Category Archives: citizen journalism

February 23, 2012

Should You Remove Your Google Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Takes Effect?

By Giselle Bisson
Google 的貼牌冰箱（Google refrigerator）

Google knows when you've been sleeping, knows when you're awake and even knows what you've been eating. Isn't that a little TMI?（Photo credit: Aray Chen)

You’ve probably noticed this message on Gmail, Google, You Tube and all of the other Google-owned services you use lately. And like most of us, you probably clicked and ignored it.

We’re changing our privacy policy. This stuff matters.

If you do click “learn more,” you get this message:
“Our new (privacy) policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.”
What that really means is that beginning on March 1, 2012, all of your data is being interconnected across all Google products which include the Chrome browser, Google Voice, Google Docs, Gmail, You Tube and their social networking service, Google+. This information can be culled into a profile that knows almost everything about you — what you watch, read, eat, buy, your health concerns, your sexual orientation, your politics, your finances, your friends, who you talk to and how long you spoke to them, even your location at the time you sent that message.
According to Google, they know your wi-fi access points too.
Google uses this information mainly to provide you tailored content — and in highly-targeted data for their advertisers. Some of this data is sold to corporations.
Last week, while attending the SFMusic Tech conference, I got a demonstration of an API (Application Programming Interface) technology that tracks your computer’s location and IP address and lots of other personal data. The man who demonstrated this to me showed me the code generated, and how this information, which includes the IP address of your posts in social media, is sold to their customers, which include services like Intelius.com and other corporations.
It’s difficult to predict now how that information might come to haunt you at some point in the distant future that you can’t even imagine today.
In December, I was at a cocktail party at the very lavish and beautiful Silicon Valley home of a successful man who does investigative research for major law firms. Essentially, data mining. And what he told me was pretty fascinating.
“Nothing you do or say on the Internet or in email is private.” In fact he said, “If you don’t want something uses as evidence in a court of law, never, never put it in email.”
As a PR professional, I always tell my clients there is no such thing as “off the record” when talking to the press. But now, in the era of Internet and social media, we must remember there is not such thing as “off the record” on the Internet either.
So if you want your personal information “off the record” you need to take responsiblity for it. Because services like Google want to encourage you to share and interlink as much personal data as possible.
Yesterday, the Electronic Frontieers Foundation, which acts like the ACLU of the Internet to protect individual privacy rights, issued this bulletin:

“On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google’s other products.

If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.”

For example, when you play certain video clips on You Tube, Google places a long term cookie on your computer. What this cookie could be used for in the future is anyone’s guess, but you might be better off not getting it in the first place.

According to the civil rights organization, ACLU this week:

“…Keep in mind the fact that any data Google collects and stores is available not only to other corporations who buy it from the data giant, but also to the government. The laws governing our digital privacy are woefully inadequate and in some cases incredibly invasive, allowing for police access to our data even if they have no evidence that we’ve done anything wrong.“

I always recommend using a private P.O. box and a voicemail number when entering personal data into online forms and shopping sites protect yourself from potential identity theft. You may particularly want to protect your identity if you are a public figure, musician, performer, CEO or celebrity.

It all depends on how much you value your personal privacy and if you can foresee any time in the future when your search history, email or other Internet data could be supoenaed and used as evidence.

Whether you are large business or a solopreneur, that could have huge implications sometime in the future that you just can’t predict today.

Here’s the Google privacy policy. Take time to read it. Don’t just dismiss it. As Google says: This stuff matters.
Related articles:

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in citizen journalism, damage control, Google Wave, privacy, search engine optimization, seo, social media, you tube

January 14, 2012

What makes you influential on social media? (It’s not what you think.)

By Giselle Bisson

What makes you influential on social media?

Just as in mainstream journalism, great content is key. Great headlines grab the reader. Posting frequently and regularly and being the first to break the news is key.

And just as magazines have long known, pass along readership is key to great circulation.

But the main thing that sets social media influencers apart (and sets social media apart from traditional “journalism”) is that they are followed by people who they themselves have strong networks.

An influencer might reach only 1000 people — but those 1000 people also reach 1000 highly connected and active people and so on and so on…which means within seconds, they can reach millions. Which is how revolutions like the Occupy movement and #Egypt managed to spread like viral wildfire.  And why your boring: “I just announced a new product” or “Please like my business” plea is often ignored.

As Haydn Shaughnessy wrote yesterday in Forbes:

“What behaviors make the key difference for people who want to elevate their status online?”  He breaks it down to:

  • Being active in a sufficient number of channels
  • Creating and maintaining a high quality network
  • Frequency of participation
But there’s more.

Social Media is interactive. To have real influence you need to be “social” — and that’s where 99.7% of businesses go wrong.

