Web and social media...

February 5, 2010

Learn Social Media by Example: “Give Me My Chuck” Campaign

Stat Box
Brand Name: The series “Chuck”
SM Channels Used: Twitter, Facebook & blogs
Appeal: Emotional appeal + subway sandwiches for US residents
Target Audience: Worldwide Bloggers, microbloggers, Facebook users, social networking users and show fans all hoping to “Save Chuck”
Date: April, 2009
Campaign Duration: A few weeks

Events, whether they are a local tweetup, a championship game or the world’s largest conference, can be notoriously difficult to plan, promote, and execute. But the end result can be amazing, and that is why we plan them in the first place“. Mashable’s Ben Parr

In one of my most retweeted posts, 10 Social Media Campaigns that Rock! Learn How to do the Same!, I listed the top most successful social media created through the different social media channels available online.

One of the most campaigns that I enjoyed was: The “Give Me My Chuck” Campaign. read below to find out why.

[read full article >>]

February 2, 2010

10 Tips on How to Get Your Writing Groove Back!

Following my muse has worked out pretty well so far. I can’t see any reason to change the formula now”. Chris Van Allsburg

I have always been a great fan of the word “muse”. It has been the driving force behind each and every piece I write, whether on my personal blog or for Thoughtpick. Regardless what the topic might be, I have always found my muse there; leading me towards a certain writing style or approach.

To Blog or Not to Blog!

To Blog or Not to Blog!

However, the muse is a little moody, conniving fox! It can run away from you and leave you dry of ideas; you can’t think of anything new or creative to write!

That’s okay if you are writing for your personal blog but really negative when you are a writer for a certain blog or even if your own blog is business related! Imagine being a writer for Mashable for example, yet having nothing to write about!

Therefore, and strictly from experience, I decided to share with you the top ten tips of getting your writing groove back!

1. Get Away!

And I mean that in every way possible! Don’t try to force yourself into writing; nothing good will come out of it! Just stay away! Put your laptop off and go out for a walk or watch a movie; anything which is as far away as possible for the topics you are supposed to write about!

[read full article >>]

January 29, 2010

Learn Social Media by Example: The Zack16 Campaign

Campaign Name: The Meet Zack Campaign
URL: zack16.com
SM Channels used: Youtube, Blog, Twitter
Target Audience: Teens and Youth
Date: April-June/2009
Campaign Duration: 2 months

The Meet Zack Campaign, by Leo Burnett USA, is quite the fascinating and boundary decimating campaign. It really pushes the limits of what kind of approach a marketing campaign can take and it blurs the lines of what is an ad.

[read full article >>]

January 13, 2010

10 Social Media Concepts You Should Follow [video]

The Intersection Consulting blog brings to you a simple and fresh visualization of 10 social media concepts including social capacity, social media tools, social media strategy, engagement and social listening.

The main purpose of this video is meant to arm you with some of the necessary knowledge and know-how about using social media to best suit your needs and interests.

Here is a list of my thoughts and humble analysis of the points mentioned in the video above:

1. There is a vast difference between the “rush” to use a certain media tool, as opposed to the actual “need” for it.

[read full article >>]

Top 10 Hottest Male Geeks on the Web!

“A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible”. William Makepeace

Inspired from this very statement, we, the two Thoughtpick ladies, decided to spice things up a bit for you and bring those handsome irresistible geeks to you within a top ten list and introduce you to them!

1. Ryan Block — Former Editor of Engadget, Founder of Gdgt (Roba’s pick)

Gdgt founder Ryan Block, former editor of Engadget

Gdgt founder Ryan Block, former editor of Engadget

The broody eyes, the dirty look, the bad-boy vibes — ah, hotness incarnate.

Ryan Block is the co-founder of gdgt, and the former editor popular gadget blog Engadget. We’re not the only ones crushing on him, Block was named one of Paper Magazine’s Beautiful People in 2006. Beautiful indeed!

Visit Ryan Block’s Blog [read full article >>]

December 22, 2009

There Are People Who Tweet By Fax! The Perfect Granny Xmas Gift :D

While we said half-jokingly that there is a Twitter by snail mail service, we never imagined that there is an actual market for it!

Apparently, 87 year old Dorothy Miller uses a service called Celery to update her Twitter and Facebook accounts by fax to stay in touch with her family. Yes, the old telefax! She is also a fan of short messages since she complains about how her daughter “she talks too much and it takes too much of my time, but she can read my Twittering here and see can see what her mother is doing.”

The Celery service also supports RSS feeds, blogs and email. You can also receive full attachments and color copies of your emails. Now I wonder how people using this service will understand what an RSS feed is in the first place.

Any ideas? Will you give this to your Granny is Christmas?

Filed under: Offbeat — Tags: , , , , , , , — M. Bamieh @ 11:59 pm

December 8, 2009

10 Content Crimes You Should Avoid Committing!

“What is written without effort is, in general, read without pleasure.” Samuel Johnson

First and foremost, allow me to thank Chris Spooner, designer and writer, for motivating me to write this post as, what I would like to call it, a follow up to his recent post: 10 Usability Crimes You Shouldn’t Commit. I highly appreciate the unintentional inspiration!

Content is the Key by www.all-sorts.biz

Content is the Key by www.all-sorts.biz

There are millions of posts out there that provide you with tips and know-how’s for appealing content; stressing how the post should be long sometimes while, at other times, advising you to keep it short. Telling you that you need to have clear headings yet highlighting that they should not be different.

For this post, we will spice it up a bit for you! We will address the 10 content crimes you should avoid committing in efforts to answer the following questions: What kind of content has the power to drive people away from your site? What content related flaws might cause visitors to disregard the mere thought of reading your posts? What are the most annoying mistakes you can do in content writing?

