During last year’s G20, many of the groups used Twitter as their communications tools.  Protest sites were broadcast and then retweeted to others to join.  It was effective in organizing ‘troops’.  Police movements were broadcast for all to know as well as event happenings as they unfolded.

Then the authority figures got wise and began monitoring.  In true fashion, they began to position their troops based on what they saw on Twitter.  The game is up, right?  Not at all.  You see the protest groups figured out the authorities were monitoring, so they used that against them.

A dummy tweet was sent out about a huge protest forming at Whole Foods.  The authorities responded with approx. 4,000 troops, nearly half of those available.  The 4,000 strong found an empty parking lot at Whole Foods.  The protesters meanwhile had assembled in another part of the city, which sent authroities scrambling to respond.

It was a brilliant stroke of modern warfare.  One that went largely unnoticed.  As it was embarrassing to organizers, it went largely unreported in local media.  Instead, stories began to come out about Twitter as a terrorist tool.  Funny, that the same outlets reported Twitter as an independence tool in regards to protests in Iran not more than a month before the G20. 

So which is it?  I guess time will tell, but Twitter’s uses defintely go beyond ‘I just had my morning coffee’.  I, personally, can’t wait to see what happens next.

Truthly, not much.  We still use social media actively, we just don’t use it how we used to.  UniversalWit began as an online and social media marketing consultant.  However, in 2009, we began to see the changing lanscape.  We had a choice: expand into a full service agency or assist others.  We would have needed to add programmers and client services people and all sorts of people.  Frankly, that was never our goal.  So instead, UniversalWit went on hiatus and Christopher went to The Pittsburgh Foundation.  Christopher was happy, UniversalWit not so much.

So today, we officially announce our new direction.  UniversalWit is now a digital media producer.  It was not a drastic change for us.  After all, the company really got its start with the launch of an online game, 1129 Ridge, and our child friendly game Santa’s Magic Clock just wrapped up its third season.  We have also messed around with online video with our pal Greg Straub and have joined the For Real For Real storytelling series thanks to our pal Viv.

It was time to make the change public.  Here is what you can expect:

What’s up with this blog?

Rather than wiping the past out of our blog, we decided to keep the content.  Some of it may still be useful and we like having a history.  However, you will now see creative stuff begin to populate the blog.  Some of it will be stories.  some of it will be citizen journalism.  Some of it will be videos.  All of it will be avilable to you for comments and you can even guest blog simply by contacting us.  Eventually the social media posts will fade to the background of the site, but they will always be there for reference.  Posting will restart again on a frequent basis.

What is the company going to do?

Don’t know for sure yet.  The site will become more creative in nature and it will go from there.  Content on this site will be all ages.  Plans are in the works to spin out a children’s site with child friendly content and an edgier site with content appropriate for adults. 

No more consulting?

We no longer work directly with clients.  However, we do work on special projects through our partners The Big Bang Agency and Lionce Links.  More on them is available in About Us.

We hope you enjoy the new look of UniversalWit and will check back for content regularly.  Please also contribute as often as you like.  We will post videos, pictures, stories, poems, what’s happening in your neighborhood.  Really anything that is appropriate content.

Cheers.

Best yet - you the public get to participate.  Here is how it works:  Entrants have until May 20th to answer a few questions about their project.  Then the competition will narrow down to several finalists.  Finally, around the first week of June, the public will have the chance to vote for the finalists.  Two up to $25,000 grants are available for finalists and the public will choose the most worthy.  If you are not an artist, you can still participate by nominating someone for the grant and by discussing and commenting on entries.  All information is available at http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/artinpittsburgh

I will not pretend that if you plaster up a Facebook page for your business that success is just around the corner.  However, if you ignore the social network because you think social networks other than LinkedIn and select few others are not for business, then you will miss out potential new ideas, new customers, and new communications tools.