Social media not a press release or an advertisement — it’s an interactive conversation.  If your content is so engaging and interesting that followers feel compelled to repeat it–you will be retweeted and shared, and quickly reach tens of thousands or even millions of people.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in citizen journalism, damage control, Facebook, personal branding, renegade marketing, shameless self promotion, social media, Twitter, Uncategorized, viral

February 9, 2011

7 lazy ways to shamelessly promote your blog and social media posts to get more traffic

By Giselle Bisson

Put your social media on autopilot - reach thousands of influencers, worldwide while you're still asleep or drinking your first cup of coffee.

 

1. Use “Share This” widgets to shamelessly self promote.

Whether you’re using WordPress or any other blogging or web development tool, you can use the “Share This” widget on your website to quickly promote your posts .  Just install the widget on your site and right after you file your post share it shamelessly! Take an hour and share your story with every possible site out there–especially Digg and StumbleUpon. The more you share, the more links you are generating back to your site — and the more traffic you’ll get.

2. Use the “Publicize This” feature in Wordpress.

Yesterday WordPress announced some improvements to make their Publicize This feature more friendly.  Follow the instructions and watch your traffic soar.

3. Time your posts strategically.

In the world of old school journalism and PR, we have learned to strategically project which times and days will generate the most pick up for a news announcement. Tuesday at 8 am EST is when I’ve found press releases get the most pickup.

Why? Because on Monday at 8 am, everyone’s still groggy and drinking coffee (or they’re rolling in late to the office, or sitting in meetings.)

Tuesday is when business gets rolling. And it’s the day when publications traditionally have their story meetings.

Wednesday is the day the weeklies traditionally file their stories.

Thursday is still ok, but your story might get forgotten by the following Monday when reporters are writing again.

To bury bad news, you use reverse psychology. To bury bad news, announce on Friday afternoon, or right before a holiday weekend when everyone’s jetting out of town early. (This is the day for announcing the departure of a CEO or dismal profits that you don’t want to influence the market with.)

Well, I’ve discovered the same theory works with blogging, Tweeting and Facebook:

Tuesday at 9 am EST is the perfect time for a Tweet or post you want to get noticed because:

- It’s 9 am on the East Coast and everyone’s drinking coffee and checking their email, Twitter and Facebook.

- It’s 12 noon on the West Coast and everyone’s checking their social media profiles while on lunch break.

- It’s 6 pm in London, and everyone’s finished their work day and are checking their PCs.

There are lots of tools that help you write your Twitter posts in advance and time them. WordPress also let’s you schedule a post in advance so it blasts out just at the right time.  Marketing consultant Gary McCaffree has this great chart that helps you predict the “sweet spot” for a Tweet — he says the best time is between 9 am and 3 pm.

4. Have everything connected so your WordPress updates your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, automatically.

This is so easy and so potent. (And you can even rig it so that it’s on autopilot while you’re still asleep — tricking your clients and colleagues into thinking you are a hard working early riser!)

- Set up the Wordbook plug in to post your WordPress to your Facebook wall.

- Now set up the WordPress to Twitter plug in so that your WordPress post automatically goes out to your Twitter subscribers.

- And use the Twitter to Linked in widget to set things up so your Tweet automatically updates your LinkedIn status.

Wow! You just got out the word to thousands of professional connections while you were still asleep!

5. Use a press release to dramatically boost your story’s pick up.

There are hundreds of free press release sites that will help you blast out your story to the planet, or you can use a professional press release wire service for a fee.  You can time your news in advance to go out at a strategic time, and you can load up your press release with key words that will make it stand out in the search engines. Plus, if you use a paid newswire, your news will automatically go out into Yahoo News and Google News where it’s picked up like an AP or Reuter’s newswire story.

With one well written article or news release, I have consistently generated from 50,000 to 100,000 links back to a client’s website. (That’s not a typo.)  And your traffic will only increase as spiders and bots pick up your news, reprint it on RSS feeds and blogs throughout the web, and yes, generate more links back to your blog which in turn permanently increase traffic and search rank.

But the key word here is “well written.” You can’t get this kind of pick up for self serving fluff — your content has to be genuinely newsworthy, interesting, engaging, funny, controversial, keyword-rich or relevant. If you’re not a wordsmith, hire a professional.  Ultimately it’s a juicy headline and great content that gets noticed, reprinted, passed along virally and linked to.

6. Time your email newsletter to go out at the same time.

Start a news virus! Put your blog post in your email newsletter and time it to go out simultaneously to your customers, internal company employees, investors, partners, influencers and your press/blogger list.  With everyone hearing about your news announcement at the same time, it has more psychic impact and feels more important.  Also it’s courteous to give the news to your most valued contacts just as it goes out to the blogosphere.

