David Alston (Radian6): invest in relationships for the long run

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You measured the eyeballs and ears with social media. What about the hearts and minds? Contributor Ambal Balakrishnan (ClickDocuments) asked David Alston “What are key social media marketing trends for 2010? What actions should marketers take in 2010?”.

David leads the Marketing and Community teams at Radian6, a well-known social media monitoring, measurement and engagement platform.

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The fans are finally dead (and some free social media marketing advice for Facebook and Twitter)

Fans become people who likeOne small post before I call it a day.

The people at Facebook have done what they promised to do a while ago: when going to the Facebook page of my blog, I noticed that the traditional “x fans” has been replaced by “x people like this”.

I would have said “x people like this page”, to be that bit more precise. However, that’s a detail. I’m glad they finally got rid of the word fans.

Maybe many of you will find this stupid but to me, it matters. I never liked the word fans, and I explained why earlier in some posts. Being a fan of someone or something always brings to mind the image of a crowd cheering their favorite whatever (which reminds me that one day I’ll explain why I don’t like the word crowdsourcing either, I’m picky, I know, but words matter more than many can imagine).

The word fans expresses an inequality for me and that’s exactly what I don’t like (have to admit I don’t like celebrity stuff that much either, as my aunt used to say “we all have to go to the bathroom now and then”).

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