Don’t take my word for it.  Take your service or a few of the keywords that you would use for your SEO.  Do a search for them on Facebook.  See how many like minded individuals are out there in groups or pages.  Also, take note of events around these subjects listed on Facebook.  Could you be having meaningful discussions with these people?  Could you promote your applicable webinars or other events?  Could you potentially meet new customers?

I am guessing you will find at least 5 or so groups that make sense and probably hundreds of like events.  Face it B to Bers - you are missing opportunities on social networks such as Facebook.  It is time to add this to your marketing mix.

We need some history.  Newspapers began spiraling out of control when they took a valuable asset - their content - and gave it away for free on the web.  Not entirely their fault.  Many tried to develop a subscription model for the web, but the web was just not ready for subscriptions.  It remains to be seen if subscription models will make it in the future.

It is true that they did create a revenue stream on the web in the form of banner and pay per click or pay per impression advertising.  Their thinking was they can use their content to attract large volumes of traffic and then it will be ok.  Problem that has been well publicized is the traffic came in droves and left the expensive to produce distribution of content - the printed newspaper.  The second problem is that conversion was not wildly successful and advertising was expensive so advertisers left the web outposts as well.

So what is the latest mistake by the newspapers?  Twitter!  I am sure you can find your local or favorite newspaper on Twitter.  They will be the Twitter accounts with thousand of followers and very few following.  Right there is an issue.  Twitter is a community and two-way communication tool.  The newspapers are not participating - they are just broadcasting.

Twitter could be a great tool for the newspapers to gain commentary and content form the community.  However, they are just not taking the time to listen.

Worse yet.  Check out their tweets.  I don’t need to access their website let alone read the newspaper.  I get the headlines served right up to me from the comfort of my Twitter feed.  If I am interested in the story, I simply click the link and I go directly to the page.  

What is the problem with this?  I bypass a good deal of their advertisers in the process.  Let’s recap.  Web reduced print advertising and reduced sales of a product that costs money to produce.  Twitter reduced web advertising effectiveness, further reducing revenue stream.  My read - newspapers will continue to suffer and go out of business or reduce costs.

In these reduction of costs, the newspapers jeopardize their greatest asset - their people.  It is the talented reporters, researchers, and writers that create all of the great content that they have to sell.  Less reporters, the need to placate advertisers, and all of the other factors means a loss of quality in product.  Reporters just don’t have the time and might not have the incentive to dig out the best possible story.  

You may not think you need a newspaper anymore, but newspapers are a fundamental service of this country.  The service they provide is information and information is key for any individual citizen to participate in their government and their community. Newspapers need a bailout, but not a financial one - a new thinking one.

So what can ice cream teach us about social media communities.  It rained hard one day last week and my neighborhood ice cream shop did not open.  It was sunny on Sat. and the lines stretched.  IT snowed today and again the shop was closed.  It is supposed to warm up later in the week and I’ll bet the shop will be open and serving treats.

You see the shop is outdoors.  It is an outdoor experience and therefore best enjoyed during sunny days.  They could open today and they might sit around and wait for hours to serve one brave soul.  However, they are in tune with their community.  They know we don’t want to participate on days like this.  The community knows that they don’t need to participate on days like this.  That is a relationship that works.

The lesson.  Don’t force relationships in your social networks.  Demonstrate that you know what your audience wants and participate when they want to participate.  Engagement - what a treat.  Man, I am craving ice cream now.

In a conversation last week, a concern was brought up that bloggers do not follow the same journalistic standards.  That statement is very true in many cases.  However, it should not dissuade you from this news outlet.

It should however encourage you to do two things.  Research the most appropriate potential blogs for your content. Secondly, monitor the news about your brand in this space.  Chances are there is already talk about your brand in the space.

Remember to respect the bloggers in the space.  Participate in discussions and don’t just send canned content.  Also remember, this is no control PR, so comments both positive and negative should be expected.  

In the end, if you take the time to find an enthusiast in blog community, then you will find great rewards from your new PR strategy.  Also, though we used blogs as our example today, social networks like Facebook and Twitter are also great outlets for your news as well.