Thanks,

/colin

In compliance with recent FDA guidelines for side effect disclosure:

Prolonged reading or exposure to Constructing Social has been shown to cause the following in cute lab animals and small children:

• Shortness of breath
• Dizziness
• Nausia
• Projectile vomiting
• Upset stomach
• Marriage and Anal leakage
• Extreme Flatulence
• Constipation
• Coma
• Death
• Hair loss
• Erections up to 3 hours in length

Women who are pregnant, want to become pregnant, or want to remain women should avoid contact with ConstructingSocial.

SPECIAL THANKS: Michael Schneider, Gradon Tripp, Rachel Levy, Jim Storer, Graham Nelson and the offices of Allen & Gerrittsen (which will never be the same): you are great!

For your information I am providing a few resources below.  First, here is the most often quoted portion of the regulations that bloggers are concerned with:

The Federal Trade Commission is taking a tougher line on bloggers who accept cash or gifts to tout a company’s products or services. Under revised rules announced Monday, the FTC will require bloggers and celebrities to clearly state when they receive cash or “payment in kind” for endorsing a company’s products or services.The changes, adopted on a 4-0 vote, are the first revisions to federal guidelines on endorsements and testimonial advertising since 1980 and the first to target bloggers.

Connections between advertisers and endorsers must be disclosed once the revised guidelines take effect on Dec. 1. The FTC said the stricter disclosure requirement will apply to comments on talk shows, blog posts and on social media as well as in traditional advertisements.

****
Advertisers and endorsers who fail to disclose material connections, or who make false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims may be subject to fines of $11,000 per violation. The FTC didn’t set a specific dollar threshold; instead, it called for disclosure whenever a reward is large enough that it might affect the credibility of the endorsement itself.

Link to FTC press release and full FTC regulations

Smart posts on the topic worth reading:

• OverLawyered: Breadth of FTC Blogger Regs
• Snowflakes in Hell: New FTC Rules have Serious Impact on Bloggers
• FastCompany: FTC Sticks as Blogger Backlash Builds
• BuzzMachine: FTC Regulates Our Speech

For more information/help – please feel free to contact me or any of the great people mentioned here!

/colin

Links to the resources mentioned by Lauren:

• Radian6
• Radian6 SocialCRM & Presentation on SocialCRM
• Paul Greenberg
• Lauren Vargas on Twitter

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, Radian6 is often a sponsor of the Inbound Marketing Summit that is operated by my current employer, New Marketing Labs.

/Colin

First, there are four basic ways (or food groups) to ‘tweet’ or send messages on Twitter.

• General broadcast: These messages go to all of your followers and are good for general statements, thoughts or opinions.  They are also great for sharing updates to your website and/or blog.
• The “@” reply: These are direct responses to people on Twitter and are visible to them  (whether they follow you or not).
• The Direct Message: These are private messages sent to people that are following you. They are not displayed to your other followers.  They should be used with care, as they frequently are sent directly to others cell phones.  Individuals must be following you for you to be able to Direct Message them.
• The ReTweet (RT): these are messages where you are forwarding a message that you enjoyed from one of your followers to others.  Note: always follow any links in these messages BEFORE you forward them along!

The Right Mix:

To be most effective in engaging your audience on Twitter, it takes a mix of the above types of messages.  By leveraging RT and “@” replies, it shows that you are listening and participating in the community and people will engage with you and listen to what you have to say, when you do a general broadcast.

Your mix of broadcast, RT, @ and DM messages will vary depending on your audience, topic and personal style – the point is to ensure that you leverage all the different message types to engage the audience effectively.  Tip to much in any one direction; for example all general broadcast messages, you will not be engaging your audience. Tip the other way; just @ responding - you are not really contributing original thoughts.  Take a look at the Twitter stream of some of the masters: Chris Brogan, Pistachio or GaryVee and you will see how they are following this simple principal.

/Colin

Photo Credit: Mafleen

/colin