In Twitter’s earlier days, we used to tweet about things that, although safe for work, were a little on the naughty side. One person would tweet something slightly dodgy, and another would tweet back “there goes your brand!” Yes, I know, we were hilarious. But there was a...

Why are so many women practitioners of social media in New Zealand, but so few willing to be the face of it at events and in the media? Let me start by telling you a story about one of the last social media events I went to. It was a night where two men and a woman were sharing their thoughts...

I’ve been talking to a lot of community managers of high-profile New Zealand companies, and there’s a trend to what they have been saying lately: They are getting worn out from trying to deal with unreasonably emotional people. People who say they are upset about changes to products they...

Spam is 99% evil. That doesn’t mean that the person spamming is, though. Sometimes a business person is just trying to get the word out about their brand or product, and in their enthusiasm, may cross the line into spam-land. Today I asked the Twittersphere for examples of spammy behaviour,...

Need to what size avatar you have to upload to Facebook, or what the best layout for your Twitter background is? LunaMetrics have sorted that out with this handy, all-in-one cheat sheet, so keep this...

We have all heard about the terrible shooting in Aurora, and know what a difficult time those affected are having. Naturally Aurora, shooting, and Batman became top trending topics on Twitter, and most of the online community was talking about what had happened. Then online retailer Celeb...

I have a message for marketers, social media managers, advertising whiz-kids and anyone else who thinks social media needs to be flashy: Quiet in the cheap seats. There’s a rant coming, and it’s got your name on it. I see a trend hitting New Zealand Facebook pages (although...

Facebook pages. So easy, anyone could do it, right? Yes. But here’s the rub: There’s actually best practise for pages, and it seems like a lot of people don’t think about them. It’s as if the humans behind the business stop thinking like a Facebook user, and start...

If there’s one thing that’s marked about New Zealand’s online activity, is the sheer dominance of Facebook over other platforms. Facebook’s estimated New Zealand reach today was “2,100,220 people who live in New Zealand”, according to Facebook. The data also...

They say there’s no such thing as true anonymity online, and I’m about to show you just how close that is to the truth. So let’s start with the basics. Google search Once you’ve run a Google search, you’ll have a starting point from which to work. Let’s hope there’s no privacy...

Mashable recently posted a block infographic released by Clearspring based on AddThis data, but I found it hard to read as it was so big and oddly spaced. I’ve recut the graphic slightly, but the data is all there. No infringement inteded! Here’s some sharing trends from the last...

I was faced with an interesting situation this afternoon: I had found a blog post where some work I had overseen was critiqued with a point of view that didn’t align with the goals we had, and made the project look bad. The project was, in reality, a big success. It’s an easy...

Facebook have released a best practice guide to Facebook marketing. It’s in-depth and useful, but also involved, so I thought I’d summerise for you. Here’s the key points. Facebook say there are five guiding principles to great social marketing: Build a strategy that is first and...

You may have noticed this lovely new site I have, thanks to Inkode SEO. I wasn’t planning on building a new site to fill with my writing – surely my existing blog, Twitter and various Tumblrs were enough – but when my name got Googlejacked, action was needed. Googlejacked? How did that...

There’s a lot of talk online about the strategy behind brands using social media outlets, but not a lot of leadership. In fact, many of the companies who are charging the earth for social strategy don’t seem to have that great of a strategy themselves – you know, the smoke...

I have always said using Facebook successfully is not about the size of your community – anyone can pay for Facebook ads and rent a crowd – but it is first and foremost about engaging your community and providing a platform for conversations. Facebook insights are a really valuable tool,...

Why do we judge the quality of a tweeter by the amount of people they have following them? And why do we pay so much attention to our follower numbers? It is such crap, and here’s five reasons why. 1. Follower numbers are easily inflated. Here’s how easy: The follow/followback...

Facebook-based competitions are a big problem. I touched on this in an earlier blog, but I got a lot of messages from shocked FB users asking for more information… So here it is. You can only run a competition – which Facebook often calls a promotion – via a third-party...