Ah, long holiday weekends. You eat a few hot dogs. You watch some stuff explode in the sky. You completely shut your brain off from all things business. Then you return to your desk and – wham! All sorts of online marketing and social media headlines have piled up faster than bad Nike World Cup commercials. Friends, have no fear: Brandsplat is here. We’ve sifted through the mother load of media and marketing headlines and put the gold nuggets in a new weekly feature entitled The 5 Things You Might Have Missed List. So without any further ado, let’s get to it.
1.) Time Magazine’s Best Blogs of 2010 A list on top of a list? Insanity, you say? Under normal circumstances, perhaps, but Time’s article is so worth a read, I’ll risk being called crazy. This comprehensive list covers the merits of Gawker to Ebert to ZenHabits and beyond. It is an inspirational push for blogs big and small to stay relevant, well-written and timely.
2.) A Major Plug For Social Media Marketing: The latest ringing endorsement came from everybody’s favorite paper to read on the airplane, USA Today. Sure, snicker at USA Today’s goofy pie charts and tame celeb interviews, but the paper remains the most read daily in the country so an article on social media is big stuff. Columnist Steve Strauss outlines the hows and whys of social media marketing and its importance to small business. Strauss emphasizes that social media isn’t going anywhere and gives tips on how to make the most of it.
3.) iPhone 4 Update: Right here in this little blog, we had some harsh words about how Steve Jobs & Co. handled the PR for faulty iPhone 4s. Now, we don’t want to take all the credit, but mere hours after we posted our critique, this little story emerged. Apple now will be fixing the antenna issue. It’s still a band-aid for perhaps a larger problem, but Apple did make an effort”¦ which is better than its previous response. So no hard feelings, Steve-O.
4.) Playgrounds Go KaBoom!: Nothing blowing up here except community involvement, thanks in large part to social media. KaBoom is a non-profit that helps build clean and safe playgrounds for kids across the country. With the help of Twitter and Facebook, the organization whipped up some 200 volunteers last week to build a playground in Wilmington, N.C. KaBoom operates nearly entirely through online marketing and word of mouth. Even Michelle Obama rolled up her sleeves with KaBoom last year in San Francisco. And we think that’s pretty awesome.
5.) Starburst’s Musical Mash-ups: To promote its “juicy contradiction” tag-line, Starburst has teamed up with Billboard to present a series of web videos featuring artists performing songs you might not expect. Seen on YouTube, the Starburst site and, of course, the brand’s Facebook page, these performances are a fun way to promote the candy as well as good time killers. See Neon Trees covering Justin Beiber (no, really!) for further evidence.
Okay readers, your turn: What’s on your hot list these days? Holler in the comments section underneath.
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