Nate Ludens • Creative Communications

For some reason, my favorite twitter app gets overlooked in some lists. (Mashable’s recent list can be found here with no mention of Hootsuite, oddly). Friends, I’m here to testify, it’s a damn fine social media tool. If you’re in business social media – you should have this in your arsenal. Here’s why:

Hootsuite is a great twitter application for business social media usage. It’s web-based, not Adobe AIR-based like the very popular Tweetdeck, and therefore it doesn’t rely on calling an external Twitter API. (Which I thought was going away, but still seems to be looming overhead). Since hootsuite is web-based, your column setup looks the same on your Mac, PC, laptop iPhone and your desktop. It doesn’t take long to set your preferred channels, i.e. import and monitor twitter, facebook, LinkedIn, RSS feeds, Wordpress blogs and more. One feature that I particularly love is that you can schedule facebook fan page updates. There may be other apps that do this, but I haven’t discovered them yet. (Seesmic, maybe? Can anyone help me out with suggestions – I welcome your comments.)

Tweetdeck is a very decent app, but it just doesn’t have the scale that I need as a corporate social media operator. A couple little nitpicky things that I do like about Tweetdeck: I like the way it counts down, not up, when counting characters, and I like to change out the colors of the interface from time to time to keep it fresh. These are small, but important when you tweet like I do: 30-40 hrs of informative (we hope) tweets to a vast customer base with somewhat diverse interests and as much correspondence as time allows. Some pre-programmed tweets are scheduled on weekends and time-sensitive events & announcements, too.  I have 40+ inches of columns on two flat screens monitoring multiple brands, competitors and keywords in real time every weekday, so its understandable that the real killer for tweetdeck to me is the API call. Regardless, I do have both open simultaneously most of the time.

Today, I’m hearing from Mashable (by way of friend @VegasBill) that there are more new features on the way for hootsuite – integration with mobile apps like foursquare are exciting as well. All the more reason to get on board with hootsuite, if you haven’t already.

This is a guy who just plain “Gets It.” I read my first Tom Peters book about 5 years ago, and now I am stoked to see that he’s sharing tips and advice via YouTube (new to me, anyway).

This week, I was graciously invited to be the co-manager for the Las Vegas Photoshop & Print Users Group, or, VegasPUG. What’s that, you say?

“Vegas PUG exists to introduce or reacquaint  people with Adobe’s powerful desktop and web applications for Print design. Our meetings are structured in “show-and-do” lab format, giving attendees an immediate opportunity to put what they’re learning to use right away as well as tapping into the knowledge of our PUG Xperts as they roam the room answering questions and providing individual instruction where needed. Quarterly advanced labs will give seasoned users an opportunity to expand their skills or to share a technique with the group. Meetings are held monthly and are free for members”.

I’m excited to connect with this new community (I’m a community type of guy) and share some of my tricks with Photoshop and all things Adobe (big fan).

Over the next few weeks I’ll have some more news about upcoming programs and – who knows – maybe some other really exciting stuff to share.

Here’s a link to the group page on Adobe’s group pages. Currently there are 59 members. Are you one?

Shortly after people figured out how to make fan pages on facebook, there was a movement for a Thumbs Down button or a “dislike” button. Today, in Google’s big announcement, I picked out that they have implemented this feature in Google Buzz. Quite a few blogs do, too. It seems that social media has, at times, become a bitching board. Let me explain…

For my company, I monitor a lot (a LOT) of tweets and facebook posts in any given week, and let me tell you – there’s a gang of people on social sites that do nothing but complain. Traffic, lunch, airlines, TV, music, and of course, politics are common areas where seemingly, no one is ever happy. Don’t believe me? Spend some time on Yelp.com searching for your favorite restaurants.

Personally, I dislike the idea of a dislike button. As I said earlier, social sites are already littered with negativity – why encourage it, Google & Co.?

I’ve said this before to some friends and they all agreed. What do you think? Hypothetical situation: you and a date go out for a great meal or a movie. If the meal or movie is fantastic, you cowboys and cowgirls don’t have a tendency to reach in your holster for the ol’ iPhone and dial up Yelp, Twitter, or the company facebook fan page quite as quickly as you would if the meal sucked. Am I right?

