Category Archives: Social Media
@deanshaw 2012 Twitter Madness Tourney: Elite 8 Edition
2012 Twitter Madness Tourney: Elite 8 Wrap Up
I believe it was Walt Whitman who said “Damn, the @deanshaw Twitter Madness Tourney is off the chain, dawg” Truer words were never spoken as the 2012 Edition of the Tournament was proving to be the most unpredictable and exciting in the 112 year history of the event. From grizzled veterans, to renowned celebrities, to local phenoms, the event has been one cliffhanger after another. So captivating has been the tournament that I got a call from Steven Spielberg yesterday who wanted to option the event for a movie. Well, I’m pretty sure it was Spielberg. I didn’t actually pick up the call and he didn’t leave a message, but c’mon, this tournament has been so spectacular why wouldn’t he yearn to base a movie on it? Anyway, I’m sure he’ll call back and if he doesn’t I’ll let Quentin Terantino do the movie cuz I know he’s gonna call.
But enough of my name-dropping Hollywood exploits, let’s see what happened in the Elite 8…
@jimsterne v. @frankreed: Frank made a Cinderella run in this year’s tournament but this time the clock struck 12 on this Marketing Pilgrim and his golden carriage turned into a pumpkin. So what went wrong? Well not much really, this is just a case of running into the Twitter Buzzsaw that is @JimSterne. So what did Jim do that was so special? Let me summarize.
- He freakin’ brought Venn Diagrams to the party. This hasn’t been seen since the ’54 Twitter Madness Tourney and Jim’s retro strategy was well timed.
- He pointed out his shortcomings. This is the first time in the history of Twitter that this has ever been done and Jim showed true courage in being the trailblazer of this type of humility.
- He’s bringing his case for Twitter supremacy to the source. And I suspect I can con him into paying for the coffee as well.
Winner: @JimSterne
@TheOnion v. @1918: In a true David vs. Goliath matchup, local upstart Phil Buckley (aka @1918) tried to stop the undeniable force of @TheOnion. First, some background. according to his website 1918.com his twitter handle and seemingly his whole existence is predicated around the Boston Red Sox, and in its incarnation his 
web presence was to honor the year of that team’s last World Series Championship (1918). A worthy tribute I suppose but I am going to be perfectly honest with you, I hate the Red Sox, in fact there’s not much I like about Boston except for Bobby Orr, chowder, and the band. As far as the Red Sox go, I’ll never forgive them for poaching Pedro Martinez from my beloved Montreal Expos, which proved to be the final death nail in the downward spiral of the franchise.
But this isn’t about grudges right? So let me put away my well ingrained hatred for the city and baseball team I loathe the most and focus on the man himself, and his performance. I noticed that he secured a new gig which has to be attributed to his run in the Twitter Madness Tourney. I mean that’s the kind of power this event has…it catapults careers! To his credit he put on another successful #SEOMeetUp here in Raleigh (in an Irish Pub no less) featuring a guy making mad cash doing a web show called Freezerburns which Phil deftly promoted on Twitter with great skill. On the downside I noticed that he referenced the term “awesome sauce” which deducted 2.74 point from his score.
Now, how about @TheOnion. @TheOnion was Jon Stewart before Jon Stewart was Jon Stewart. If that kind of humor floats your boat than there’s no one better feed to follow than @TheOnion. But during the matchup with Phil, there just seemed to be something missing in the normal stellar Onion reporting. I can’t really put my finger on it but can’t help but think they were overlooking @1918. In fact, I detected some subtle sarcasm pointed towards Phil in one of their tweets:
So the question is, how much equity do I allow @The Onion, who is consistently the go-to Twitter account for all the fake news that’s fit to print. The answer: “none Goddammit”. This is the freakin’ @deanshaw Twitter Madness Tourney and you better show up ready to play when the bell sounds. So as the Onion might say:
Winner: @1918
@RudiShumpert v. @jowyang: A great matchup between the Sr. Director- Technology of Keystone Solutions and Jeremiah “Don’t call me Jow Yang” Owyang, Industry Wonk to the stars at Altimeter Group. Jeremiah came out of the gates strong with his mix of shared and original content. This is where Jeremiah really excels. Rather than just use Twitter as a glorified Mashable link feeder, he throws in some of his own content. Imagine that, a guy creating his own content and not RTing the same shit that’s been RTed a bazillion times by everyone else. He did make a huge mistake however when he Tweeted a link that was via him. What the fuck is up with that. As anyone familiar with my list of 25 Tweet Types will tell you, this is a clear violation of Tweet Type 3, and actually might be a new strain of Tweet, the “I RT my own Tweets” Tweet. With a Douchebag Scale Ranking of 8 this really hurt his score and could have been fatal.
