Category Archives: Tools & Tech

Grow Your Social Audience With Commun.it (Pt. 2)


Last week, I introduced you to the social media listening and publishing application Commun.it. We learned how to set up campaigns and walked through the Actions dashboard of recommended interactions to handle. It was great.

Today, I want to show you Commun.it’s Lead and Community tabs. The first helps you identify members of your audience that are ripe for outreach, whether for a sale, for a partnership, or as a potential clients. The second, my personal favorite, breaks down your audience into action groups, suggestion who to follow, who to unfollow, and who you need to re-engage with. Most important, it tells you why. With the click of your mouse you can understand your audience members better and know why Commun.it recommends to connect with them for example.

Whala! No more flipping back and forth from your chosen social media listening and publishing to and your Twitter or Facebook account. All the information you need is pulled into Commun.it, from when someone last tweeted to the days and times they liked something you posted.

by Ed Carpenter — Contact me for help with your content strategy.

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Buffer: How to Make Scheduling and Sharing on Social Media a Snap (Pt. 1)

Trying to keep up with the social media Jones’ can lead you to throw up your hands in defeat. It’s hard work. Some of you have written to ask how I consistently find quality content and the time to publish on social. Like you, I struggled. Than I found Buffer.

Honestly, I couldn’t do what I do without Buffer. It lets me schedule posts for multiple social media platforms, find and share great curated content my networks are interested in, and measure what’s a hit and what’s not — all inside the application.

If any of this sounds useful, check out my video tutorial on Buffer’s top features. What do you like best about Buffer?

This is the first in a two-part tutorial series on Buffer.

by Ed Carpenter — He’s a bad mutha … shut yer mouth.

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Why Twitter Finally Killed The “Auto Follow” For Good

Why Twitter Finally Killed The “Auto Follow” For Good

Oct 10

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Android TV: It’s what Google TV should have been, but is that enough?

Android TV: It’s what Google TV should have been, but is that enough?

Jun 25

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Gigaom

The people tasked with developing Google’s (S GOOG) new Android TV product think that this time, time is on their side.

Four years ago, the company made its first big foray into the living room. Google TV was supposed to combine online video with live TV and become a leading software platform for TV manufacturers. But the failure of Google TV is well documented; why would the company try again, as it did Wednesday with the introduction of its new Android TV platform?

“It’s the UX (user experience), it’s the framework, it’s the timing,” said Android Senior Engineering Director Dave Burke when asked that very question during an interview on the sidelines of Google’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco Wednesday.

A simpler UI, and a better way to build TV apps

He pointed to Android TV’s much simpler and more defined user interface, as well as the integration of…

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When data journalism meets hyper-local — Oakland Local launches Police Beat

When data journalism meets hyper-local — Oakland Local launches Police Beat

Apr 2

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Wow, Susan et al have outdone themselves. Way to go @OaklandLocal!

Gigaom

Most of the attention that gets paid to the growing field of “data journalism” gets focused on ambitious, national-level sites like Ezra Klein’s Vox or Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight — but data exists in all kinds of places, and can be used in different ways. One example of an interesting attempt to use public data to highlight an issue of social importance is Oakland Police Beat, a new project created by the non-profit news outlet Oakland Local in California.

In a nutshell, Oakland Police Beat uses publicly-available statistics and records from court filings to create a database of violence and alleged impropriety involving the police department in the city, a growing metropolis on the east side of the San Francisco bay that has seen a number of high-profile cases in which critics say police violated the civil rights of Oakland citizens.

Abraham Hyatt, a former managing editor at ReadWrite and…

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Posted in Blogging, Nonprofits, Tools & Tech

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Twitter’s New App Refines DM Experience With Suggested Users, Introduces New Interface Experiments

Nov 19

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Your favorite social media tool is getting even better.

Posted in Social media, Tools & Tech

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Curating With Scoop.it!

Nov 3

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USF Scoop.ItI’m lucky to work with an innovative social media team. They’ve led the way in turning an anemic online social community of about 50 at the University of San Francisco into one with hundreds of contributors and an audience of more than 60,000. How great is that!?

What used to be a few campus faculty, media folks, and interested students is now open to almost anyone who publishes content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other channels with the #USFCA hashtag. The university’s social media team track the #USFCA content and then choose the best to “scoop” — publishing what they find on the curated platform to be read and shared.

Be the #hashtag

So what is this newfangled curation platform? Scoop.it founder Guillaume Decugis visited campus to talk more about it. He praised #USFCA and highlight other brands like Ashoka Communty’s Change Making Today campaign. Check out Guillaume’s Slideshare and watch USF E-communications Director Thomas Listerman talk about the difference Scoop.it has made at USF.

Not only has Scoop.it improved the social community on campus, it has advanced USF’s brand and it’s only been in use for about six months. What do you think of Scoop.it?

by Ed Carpenter — He’s a bad mutha … shut yer mouth.

Posted in Branding, Business, Higher education, Marketing, Nonprofits, Social media, Tools & Tech

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10 Reasons I Hate Ektron

Sep 1

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Ektron WebA sordid tale

I feel like strangling my computer whenever I have to publish something to my university’s website, which is most days of the week. Granted, it’s not fair to the computer. You see, I’m one of the university’s primary content creators. You’d think it would be something I like to do. But there is a problem. The university uses Ektron CMS.

How that happened is a sordid tale, only part of which I know the details of. I can tell you that it was a classic bait and switch. Ektron was one of two finalists that were shopped around the university to groups of users in hands-on demonstrations. In my group of 20, only the tech support guy liked Ektron better. Colleagues who attended other demonstrations reported the same result in their groups. Yet, Ektron is what we ended up with. Go figure. Truth be told, before Ektron the university used Serena Collage — so it could be worse.

Still, I count Ektron among the poorest applications I’ve ever had to work with. Even worse than Comcast’s search engine, hard as that might be to believe. If you’re someone considering Ektron CMS, consider yourself warned. There are much lighter, nimbler, faster systems, including WordPress.com, Joomla, and Drupal.

Tonight’s top 10 list

1) It’s SLOW. (I’m talking gear grinding, wrack your head against the monitor slow just to do a simple task — “save,” for instance).

2) Organized in a folder structure that makes search within the CMS impossible unless you know the folder you’re looking for (Isn’t that what a file cabinet is for?).

4) Constantly inserts spaces and (behind the rich text format) html, throwing off the page and inserting errors.

5) Frequently requires editing in html as part of simple cut and paste tasks

6) The HTML reader has no line numbers, so when Ektron indicates there is an error in line 644 — start counting.

7) Tagging’s so complicated as to be useless.

8) Does it come with any standard features?

9) Has anyone at Ektron been introduced to social media and its benefits? Their CMS hasn’t.

10) Did I mention, it’s incredibly SLOW!

What CMS do you use? What option is better? Leave a comment or Tweet me your thoughts.

by Ed Carpenter — He’s a bad mutha … shut yer mouth.

Posted in Business, Higher education, Nonprofits, Tools & Tech

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