Author Archive

March 23, 2010 Comments

Will you have a community to help with heavy lifting?

By David Alston in Uncategorized

Can you remember back in the days, those younger years, before kids, before a house, early in your career?  I still can (I’m getting old but my memory is still mostly intact).  Those were the days when you moved a couple times a year – too a new university apartment, then home, then to a [...]

March 8, 2010 Comments

Serving the Social Customer

By David Alston in social media

Customers have always talked amongst each other since the dawn of time.  But since the advent of social media the ease at which they can share has dramatically changed.  Customers are now publishers.  Customers not only consume traditional media but content from social media as well.  What customers want and expect from companies has changed.  [...]

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January 26, 2010 Comments

Resistance is futile – Your brand will be assimilated (you hope)

By David Alston in analogy, social media

In the past your audience was a collection of single entities – segmented into target markets of your desire, seemingly group under your definition and under your infinite control. Every now and then you would turn on your ‘brand’ ship’s loudspeaker and yell out your commands.  You would expect people to then execute your ‘purchase’ [...]

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December 31, 2009 Comments

New Decade, New Blog

By David Alston in Uncategorized

Hey, what could be better way to kick off the new decade but with a new blog.  Well, perhaps you can think of a few other things to kick it off but I thought it was probably as good a time as any other.
Having time off is always good for clearing one’s mind and getting [...]

December 18, 2009 Comments

Community is a Mindset

By David Alston in social media

Rachel Happe just wrote a great post Community is a Management Approach, not Just a Role.  It was partially based on some of the passionate discussion we had on the topic earlier in December when a bunch of us gottogether in Boston.  It’s something I’m very passionate about so I thought I would expand on [...]

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November 16, 2009 Comments

Start-up culture and all that Jazz

By David Alston in social media

I had an opportunity to explain start-up culture to a friend tonight.  And being one to never shy away from an analogy…
Joining a start-up is like joining a jazz trio for daily jam sessions.

(Image Credit – Fixed Image via Flickr)
So what’s a jazz jam session like?  I think of a bunch of deeply talented [...]

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November 14, 2009 Comments

You can’t reach a kid on a CB Radio

By David Alston in social media

Yeah, sounds silly that I would even say this doesn’t it?  But a million times a day older generations continue to try to communicate with younger generations on channels they feel comfortable with and wonder why they don’t get a response in a timely manner, if ever.  Let’s take a look at some recent channel [...]

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September 19, 2009 Comments

Becoming Brand Aware

By David Alston in social media

Remember when you were a kid?  Remember how sounds seemed crisper, colors more vibrant, everything seemed new?  We were like a sponge, absorbing everything around us.  We had no missions and visions, goals and objectives, strategies and tactics.  We just were.  We were without “ego”.  So this got me thinking….
At the risk of getting all [...]

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July 17, 2009 Comments

Do you feel like J.L. Gotrocks?

By David Alston in social media

Ok, one of my favorite episodes of The Flintstones is where Fred fills in for look-alike and wealthy business tycoon, J.L. Gotrocks.  The episode has a famous scene where Fred is answering multiple phones frantically saying three lines – “Whose baby is that?”, “What’s your angle?” and “I’ll buy that.”  It was a classic scene [...]

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June 4, 2009 Comments

Top 5 reasons online community building trumps old-skool-marketing

By David Alston in social media

I don’t think I could ever go back to old-skool-marketing (OSM).  No dice.  So why would I say this?  Well, here are five reasons I can think of:
1) Relationships – Community building means connecting with people, be they customers, prospects, fans, advocates, partners, influencers, you name it.  Unlike OSM you don’t have a wall between [...]

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