As for Rudi, well he inexplicitly posted no tweets on the first day of the matchup. Folks, let me be clear on something. When you get to the Elite 8 of the @deanshaw Twitter Madness Tourney and you don’t tweet on the first day of the matchup, you disrespect me. But you not only disrespect me, you also disrespect your country, the Corps, and your Mama. Needless to say, that despite his faux pas Jeremiah was enough of a hare to beat Rudi’s tortoise to the finish line
Winner: @jowang
@kaimac v. @AndyBeal: So @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Titantic’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘Cinderella’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Brooklyn’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘tru dat’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Irish beer’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘trakur’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘potatoes’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘being sexy and he knows it’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Amazon closing at 7pm’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about an ‘Android condom phone’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘US Soccer’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘ukeleles’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘WTF’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘lol’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘grrrr’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘OMG!’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Pie’ and then @andybeal said….wait…what??? @kaimac said something about ‘Irish Beer’, ‘potatoes’ and ‘pie’????? Ladies and gentleman, what you have witnessed here is the first culinary trifecta in Twitter Madness history. And then @deanshaw said somethin’ about ‘Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!’
Winner: @kaimac
To the Winners – Welcome to the Final Four!
To the Losers – Well, no one likes a loser…scram!
To check out the brackets go to @deanshaw Twitter Madness 2012 Brackets
For more info on the tourney check out my 2012 Twitter Madness Tourney Page
@deanshaw 2012 Twitter Madness Tourney: Sweet 16 Edition
2012 Round Sweet 16 Wrap Up
And so it was the field in the @deanshaw Twitter Madness Tourney was narrowed to the Elite 8. So close was the competition that the results had to be run through the ‘Twitter Madness algorithm’ 17 times to ensure accuracy. The algorithm boasts an accuracy of 100%, 60% of the time which makes it as reliable a tool as the influence score on Klout.
@spikejones v. @jimsterne: In what the media dubbed as the “Thrilla in Twitzilla”, two tweeters at the top of their game came together in this hotly anticipated 140 character match-up. Spike, last year’s Twitter Madness Tourney Champion and self-proclaimed Twitter curmudgeon brought with him an impressive 8 game winning streak and is the only undefeated participant in the history of the tourney. Jim Sterne, the Founder of eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and Web Analytics Association brought nothing with him. An easy victory for Spike right? Not so fast Sparky.
While Spike was once again strong with his usual witticism that has served him well the past two tournaments, Jim wrote what may be the greatest piece of web literature in the history of the written word. So powerful were his words that it brought tears to the likes of Chuck Norris, the Statue of David, and the Mona Lisa. It is rumored that he is being considered for a Nobel Peace Prize for Literature based on this post alone. I myself have not read this masterpiece but can only imagine it was inspired by someone of great significance, and thank God for that person, as it is rare that one reads great prose these days and the world needs more muses to inspire such great work. We bid a fond farewell to @spikejones and could only wish that his contribution to literature ‘Brains on Fire’ were as inspired as Jim’s post. For all I know it might be, but frankly, it seemed to have a lot of words in it and I’m more of a pictures guy.
Winner: @jimsterne
@chrisbrogan v. @frankreed: You gotta have some serious swagger to show up at a Twitter battle with @chrisbrogan with a few measly tweets. But that’s just what Frank did in the Sweet 16 matchup with Chris Brogan. Was Frank just being lazy or did he consciously decide to be the ying to Brogans verbose yang. Whatever it was Frank’s tact was brilliant, but not because of the quality or quantity of his tweeting, but rather because of what he didn’t tweet. That brings us to Mr. Brogan. The guy is undoubtedly a social media legend, but he committed two inexcusable errors during this crucial matchup. 1. He tweeted “True that” on 2 separate occasions. Listen folks, if you want to fit in with the cool kidz on Twitter you need to be down with the vernacular yo. And that vernacular knows that it’s “tru dat.” “True that” is what a middle-aged white guy would say…wait…what? Whaddya mean Chris is a middle-aged white guy?? Who knew? His second error was his persistent “Goodnight Moon.” I know the Moon, the Moon is a good friend of mine, and this good night stuff is starting to irritate the shit out of him. It’s also causing some workplace issues with the Sun who feels a tad bit slighted at not getting a “Good Morning Sun.” The lesson? Sometimes is not what you tweet, but rather, what you don’t tweet. Thank your lucky stars Frank, you slid by this time. As for Brogan, I think the kid has got a bright future ahead of him.
