May 16, 2012

How to get more followers on Twitter, subscribers on Facebook

Yesterday, a college student emailed me with a question that I get every now and then: How do I grow my follower count on Twitter? Occasionally this question is modified for Facebook, Tumblr, Google Plus and so on.

Twitter follower quilt by "joelaz" on Flickr

This is how I answered the student’s email:

“There’s three ways to answer it. One, start publishing content worth sharing. If you find an interesting story, share it. Have something interesting to say? Publish it. This can be a bit hard when you start interning or working for a company that may have its own set of social media rules, and you might have to rebel against some of them (I did at ABC), but having a voice and sharing likable content is so important. Find something that’s not being done on Twitter, Facebook, etc. and be the one to do it.

The second is to network. Network like crazy. Network on social, network off of social. There’s no substitution for an in-person meeting, but sometimes that’s not always possible. Before I landed in New York, I networked with east coast journalists for about two years while stuck in a newsroom (and then on a couch, when unemployed) in Sacramento – 3,000 miles away. Treat these networks as your friends – offer advice, share their stories, offer more compliments than criticism. But don’t be fake. Be genuine.

The third is, don’t worry about followers. If you focus on the first two above, the followers will come. This time last year, I had about 3,000. The year before that, 800. It doesn’t happen overnight. Sometimes it happens in large bursts, but that can be rare. It’s more important to focus on the people who you are following and engaging with, and less on the number of people who are following you.”

To recap, my point was this: Don’t worry about growing your follow or subscriber count. It’s like the old saying goes: “If you build it, they will come.” If you publish likable content, develop a voice and network both online and offline, the followers and subscribers will come.

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May 11, 2012

Exclusive: Tumblr’s head of brand strategy and marketing leaves the company

For the second time in a month, a high-ranking employee with the social blogging website Tumblr has announced their departure as the company begins looking for ways to generate revenue.

Matt Hackett, who was named head of brand strategy and marketing at the website in September, announced via email on Friday that he has decided to leave the company. Hackett was originally hired as vice president of engineering in February 2010 before accepting his role as head of marketing nine months ago.

In the email, Hackett said that he consulted with several people including Tumblr founder David Karp before reaching the decision to leave the company.

The departure comes almost two weeks after Tumblr’s president John Maloney announced he was resigning from his position. Maloney, who joined the company in 2008, said he would continue to stay close to Karp and others at Tumblr. “There’s more work to do and I want to help see it (through),” Maloney wrote on his blog.

Maloney’s resignation and Hackett’s departure comes shortly after Karp unveiled Tumblr’s advertisement model, which Karp hopes will start generating money for the blogging platform. The advertisements currently appear in the “Radar” section of a Tumblr user’s dashboard, which get 120 million impressions daily according to Karp.

It’s unclear if Hackett’s departure is linked to the new advertising model. Hackett said by email his last day was Friday.

In the message sent on Friday, Hackett gave an email address for people to keep in touch with him and linked to his blog, which is hosted on Tumblr.

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April 30, 2012

Exclusive: Student says school acknowledges copyright of bear image

Andy Duann, the student whose photograph of a bear falling out of a tree after being tranquilized went viral online last week, says the school newspaper program that distributed his photograph has acknowledged his copyright to the image.

(By Andy Duann)

Duann and the program, based at the University of Colorado at Boulder, have been in conflict since the image went viral last week. The school said they compensated Duann, an engineering student, $250 for the image and then allowed wire services and other news organizations to reproduce the photo with a credit attributing their newspaper and the student.

That upset Duann, who claimed his copyright had been infrinted upon. The student told Poynter he was seeking legal advice after the ordeal.

The Associated Press, who had re-transmitted the photo to its clients, issued a “photo elimination” on Saturday after the copyright issue came to light.

In an internet chat on Monday, Duann told me the director of journalism and mass communication at the school verbally acknowledged to him that he retains copyright of the image.

“I actually (thank the) school’s newspaper to [sic] expose my picture,” Duann said. “But I just want them to respect me and give me the copyright. That’s all I want.”

Though Duann has been offered compensation in exchange for the reproduction rights to his image, he says he’s not concerned about money.

“Photography is just my hobby and interest,” Duann said. “I don’t mind people using my photo, but I want them to respect me. That’s all.”

Duann claims the school’s journalism program did not pay him $250 to run the photo. Poynter says it was asked by Duann for $200 in order to use the photo, but was later told by the student that he wanted to wait until the copyright issue had been sorted out.

I placed a call to Christopher Braider, who Duanne said was the director of journalism and mass communication. Braider was unable to speak at the time I made the call.

—

Note:  The photo of the bear at the center of the controversy was used in this blog entry with the permission of Andy Duann. No compensation was given for use of the photo.

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April 30, 2012

Case: How the media can potentially influence the market

On January 19, 2012, the Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against Accretive Health, a debt collection company hired by many medical institutions with the task of collecting on past-due payments by its patients.  The complaint, which you can read here (note: the complaint has since been amended), alleged Accretive Health violated, among other things, federal patient privacy laws (“HIPPA”) and state debt collection regulations.

After filing the complaint, Swanson’s office issued a press release on the matter.

Three months later, the lawsuit made the front page of the New York Times newspaper. The Times story, which was later redistributed by other news outlets, caused Accretive Health to go into damage mode. The company issued statement after statement regarding a three-month-old court case that, until last Tuesday, had gone largely unnoticed (it’s worth noting Accretive Health’s website offers no statement on the court case before April 29; on Monday, the company filed a motion to dismiss the claim against it).

As you can see from this chart showing Accretive Health’s stock price over the past six months, the company was hardly impacted by the lawsuit in January, but lost over 50 percent of its stock value after the Times article ran last Tuesday.

The third column indicates the month of January, when the A.G.'s lawsuit against Accretive Health was filed; the sharp line in the sixth column shows the company's stock decline following the New York Times article on the lawsuit. (Reuters chart)

You can draw your own conclusion as to how the media impacts the market.

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