Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

HootSuite Intelligence on Twitter Micro Interactions

Many of my readers asked me to write a follow up post on Twitter macro insights from micro interactions, focusing specifically on the tool I use, HootSuite. This post will be focused on insights or intelligence I gathered on content and what resonates most with Twitter users. I'm not a tech person, so I would be ill equipped to have a technical conversation on the tool. In all fairness, my review might also include qualitative insights gathered through the personal use of Twitter. That data is not captured in the charts here. I started using HootSuite on March 20. For... Read more →

An Opportunity for Speakers and Organizations

When we think about speakers' bureaus, it's useful to think that they are about the organizations first the speakers second. This will place the proper perspective for this conversation - hosted at this moment by Geoff Livingston at The Buzz Bin about why women do not seem to be represented fairly on speakers' rosters at conferences. When I published the idea of a W-List here two years ago, all hell broke loose - I even got chided by some members of BlogHer. Ragan Communications wasn't kind, either. Of course, I still get their direct marketing mailers for courses and products... Read more →

Multi-Lingual, Global Marketers, Meet Kelly Rigotti, Emerging Markets Student

Kelly writes on a topic that is becoming more important to many of us - almost frugal. I like the fact that her site has a guided tour for people who are new to the concept. Also, since I'm a bit of a generalist within the topics I write about, I do appreciate how a focused approach such as hers may work well. The reason why Kelly and I feel mutually connected is that we're both living in a country other than our original place of birth. It takes real courage to leave your roots for a prolonged period of... Read more →

The Agency Side of Business, Walking the Talk

Last year I published a list of notable agency blogs that my readers found useful. Many things have changed since, and I felt it was appropriate to provide an update. This list may come in handy to you as you look for an agency. I've been in several conversations with agencies that expected to come in and teach me how to "leverage" social media, yet they didn't even have a blog... Recently, AdAge published a post that was pointing out how some agencies who push Twitter have either inactive or no accounts on Twitter. That is not acceptable. How do... Read more →

Listening, for a Change

We had an interesting conversation on Twitter a couple of days ago where Jeremy Meyers was saying that if organizations appoint one person to listening to customers, the rest of the organization would feel exonerated somehow from caring. While Olivier Blanchard's experience led him to respond that the way companies are structured, if you want something done, you have to make someone own it. Be responsible for it. My take is that there isn't a division anymore with the Internet people doing their magic, as Jeremy wrote, the direct response people, the public relations group, advertising, and internal communications. With... Read more →

Amazon and Zappos, PR2.0?

Rich Becker has a thought-provoking post about the Amazon-Zappos handling of the news of their deal. CEO Jeff Bezos chose YouTube and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh chose a blog post to break the $807 million* acquisition. He observes how both CEOs decided to handle the news-breaking themselves with the tools at hand - and distribute the information directly to their audiences. I do wonder, where there any PR professionals involved? This is an important question, your ability to evolve your job may depend on it. If business people decide that taking matters in their own hands is preferable to relying... Read more →

Who Knew?

In the last couple of days I've come across a series of "who knew?" moments and wanted to share them with you as a way of showing you that the distance between doing it old school and doing things in today's environment doesn't need to be light years away. Although, I do realize that sometimes it does feel (and look like) we're talking about lunar landings to get there. From Finite to Infinite Markets Who knew that if you bought enough lists you'd soon run out of people to market at? In a conversation with George Dearing on FriendFeed, we... Read more →

Kaizen and Blogging

For many years I worked with an international organization alongside colleagues from all over the world. Among them, a group from Japan. Imagine what it's like to play Pictionary with people from many cultures, especially from Asia - our points of reference were so different. I learned more about context during those play times than at any other point in time. I also learned a lot about the philosophy of kaizen. This is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvements in all aspects of life. From Wikipedia, it is a daily activity, the purpose of which goes beyond simple... Read more →

Chris Guillebeau and The Art of Non Conformity

This is another result of your feedback to me - more conversations with people I define as thought leaders. To me that means I learn from and with them - I have connected with these individuals at a deeper level. It was clear to me from the very first time I met them, that it would be a life changing experience. That is leadership. Of course, as Chris says, my mileage may vary - I still need to show up and take a bite out of my projects. He would know about stepping forward, he's the one who wrote a... Read more →

Creating Movements

Content is no good - even that of the useful kind - if it doesn't move someone to do something. The best way of movement is "let's do this together" kind of experience. This is the job description shared by Brains on Fire (how great is having a name like that?) in their manifesto 10 Lessons Learned in Igniting Word of Mouth Movements. What are movements about? They are about: 1. the passion conversation, not the product conversation - if you say this in a business setting people may not know who to react. Try it, you'll see what I... Read more →