Winner: @frankreed
@TheOnion v. @badbanana: Wow! Two comedic titans battling it out on the field of Twittosity, but apparently only one showed up to the right field. I’m a big fan of @badbanana but his tweets were surprisingly lame and it’s a bad time to pull your funny hamstring. Then again, maybe he was just intimated but the awesomeness of @TheOnion who continues to be a formidable force. Either way the bad banana has got to split
Winner: @TheOnion
@1918 v. @HubSpot: In a stunning development, @1918 received the first ever Twitter Madness yellow card for a clear tournament violation. 
This violation was assessed after Phil posted tweets overtly campaigning for support in helping him win the @deanshaw Twitter Madness Tourney. I run a clean tournament here and that shit just ain’t gonna fly. This violation would have seemed to end Phil run in the competition and in fact @HubSpot provided its usual stream of great social media information and resources. But in an amazing twist, it was revealed on Klout that @1918 was influential about ‘Australian Feral Goats’ and it just so happens I was looking around for a bunch of those to keep my lawn trim this Summer. Since Klout is enormously astute in its algorithmic measurement of influence, I now have my go-to guy for goats and Phil gets a W
Winner: @1918
@RudiShumpert v. @jdharm: @RudiShumpert RT’d my Etch-A-Sketch tweet. He wins. #YouGotAProblemWithThat?
Winner: @RudiShumpert
@jowyang v. @adage: I was looking at Jeremiah’s Twitter avatar and it occurred to me that it looked like he was saying “@deanshaw is the freakin’ man”. I appreciate those apparent sentiments Jeremiah but it was your tweets about beer and Lynyrd Skynyrd that sealed the victory. Now what tweet is it y’all wanna hear? Freebird.
Winner: @jowang
@SethMacFarlane v. @kaimac: I’d like to say @kaimac won his matchup over @SethMacFarlane because of his brilliant tweeting ability. But in this case Seth’s lackluster performance in this matchup would have lost to my Uncle Barney and my Uncle Barney died in 2007.
Winner: @kaimac
@SocialMedia411 v. @AndyBeal: Andy Beal is many things, CEO of Trackur , Founder of Marketing Pilgrim, photographer, Taekwondo master, and ukulele player So basically, he’s the son my Mom wanted me to be, well all that except for the ukulele part – she said she’d beat my ass if I ever played that. Andy also finds time to tweet, and he did just enough of that to pull out an upset over the normally strong @SocialMedia411 who was unusually quiet in this matchup.
Winner: @andybeal
For the winners it’s on to the Elite 8. For the rest of you ham ‘n’ eggers, there’s always next year.
To check out the brackets go to @deanshaw Twitter Madness 2012 Brackets
For more info on the tourney check out my 2012 Twitter Madness Tourney Page
@deanshaw 2012 Twitter Madness Tourney: Round 2 Recap
With the field whittled down to 32, the competition in the @deanshaw Twitter Madness Tourney was hotter than the back of an iPad3. So focused were the competitors with the task at hand they were heard murmuring “I have no ideas what this is” and “Seriously, this is stupid”, and “I don’t give a rat’s ass”. That intensity led to some epic battles including the first tie in tournament history. Below is a summary of the results that captures in detail….oh screw it…its late and I just want to get this damn thing done with.
For the winners, see you in the Sweet Sixteen. For the Losers, well, you lost. Scram.
1st Round Summary
@BorowitzReport v. @spikejones: In the most anticipated battle of the 2nd round, defending Twitter Madness Champ Spike took on the wise-cracking Andy Borowitz. Borowitz took an early lead and seemed to have victory in hand with gems like “In Possible Gaffe, Romney Says Poor People ‘Taste Like Chicken’”, but like a true champion Spike score late with a hail Mary tweet that included “poop”. When the dust settled, the two ended is a statistical tie, the first in Twitter Madness history. The tie breaker in these instances is, of course, “Who has the skinniest tie?” That deciding factor went to Spike whose tie is so skinny its almost negative in width.