10 Content Crimes You Should Avoid Committing:

1. Avoid Cluttering!

Although you might feel the need to write long posts to convey and explain a certain idea or concept, and despite having to write pages of factual content as times, make sure that your page has a clean clutter-free look!

Cluttered Text!

Cluttered Text!

[read full article >>]

October 15, 2009

HOW TO: 10 Ways You Can Contribute to the Climate Change Movement #BAD09

Note: This post was published on the 15th of October to support the Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change.

The clock is ticking; time is running fast. On one hand, we can’t really predict when will the tipping point be; the point where we are left out helpless and can’t reverse the damage inflicted on our planet. On the other hand, only little time is left before Copenhagen’s global summit that will take place on December; little time for us to solve the conflict of interests between the different countries around the world. Copenhagen may be our last chance to pull ourselves together and come up with a decent treaty that would save thing planet.

What can we do now? and how can we contribute to the movement and build up awareness for the summit? That’s what we’ll be covering in this post.

1. Use Twibbon to add “TckTckTck” to your Twitter Avatar

TckTckTck

TckTckTck

Twibbon is an easy way to promote awareness about your cause on Twitter. It adds an overlay to supporters’ profile images (avatars) so that everyone else can see it.  Tck Tck Tck movement is trying to gather enough people from around the world to raise their voices and help pushing leaders into taking needed courageous acts. Tck Tck Tck came up with a cool Twibbon that you can add to your avatar and show support. So far, there are 732 twitter profiles with TckTckTck ribbon.

2.  Join 350.org

35o is a global movement that conducts different events around the world to spread awareness about climate change. They are calling for an international day of climate action that will take place in 9 days – on 24 October -. Currently there are 2367 planned actions in 153 country around the world – Make sure you’re a part of it!

350.org

350.org

3. Organize an offline event and promote it via Facebook

Facebook is a great tool to organize events. If you didn’t find any interesting event close to your home town on 350.org website, then it may be a good idea for you to organize your own event. Use Facebook and gather people around this cause… be initiative.

[read full article >>]

October 5, 2009

Top 10 Tips to Avoid Getting Blocked on Twitter…

Someone on Twitter once said “Twitter is the theater of the mind…”. While many might disagree, claiming that it is a waste of time and energy, I strongly feel positive when it comes to my overall Twitter experience in terms of interaction and learning. Despite that, I still have some negative vibes towards those who abuse their Twitter presence, leading me to, sadly, block them!

Twitter Block

Twitter Block

So, with that said, what are the things one should take into consideration when using Twitter? And how does an active Twitter user, seeking more business or communication opportunities, avoid being blocked on Twitter?

A few months ago, I posted an article about my personal experience on Twitter and the lessons I learned from that experience. Luckily, the article turned out to be a success and the dos and don’ts I listed gained a lot of popularity and appreciation.

Today, this post is dedicated to the top 10 tips I have for Twitter users who want to avoid getting blocked on Twitter, again, from my own personal experience.

Top 10 Tips to Avoid Getting Blocked on Twitter:

Apart from the standard well known tips that Twitter provides on its blog, there are other ways of conduct that can get you blocked. Here they are as I see them:

  1. NEVER add your followers’ names in your ad tweets! It might seem appealing, it might seem lucrative but trust me, it is annoying and I have deleted and blocked many of those I was following for that reason!
  2. Don’t just tweet rambles! In a post we published a few months back, we spoke of 15 types of Twitter users, amongst those there were 3-4 types that were in the red zone: the annoying types and ramblers were on that list! Yes, I want to know that you just woke up and you’re drinking your coffee, but I also want to learn new things from you!
  3. Don’t be selfish! If I care enough to retweet you, you should be able to do the same or else you don’t deserve me following you and I will eventually block you. Sharing is caring and retweeting is as well. [read full article >>]

August 14, 2009

New Ways of Sharing, Using FriendFeed & Diigo…

Like I always say “sharing is caring” and what better thing to share than your “great” findings and conversations on the web? Isn’t it wonderful to experience a less constipated mailbox not spammed by your friends’ links and jokes? While we all have become quite familiar with social networking and bookmarking tools such as Delicious and StumbleUpon the following services just kick it up a notch!

FriendFeed:

FriendFeed is a service that makes it easy to share with friends online. It offers a fun and interactive way to discover and discuss information among friends.”

friendfeed-logo

- This is like your Facebook news feed, except bigger, better and searchable. You add a bunch of your disparate accounts on social networking diaspora, blogs, and internet presence and receive all your updates in one big news feed.

Why should I sign up?

  • Friend lists - Group your friends together so that you minimize the clutter, further customize this view by hiding or unhiding certain elements such Hide all Twitter updates from certain users. This can be really helpful especially with services that lack or have a non existent filtering, yes I’m looking at you Twitter.
  • Groups - Are you interested in following a certain topic or allowing others to do so? Creating a group can be a powerful tool to siphon the discussions into a single stream. This is one of the most popular features since it allows you to let people recommend stuff you are interested in, it’s like that really cool friend that keeps on recommending the right stuff to you all the time… almost.
  • Advanced /Saved searches – Do you want to check out what others have said about Twitter in the past 24 hours on all of your services in 1-click? Made by 4 ex-Googlers you would expect exceptional search capabilities and FriendFeed will meet your expectations. Tweak your searches by defining which users or groups to search, on a certain service, or how liked or commented on the item is. It’s Twitter’s saved searches without the limitations, like not being able to search for a tweet that is older than 14 days, and with much space for tweaking your searches.

Why you shouldn’t bother with it?

[read full article >>]

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