Careful with what you twit, people will listen.

As a companion to my previous post two more stories about social networking. A happy one and unhappy one.

The Happy One
Next To Normal is a dark and twisted musical about manic depression. Not your everyday topic. With a rock score and a brilliant performance by Alice Ripley it opened Off-Broadway last season and some retooling, opened on Broadway this season (2008-2009) with a discreet success and some Tony nods.

The New York Times, in their Internet section, not their Arts one, presents a great case study of how to use Twitter to promote a show. Instead of simply using the characters voices commenting in current events, the show writer, Brian Yorkey, rewrote the play for the twitter format, managing to enhance the play presenting it in a parallel way.

Congrats to the guys over at Situation Interactive, responsible for the idea!

The Unhappy One
Last week was reported, in something called the TwitterGate (theater types can be very dramatic) of a casting director using twitter during auditions and making comments, mostly nasty comments, about the performers auditioning. Again, personal and private are getting all mixed up here. But obviously in this case, the twitter was being used for business reasons, a promotional tool for the casting agency. But the casting director in question was writing it from a personal perspective. Making some-what-witty comments more appropriated for a sotto-voice between friends.

This article in the New York Times covers the sorry story in detail.

Careful with what you post, Bosses will listen

Posting on FaceBook has become ubiquitous. Everybody has a profile and tries to gather as many “fiends” as possible. And, it’s not only showing off. It’s also broadening our audience.

One of the things I find more interesting about this embracing of the digital social networking, is how lines are blurring between our personal and professional lifes. As an example, when a co-worker married his gay lover, we found about it through the ceremony photos he posted on FaceBook. Or, a friend of mine who works as a social worker at a school and keeps getting invitation from kids at her school to become friends.

So here there is one more victim of all this mess up we like to call social networking. A girl in the UK, pissed off at her boss vented and insulted him, on a FaceBook status update. But, ops, she forgot that they were FaceBook friends, possible digitally befriended him when things were better. In short, he read the post and what is most ironic; fire her on the spot, on FaceBook. I guess you can call that social networking.

It is not what it used to be

Do we really go fast through things. It seems that the only important, or catchy or attention grabber is the “What is Next?” like that, in capital letters.

Not one but two articles. One study from Harvard discusses some very interesting (and not very auspicious) stats on users and usage.

Other from Media Post Social Media Insider puts the whole sensation in hibernation.

So I guess we have to “kill” Twitter to allow the next Best Thing to be.

Long live the Tweet.

A bit more about the recession

Last week working for a semi-pitch, one of those projects you developed for an existing client, where everybody assume you already have the piece of business, but you don’t really have it. While working on the pitch I did a bit of research to identify communications trends in the face of the present recession. I came up with for categories:
• Value
• Trading down / cocooning
• Indulgence

What will be my surprise when a couple of days latter I got GfK Roper Pulse newsletter identifying the following communication trends:
• Scrimp 'n' Save – about economizing
• Home Is Where It's At – about staying in more
• Moving to Fun - about staying cheerful amidst the gloom and
• Indulgence – about consumers are rewarding themselves with the occasional treat.
• Green Awakening / Simplicity – about more simple, ecologically sound lifestyles

They go in a bit more of detail, but I wasn’t that off the mark. Good for me (indulgence trend)

Golden rules of digital marketing

Faris Yakob comes up with some Golden Rules of the Web that are very good samples of what we can and should be doing from a digital marketing perspective.
1. Attention is like friendship: It can't be bought, only earned.
2. Viral is dead; long live the spread.
3. Remix, reuse, recycle
4. Affect the network
5. Be nice or leave
6. Everywhere you go, always take your friends with you
7. Socialize your media
8. Find new ways to see
9. Augment your Reality

No more meat. Not more sweets. Seriously.

You know that the adoption of participatory/community (yeah web 2.0) sites has reached the masses when people gives up Facebook for lent. It may sound crazy but is happening as covered in today’s Wall Street Journal.

"If I give up clams, which I hate, I'm not really doing anything," says Kevin Shine, a 39-year-old electrical contractor from Philadelphia. But abstain from posting "status updates" on his every move? That's a worthy struggle. "It's my candy," he explains, noting that he logs on as much as 20 times a day. "That's pathological."

And what can help us to understand this a bit better? Maybe what are does sites used for according to eMarketer will help.

Capt. Sullenberger and US Airways social media landing

Fascinating article about Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III Fan page on Facebook.

Capt. Sullenberger was the pilot of the US Airways airplane that landed on the Hudson River last Thursday January 15. By Sunday January 18, the page had gather more that 300K fans and 14K post.

Meanwhile, Vitrue's Social Media Index was showing scores for US Airways soaring since Thursday. At their peak, the airline's scores were up 171% from its December average, reaching a three-day average of plus-135%. The Index is a proprietary reporting technology that measures a brand's online conversations.

For the time being the airline public relations department has created their group in facebook (One Million Strong For "Sully".) It would be interesting to see if US Airways uses this “social clamor” in the future.