Winner: @spikejones
@jimsterne v. @JustinKownacki: JKow sometimes suffers from being too intelligent and cultured for Twitter. As an example he used “cinematography” in one of his tweets. I’m not quite sure what that means but I am pretty sure that kind of language is frowned upon on Twitter. Conversely, Jim uses words like “T-shirt”, and “thing”, and “Oooo!” and I am definitely down with that
Winner: @jimsterne
@chrisbrogan v. @awarenessinc: Awareness Inc was going toe to toe with the social media swami when they choked and tweeted this “Our Pinterest influencer score is 23 on PinReach. What’s yours? Pinterest Influencer score? Pinterest Influencer score???? I’ll tell you what my “Pinterest Influencer Score is… it’s “You Lose”
Winner: @chrisbrogan
@frankreed v. @mollybuckley: In case you didn’t know Frank is the Managing Editor of Marketing Pilgrim and he be dropping dope marketing knowledge on yo ass daily. Molly is a funny chick with a blog that now focuses on a bunch of girl shit like ‘cinnamon & brown sugar breakfast muffins’. Sadly, I’m more of a raspberry pop-tart guy.
Winner: @frankreed
@TheOnion v. @glenngabe: “NHL Reluctantly Signs Deal With Hockey To Continue As Their Sport Through 2016.” I mean, c’mon. How are you going to compete with shit like that?
Winner: @TheOnion
@badbanana v. @erictpeterson: The Banana dropped a mere 3 tweets during this match and they were far below his normal high quality witty observations. Eric, however, spent most of his time, like, “engaging” with people. That may be Twitter best practices, but in a tournament this big it’s boring as shit
Winner: @badbanana
@thesulk v. @1918: I didn’t have time to really look at this match as @1918 tweeted this and totally distracted me for 6 hours. So I guess he won, I dunno.
Winner: @1918
@HubSpot v. @HelenASPopkin: Wanna be the next @chrisbrogan? Spend the next 2 weeks soaking up the knowledge at HubSpot. Oh, and then go get some clients.
Winner: @HubSpot
@SteveMartinToGo v. @RudiShumpert: In a mind-bogglingly stunning upset Rudi beat out Steve Martin….yes, ‘that’ Steve Martin. Unfortunately this speaks more to the fact that Steve didn’t tweet once during the match-up, moreso than Rudi’s twitter acumen.
Winner: @RudiShumpert
@jdharm v. @leeodden: I can’t explain it but I think the marble-mouth beat Lee Odden.
Winner: @jdharm
@jowyang v. @JudahWorldChampion: How do you beat the World Champion? You don’t. He decides if he’ll let you win. This time around Judah was too busy beating up local Bigfoots to tweet. We’re safer for that but at the sacrifice of the World Champion losing in this second round matchup
Winner: @jowyang
@adage v. @covati: Ad Age brought it steady-eddie stream of Madison Avenue mischief. Adam Covati brought….1 tweet?…1 tweet??????? He was probably too busy killing it at Argyle Social
Winner: @adage
@SethMacFarlane v. @gemsie: A particularly weak battle. Both combatants appear uninspired during the matchup which is amazing to me given the prize at stake here. Edge goes to Seth for tweeting a pic that confirms my belief that cats are soldiers of Satan.
Winner: @SethMacFarlane
@avinash v. @kaimac: Avinash is the embodiment of intelligence, engagement, grace, and encouragement. Kaimac is…ummm…well….errr….he looks for any opportunity to point out my obvious flaws.
Winner: @kaimac
@mediatwo v. @SocialMedia411: @mediatwo drew a tough second round matchup as the 411 continued to deliver a steady, but not overwhelming stream of great social media content that’s just off the beaten path.
Winner: @SocialMedia411
@SteveNash v. @andybeal: Poor Steve must be busy paying basketball or something as he appeared to foul out on his tweeting during his matchup with the feisty Brit. Nonetheless the uke slingin’ renaissance man left nothing to chance as he kept his pedal to the metal with a steady stream of Twitter awesomeness.
