Social Media Roundup: Is the Next Step More Personalization?
Could a tech titan's media buy be a sign that the personalization trend is rising, fast? Also: Being nice is about way more than just a smile.
It was a surprising move with a surprising lack of context.
Weeks after Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post, people are still trying to dig for motives and figure out whether there’s some sort of plot behind the purchase.
Could the answer to the question be found in a series of experimental personalization products the paper was working on? That and more in today’s Social Media Roundup:
Pondering Personalization
Bezos to save Washington Post w personalization? (by @sailthru) http://t.co/I8xFH20OQJ <assns: make personalization a priority>
— Deirdre Reid, CAE (@DeirdreReid) August 29, 2013
Nearly a month after it happened, people are still talking about Jeff Bezos’ surprising purchase of The Washington Post—trying to figure out his next steps or what a tech leader known for his innovative business approaches might want with a dusty old newspaper. Writing on the Sailthru blog, Neil Capel argues that the goal may be to create personalized content. “Bezos seems to understand the value of personalization,” he writes, “especially in an industry like publishing where presenting the individual what they want to read is critical to high engagement, subscriber retention, and, of course, ad revenue.” It’s worth noting that the Post actually has experience with personalization: The paper’s previous owner launched a social reader in 2010 and a product called Personal Post just last year. While Bezos didn’t buy the team that created those apps, perhaps that’s because he has teams at Amazon full of people who already do this. Associations are also looking to wrap their heads around the personalization issue to help better offer services to their members. Have you cracked the code? (ht @deirdrereid)
Needs More Nice
Is Being Nice the Secret to Sucess? http://t.co/W6k6gOAqsi #network @managertools #managertools #assnchat #nonprofit @fsae #tallahassee
— John Ricco (@johnricco) August 29, 2013
Could being nice improve your bottom line? That’s what entrepreneur Peter Shankman, the author of Nice Companies Finish First, suggested during a recent networking event covered by Business Insider. Shankman believes that your public and private life bleed into one another—and one way to improve your “nice” quotient is simply to start speaking to your connections. “Your network is all you have, and it’s only as strong as your weakest link,” he says. “That weakest link is the person you haven’t bothered to say hi to in six months. Why are they in your network?” Shankman says that to build and maintain these relationships with others, you have to put the work in—including keeping up with what people are doing each day and reaching out on a regular basis. It takes a lot of effort, but building a reputation for being helpful could be a huge asset. (ht @johnricco)
What’s the nicest thing you’ve done today? Tell us in the comments.
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