Let me make something clear – I’m not for censoring the web, or covering up the truth when someone reaches out to a social site as a means to fixing a given problem. Actually, I’m in favor of connecting with companies by whatever means they provide, be it facebook fan pages, twitter or a blog. Hey, let’s hold businesses responsible if their cause or company makes mistakes. I just don’t know if we should be loading the gun and aiming it, too.

Hey, welcome.

This site is a spankin’ new version of NateLudens.com. I plan to blog about all kinds of things you might like. I’m currently a social media guy, spending 50+ hours on facebook, twitter and various blogs at my day job or after hours for fun.

I’m working on different additions to this site as time allows, and I’ll be sure to let you know when it’s up to full speed.

Thanks for taking a look. Check back soon – or I’ll notify you on Twitter or Facebook.

Nate

Be smart about Social Networking. It’s a concept that some people aren’t familiar with.

Go where your clients are. i.e. if they’re on Facebook, be on Facebook. Don’t just “keep up with the Joneses” – find new, innovative ways to utilize these social tools. Be creative! Don’t just have a MySpace page for your business just to have one. I used MySpace to find models for photo sessions, Facebook to invite people to events, Twitter to tell someone your plane is delayed. (Side note: I used to think “who gives a shit if you’re stuck in traffic or going to lunch?” when I saw someone’s tweet. Now I get it. Hey – Social Media is all opt-in, after all).

Old-School businesspeople are up in arms (it seems) about “Is it making you money?” You will never see a dollar = time ROI from Social Media. It’s ridiculous to expect one. Just as it’s ridiculous to expect every person who sees your billboard to buy your product. It’s different in that you can engage your clientele like a billboard never could – so engage. Or get the hell off Facebook and concentrate on updating your company website or design some new business cards or something. Lots of creatives use Social Networking in brilliant ways (proofs, feedback, events, tips, etc.)

Oh, and it’s FREE.

*Part of this post was originally content from my comment on this blog post by FreelanceSwitch. FreelanceSwitch is The Undisputed Heavyweight Champion Resource for Freelancers. If you don’t subscribe, you should. Go there now. Thank me later.

I read an outstanding article on Rob Hahn’s blog today telling us why social media might be all hype. It was excellent. Please feel free to go read it and come back here when you finish. On the same note: while attending Blogworld Expo last week, I attended more than one course focused on trying to make sense out of this phenomenon – is social media a fad, a.k.a “all hype?” Or, is it legit. Is there a return on investment – and how do we profit? After a few weeks of swimming in social media, I wanted to share my conclusion: It’s not all hype. It’s just an over-analyzed, tech-driven revolution.

Social media’s popularity has grown side by side with society’s intolerance for bullshitters. We want to trust authority, but we just can’t. Its high time for a revolution in reliable messaging.

I don’t need to tell you how badly Americans have been bullshitted into this current economic depression. You already work harder than ever for less return. You pay more taxes than ever, and have very little influence on anything remotely democratic through “trusted” traditional arenas. (Election recount, anyone?). So we use our computers and social media as our collective voice. Obama won the last Presidential election in large part by trusting a young visionary who took a leave of absence from his other job – at Facebook. (Brilliant, in my humble opinion). Sarah Palin’s doing it now, too, so says Mr Hahn’s blog post. John McCain has 1.5 Million Twitter followers! Read that again. It’s kind of funny to see an old war vet politician tweeting. Still, that’s one beauty of social media – everyone’s finally created equal.

Social sites are shifting retail like crazy because consumers don’t want crap! We prefer quality, but we don’t trust advertising bullshitters because we don’t have much money and we need to stretch our dollar (due to the afore-mentioned political bullshitters), so we read User-Generated Content (UGC) like product reviews and ratings. There’s bullshitters there, too – but for some reason, it’s more genuine, as a whole, to read these reviews. (There’s numbers to prove this stuff if you want them, go to YouTube and Search “socialnomics.”)

These are a couple examples of the allure of SM and how it drives technology. There’s countless others: newspapers, magazines, sports, renting movies, real estate, the classified ads, ordering a pizza, porn (the pioneers, probably) and the ten o’clock news.