Winner: @andybeal
To check out the brackets go to @deanshaw Twitter Madness 2012 Brackets
For more info on the tourney check out my 2012 Twitter Madness Tourney Page
The Official Cheat Sheet of the Top Social Networks’ Privacy Policies
“They trust me — dumb fucks” – Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook
Online privacy is becoming a huge issue these days and the emergence of social networks has only put a spotlight on just how much companies know about our online activities . What’s just as disturbing is the cavalier attitude taken by those very companies collecting your personal data. It would seem that privacy is truly becoming a thing of the past and that we’re slowly being put at the mercy of organizations whose goals are not to protect privacy as much as they are to monetize it.
“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” – Eric Schmidt, CEO Google
So how does one even begin to understand what data is being collected and what’s being done with it? I suppose you could read through the privacy policies of the solutions you use online, but lets face it, no one has ever done that ever in the history of man. In fact, Carnegie Mellon recently published a study that found if you read every privacy policy on every website you encounter throughout the year, it would take you 76 work days to complete the task. Who’s got time for that shit when your trying to post pictures of your cat on Facebook? I’ll tell ya who…I do.
“all these concerns about privacy tend to be old people issues” – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn Founder
So never fear! As a service to you, my loyal readers, I have taken it upon myself to read through the privacy policies of the most popular social networks and summarized them below in an easy to understand chart. Your welcome!
Social Media; Influence, Engagement and the Elusive ROI
‘It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to’. ~ Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
So this tweet from John Lovett (@johnlovett) caught my attention last week:
Having been flooded with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales figures, my first thought was how small that $7M sounded compared to the $1.25B that was spent online that day. How small? Well .56% small. I thought it was curious that John would trumpet a number that frankly was about equal to the Cyber Monday sales that were influenced by my Mom’s bridge league. Being the sumbitch I am I responded:
(Note: I'm patenting #WhoopDeeFrigginDo” so don’t get any wise ideas about stealing it)
The rest of the conversation went something like this…
The response this seemingly benign tweet started, prompted this blog post from John: Counting ROI in Pennies with Social Media, which deferred to the tired explanation that has always been given regarding social media and revenue – “It’s a method to engage with people on a meaningful level and to allow them to engage with one another.” Swear to God if I hear another “It’s not about the money. It’s about engagement”, I’m gonna stab myself in the ear with a fork. To me this explanation roughly translates to “Revenue? Oh this social media shit doesn’t drive revenue, but it’s a lot more fun than that other Marketing bullshit we do, and it’s the best explanation we got to keep doing it.”
Listen, I get it, social media is about connecting and engaging “on a meaningful level” (whatever the Hell that means). I’ve been at the Marketing rodeo long enough to understand and appreciate that there are many arrows in the Marketing quiver and each serves its own purpose, but I take you back to the tweet that started this whole thing…
It didn’t start with a debate about the role of social media; it started with a statement about its contribution to sales, I.E. $$$$. My less than enthusiastic response spoke to a fairly pitiful contribution.
But here’s my point (and it echoes John’s when he speaks about outcomes). If social media is going to be accepted as a legitimate business tool, it will eventually have to measure its value to the organization. If it’s not through revenue (assisted or direct) then it has to be by some other measurable criteria. Give me something a little more concrete that “It’s about engagement”, you know, something I can put on an excel spreadsheet.
It was John’s own colleague, Jim Sterne (@JimSterne), who wrote in ‘Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment’ that there are only three true business goals: Increasing revenue, lowering costs, and increasing customer satisfaction. At the risk of putting words in Jim’s mouth, everything else is bullshit. Interestingly, each one of those business goals can be measured and some of those metrics have nothing to do with dollars.
So Social Media folks, what’s it gonna be? Are you gonna hang on to this ‘engagement’ rouse you been feeding the boss, or are you going to put your analytic mouth where your engagement money is and identify some measurable outcomes that deliver true (and measurable) value to the organization.
I’d suggest the latter, because as a marketing guy with a few miles on his tires, I can tell you that when times get tough, the people shown the door first are the ones delivering ‘engagement’ not the ones delivering Benjamins. Be brave, identify some outcomes for your Social Media efforts, and measure the crap out of it. You might find that you can deliver more than just engagement.
There, I said it, I’m glad.
Dean Shaw 