7. Spin it and send it out again.

Tweet your story several times in one day or week by simply spinning your Tweet slightly and changing the headline to focus on a different aspect of the story. For example, my headline here is: “7 lazy ways to shamelessly promote your blog posts.” My next headline could be: “7 lazy ways to get more traffic on your website,” and then “7 shamelessly lazy ways to get more Twitter traffic,” and then, “Get more web traffic while you’re still asleep,” and so on… and yes, you can even set them up in advance so they go out on autopilot.

Well, (gloat, gloat) just wanted to let you know that this post went out to thousands of friends and influencers, all over the planet, boosted my search rank and increased my credibility while I was lounging around doing my morning yoga and drinking my first cup of coffee.

That’s why I love social media!

5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in blog, bootstrapping, citizen journalism, Digg, Facebook, flacks, newsletter, PR Newswire, press release, public relations, renegade marketing, search engine optimization, seo, shameless self promotion, social media, Twitter, viral, website, Wordpress

February 1, 2011

#Egypt: The First Twitter Revolution

By Giselle Bisson

In the 1980s, the Fall of the Berlin wall was attributed to television.

In the 1990s, fax machines enabled the protests in Tianamen Square.

But today, in Egypt, it’s a Twitter revolution.

Internet social networking services like Twitter and Facebook have been the revolutionary tools of communications for protesters in Egypt.

According to  Al Jezzera, as soon as Twitter, Facebook and Internet access was disrupted, Egyptian protesters resorted to low tech work arounds to get out the word, like fax machines, dial up modems and HAM radios.  Clever protesters have been dictating their 140-character messages over landline telephones to friends outside Egypt who then transcribe them immediately on Twitter and send them out, (and back again) creating a landline to mobile device to landline “virtual Internet” relay that has been quickly keeping Egyptians informed.

Today, according to Reuters, Google Inc (GOOG.O) launched a special service to allow people in Egypt to send Twitter messages by dialing a phone number and leaving a voicemail, as Internet access continues to be cut off in the country during revolutionary anti-government protests.

The service, which Google said was developed with engineers from Twitter, allows people to dial a telephone number and leave a voicemail. The voicemail is automatically translated into a message that is sent on Twitter using the identifying tag #egypt.

Though Egypt blocked Twitter following the protests that erupted on January 25th, tweets about Egypt have surged in the days leading up to and after the start of the revolution that has rocked the world.

According to Sysomos, the number of tweets that contained the words “Egypt,” “Yemen,” or “Tunisia” increased more than tenfold after January 23rd: there were 122,319 tweets between January 16 and 23 containing these terms, and 1.3 million tweets between January 24 and January 30.

According to today’s SF Gate, in a blog co-written by Twitter founder Biz Stone on Twitter’s website, Twitter said that Egypt has to restore the tweets to the country, to allow the freedom of information to flow.

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in blog, citizen journalism, Facebook, renegade marketing, social media, Twitter, Uncategorized, viral, viral video

January 8, 2011

Latest excuse for sightings of dead birds and fish? Over reporting in social media!

By Giselle Bisson

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably read about the mysterious sightings of dead birds dropping out of the sky, and millions of dead fish and sea mammals washing ashore, all over the world.

The news started with a report on New Year’s Eve of redwing blackbirds falling out of the sky in Arkansas — and soon steamrolled into reports of sudden animal deaths of shellfish, sea mammals and birds, sometimes by the tons, dying suddenly en masse all over the globe.

Dozens of official theories and explanations have been offered for this “aflockalypse” — from fireworks and unusually cold weather to bible scholars saying it’s the day of reckoning and New Agers blaming it on aliens or 2012.

But today’s latest theory about this sudden flock of animal deaths is that it’s because of social media!

Twitter, Facebook, mobile devices, blogs and instant, citizen media enable stories that would have once been local, or not even reported, are now global news.

As more and more of us report our news instantly on Twitter and it shows up immediately in Google search engines, this kind of mass reporting of simple, ordinary things, all over the world, can suddenly looks like a huge outbreak.

But are these  stories that back in the era of local news reporting, may have only made the local TV news or a the back pages of small town paper?

Or is this the first example of citizen journalists revealing a truth that would have otherwise never been revealed before the social media era?

A fascinating example of community-generated collaborative media is here, in a Google map of the sudden animal death sightings.

It will be fascinating to see if the massive bird deaths are simply a series of linked coincidences, brought to light by social media — or if indeed there truly is something fishy about this “aflockalypse.”

Here’s a story in the citizen-generated Examiner that offers social media as the possible excuse:

http://www.examiner.com/headlines-in-san-francisco/dead-birds-fish-kills-update-more-evidence-that-the-die-offs-are-not-unusual

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in citizen journalism, damage control, Facebook, social media, social media hysteria, Twitter, Uncategorized, viral, viral video, you tube

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,185 other followers