Middlemen are an endangered species because of social media. They’re synonymous with bullshitters, to me, in most cases. Middlemen get in the way, they can filter the truth, add cost, and frankly, they just slow us down.

The new consumer wants it now, and if you tell us that we can’t have it now – we’ll control-alt-delete your ass and find a way to get it directly and immediately. It = everything.

In summary, there’s no way in hell this is all hype.

Wow. My head is spinning with so much new info. It seems like Thursday’s sessions were a month ago.

I’ll keep this short, because I’m hardly an aficianado for BlogWorld09, it was my first year attending, after all. Personally, I went to bwe09 to learn about social trending, get some help with a few problems, and peek into what’s next for new media. Each of these were answered, and I think my company is on target for big success. Being a corporate blogger, with B to C (Business to Consumer) priority, there were few courses aimed at us – didn’t matter. My team was able to flex and see many other sides of our next phases into social networking. Moving ahead, I’m interested in trending for travel, retail, entertainment and gaming (Vegas, remember), and I got a great insight into some other areas, as well.

If there were any repeating trends, it’s a very positive report for consumers. Maybe because it has to be. Consumers hold a ton of power now that well, hasn’t been the case in recent memory. Conversational, Two-way marketing initiatives are the way to go, if your company isn’t doing it already. Getting to know your _________________ (insert: segment, demographic, target, guests, clients, customers, etc) is now easier than ever using blogs, facebook and twitter. It seems like the only big fat losers are the poor market research companies who do used to organize focus groups and get paid handsomely for it. Oh, and MySpace. (Who?)

What was missing? Not much. It would have been nice to see a keynote from Facebook or Twitter representatives. Perhaps it’s not the proper place. Maybe I just don’t know where that convention is yet. I would love to see a Facebook Damage Control panel, but that might make it seem okay to violate Facebook Policies.

I picked up a ton of new followers on Twitter this week, which I appreciate. I also picked up Chris Brogan’s book, Trust Agents, and I’m tearing through it this week. I’m only about 40 pages into it, and I can say this: Buy the damn book.

Here’s a fantastic recap of Brogan’s very inspiring Keynote Presentation at BWE09.

I’ll have a few more updates as soon as I can get to it. Hey, cut me some slack! I’m sorting through 29 pages of notes!

… If that’s not a testament to conference, I’m not sure what is.

Congrats to my friend and favorite Photographer’s Assistant, Ally, on the launch of her new portfolio website:  http://www.alessandraavellanet.com/

Ally helped me with multiple sessions in recent years and I’m thrilled to see her doing well as a very talented makeup artist in LA. If you need someone who is skilled, savvy and has a great time on set with the talent, call and book Allessandra Avellanet.

Cheers Ally!

An article in last Friday’s Review-Journal could turn out to be a really timely effort from McCarran Int’l Airport. Hopefully, the revenue from billboard leases will trickle down to some of Las Vegas’ hungry creatives. This will lie entirely in the hands of the winning bidder, and I’m cautiously optimistic.

There’s tons of complex reasons why the creative industy here is hurting. Some are internal issues at companies who were/are  managed poorly, but most are directly related to gaming cutbacks. In this case, I think it’s a chicken-or-egg system. Sales are down, so companies have stopped spending on marketing. It’s the only “controllable expense,” they say…. I disagree, to an extent. Blindly pulling the plug on marketing is effectively selling off your entire brand investment. Hey – cut where you need to cut, but keep in mind the work and expenses that have led up to your sales slide. Not to mention the jobs for the people that stay late and work weekends for thankless campaigns that shift millions of dollars around town. I always try to buy these guys a beer or a pizza whenever I can.

On a similar note… Yesterday, while returning from Utah, my wife and I counted at least 10 consecutive billboards with nothing on them. I think billboard companies should have stock templates with general feelgood campaigns instead of running blanks. Hell, why not? I’ll even volunteer to design them. If you know someone who is in a position to make decisions on something like this – please email me. I’m curious to see the benefit of running a white blank board vs. a message reminding people to drive courteously, hang up their cell phones, or spend time with their kids when they get home.