Adam P Schweigert - Latest Comments

Re: My Hotspot’s Name is Mark

Tim Nolan — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:18:39 -0000

Adam,

Thank you for taking the time to research every angle of the program.I think the final paragraph of you post sums it up perfectly.

"We thought we’d come out of SXSW talking about the next hot app or some new trend in mobile commerce, but here we are talking about a very real problem and some of the complicated issues surrounding it."

Thanks again.
Tim Nolan, Creative Director BBH Labs / NY & Homeless Hotspots

Re: SXSW 2012: #BigBabies – Why Baby Boomers = Public Media FAIL

Javaun Moradi — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:19:25 -0000

I wasn't in Austin for SXSW and would've missed this hugely valuable discussion -- except that you took the time to curate it so well, Adam. Thank so much, I'm sharing it widely.

Re: SXSW 2012: #BigBabies – Why Baby Boomers = Public Media FAIL

jmproffitt — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:41:52 -0000

Holy crap! This one page, compiled from your panel, encapsulates my entire #pubmedia career (such as it was). GenX (which I am) is definitely the "lost generation" of public media. I couldn't get anywhere useful in the system after a few years. Boomers in the corner offices were all about the top-down and the maintenance of the old models -- experimentation and new thinking was a threat. Boomers also religiously defended their positions rather than focusing on mission in a changing media landscape. Where experiments were tried, it was done on the backs of cheap 20-something labor with no real direction, which yielded classic failure, which was punished.

I've concluded there is no hope for the current public media models, aside from guarding existing territory. There are pockets of good work where the money supports it (NPR), but broadly the system faces increasing irrelevance and collapsing funding in the years to come. The only hope is that an organization like NPR could take over public media as a whole, leading it with a clarified central mission (news) and greater efficiencies and economies of scale.

There's a future out there for the mission and principles of public media. But it won't be led by Boomers, who are just skating to retirement and taking everything for themselves along the way.

Today I'm back in healthcare technology, and lemme tell you something -- this is a fast-moving and fascinating industry comprised of multiple generations and players at all levels of government, nonprofits, and private companies. It's not as simple as public media, and there are many factions with different ideas about the future. But technology and communications and media are all part of that future and everyone knows it.

God bless you to the Millenials and GenXers still working in public media. You guys are doing great work and I hope you're not suffering too much. Just know there are places for you out there, outside public media, where you can have a community impact and don't have to be second-class citizens in your own workplaces.

Re: 7 Things Page Administrators Need To Know About Facebook Timeline For Brands

evilripper — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:03:42 -0000

I have the same problem! I want set the view as "Posts by page"! :-(

Re: 7 Things Page Administrators Need To Know About Facebook Timeline For Brands

Adam Schweigert — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 11:51:49 -0000

Hi Jamie - As far as I've seen there is no way to change that default setting (for now). If you go into your page settings, you are able to hide the box that shows the recent activity by fans and you can also limit their ability to post at all, but there does not seem to be any way to change the default view for all visitors to your page.

Re: 7 Things Page Administrators Need To Know About Facebook Timeline For Brands

Jamie Oc — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 10:15:17 -0000

Do we know how to set default page view as "Posts by page" instead of "Highlights"? If that is not an option do we know why it is not?

Re: 7 Things Page Administrators Need To Know About Facebook Timeline For Brands

Adam Schweigert — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:43:03 -0000

I've been beating the drum for niche social tools for a bit now, but I completely agree.

I'm actually wondering if Facebook may really be at their peak right now in the run up to their IPO and it's all going to be downhill from here for them.We'll see, but there is definitely something behind this movement towards tools that do one thing exceptionally well over sites like Facebook that (in my opinion) might be trying to do a bit too much.

There will still be some room for tools that connect all of the tools to one another and that's where Facebook is hoping to be, but that could still just as easily be Google or someone else.

Interesting times for sure.

Re: 7 Things Page Administrators Need To Know About Facebook Timeline For Brands

Adam Schweigert — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:39:39 -0000

Thanks Brandon. Yeah, I completely agree about the importance of images. The new layout definitely gives pages a lot of incentive to post more visual content.

Re: 7 Things Page Administrators Need To Know About Facebook Timeline For Brands

Brandon Jackson — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:27:38 -0000

I just converted one of my company's pages to the new timeline and I have to say I really enjoy it. Most of the things we have done as a company was something that was worth promoting on Facebook so luckily other than our launch (before we got a Facebook page) and and some logo and website updates we pretty much had our history involved.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that, like Youtube, premium pages will eventually be able to specially brand their pages. Nothing major but adding some graphic and or color changes I think are the next step.

I also feel like images are a lot more important now with the timeline, which is great if you're a company with promotions and products to sell. Nothing like a wall with big images standing out to get your customers' attention.

Re: 7 Things Page Administrators Need To Know About Facebook Timeline For Brands

Sarah J. Storer — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:29:38 -0000

I think it's interesting that we've all just gotten used to dramatic changes being forced upon us by Facebook. Some college student needs to do a paper on this with some cultural change theory whatnot thrown in.

I'm not sure how directly related this is to the success of Pinterest as a visual social network, but I think many social networks are taking the plunge to become much more visual. It's been, what, five years of The Wall type interface, with chronological comments and lots and lots of text and whatnot? In Internet years, that's a lifetime of the same old thing.

It also makes me wonder how some of the bigger brands will change the focus of their pages...so many FBPs are just complaint platforms...now, if the experience is different (you're greeted by a wall of pictures, rather than a wall of text), how might that change the purpose of a FBP for a company.

Anyway, I'm rambling...thanks for this article, lots to think about!

Re: 3 Ways Brands Are Using Pinterest And 5 Ways They Should Be

Adam Schweigert — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:34:42 -0000

Sure, just sent.

Re: 3 Ways Brands Are Using Pinterest And 5 Ways They Should Be

Peter Murphy — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:28:34 -0000

Hi Adam, I run communications for the Commonwealth Games Federation
(www.thecgf.com) - we want to try out Pinterest with images from past
games. To get us off the waiting list, and as you're an existing user,
would you send me an invite?

Re: 3 Ways Brands Are Using Pinterest And 5 Ways They Should Be

Julie Carter — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:36:55 -0000

Benjamin Moore is on Pinterest
http://pinterest.com/benjamin_...

Re: The One Reason Your Business Can’t Afford To Ignore Google+

Adam Schweigert — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:36:04 -0000

Yeah, good points. I've always been kind of underwhelmed by Yammer too, so especially for current Google Apps customers an enterprise version of G+ could be really useful (and hopefully a lot cheaper).

Re: The One Reason Your Business Can’t Afford To Ignore Google+

jmproffitt — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:53:56 -0000

Interesting sleuthing through Google results. I guess we shouldn't be surprised Google is promoting Google+ stuff up the charts.

What I'm actually excited to hear more about are Google's plans to turn Google+ into an enterprise social platform, competing with Yammer, SocialText and the rest, especially if you use Google Apps.

I'm doing a Google Apps pilot project and deployment right now, and the one thing that's missing is a Yammer-like social layer. I could buy Yammer, but that's a few thousand bucks a year (for this client), so it's not really feasible. But a free add-on to Google Apps? Yes, please! Even if it's a poor imitation of Yammer.

If the Google+ internal enterprise social layer could also be extended out to the public side of Google+, I can imagine Google winning over more of the professional social media landscape. Can't wait to see what happens.

Re: 3 Ways Brands Are Using Pinterest And 5 Ways They Should Be

Andrew Phelps — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:54:46 -0000

pinteresting

Re: 3 Ways Brands Are Using Pinterest And 5 Ways They Should Be

Cynthia — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 23:32:50 -0000

Pinterest sounds very interesting, haven't heard of it before. Will definitely check it out!

Re: 3 Ways Brands Are Using Pinterest And 5 Ways They Should Be

Bill Bean — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:22:21 -0000

Very helpful post, Adam. Thanks.

Just getting in to Pinterest and exploring, so I don't have any feedback re: brands. The shopping thing does seem like a "no brainer". Hard to imagine there won't be a deluge. Probably would be even more big brand adoption if there had been a few more months for them to develop prior to Christmas.

Re: Please Don’t Be The McRib of Facebook Pages

Adam Schweigert — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:21:17 -0000

The last part is key. There are definitely a great many very un-sexy parts of big brands that no one particularly wants to "like" or interact with. Finding the friendliest parts of these brands as entry points is absolutely the way to incorporate social in a way that doesn't feel like a weird add-on. Some smart brands seem to get that, but still too many have a Facebook page...because they think they need to, and try to get a lot of fans...because a "social media expert" told them they need to, but I think the Tide (see what I did there?) is slowly turning.

Re: Please Don’t Be The McRib of Facebook Pages

Adam Schweigert — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:16:46 -0000

I've been thinking through a similar challenge for a client and I think a number of local pages (in addition to, or perhaps even in place of, one big central brand page) could be the answer. For a lot of big national brands, really.

The value proposition for larger pages has very rarely been about meaningful interaction (it's much more transactional, deal based, etc.) and there is also often a huge joiner effect in play where people just sign up or "like" something because a lot of other people have done so before them.

But for brands that want to really have conversations with their customers, I think smaller, more narrowly focused communities may be the way to go.

I think pursuing that strategy echoes (some of our) desire post-globalization to return to the days of smaller, closer-knit communities and brands can definitely take advantage of that impulse if they're smart about it.

Re: Please Don’t Be The McRib of Facebook Pages

chickhuber — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:35:34 -0000

As usual, you make some great points, Adam.
Big brands are starting to take notice that decentralization and localization are the ways to effectively use Facebook.
For instance, Walmart recently crafted pages for each of their stores. It will be interesting to see if they can pull it off, though since each of the stores will likely have varying levels of SoMe prowess.

Re: Please Don’t Be The McRib of Facebook Pages

jmproffitt — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:05:21 -0000

Anchovy? No worries about overloading on the Likes around here!

To me, I'd rather engage with a company/brand that is likely to engage with me. The old "where everybody knows your name" effect is powerful. It's tribal membership. It's shared values or experiences. And there's a chance to link my real world, online world, social world, and work world together. That's compelling.

Big brands can only have a deeply impersonal and asymmetric relationship with me for simply mathematical reasons. They can extend the social olive branch, but franky, I wouldn't trust them if they did (at least initially). There's also a stronger correlation between big brands and "doing evil" in the world. Scale brings power. Power corrupts.

Give me the local shop on social media channels any day. For the big brands, they should do as you suggest: socialize pieces of themselves that are more approachable. Don't socialize P&G, socialize Tide.

Re: Straight Talk About Facebook’s Talking About This

David Martin — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:16:57 -0000

Thanks for writing this Adam, I was wondering what the new metric meant and how it would be measured. It's so hard to keep up with these changes all the time. Look forward to reading more posts of yours. David Martin