10/9/09

 

Richmond Media Musings October 9th:

The FTC's new rules on social media, especially in regards to the "up to an $11,000 fine" had bloggers everywhere talking. I thought of the trend towards aggregation of content, of local Richmond aggregators such as RichmondBizSense.com, RVABlogs.com, RichmondGoodLife.com... and wonder about FTC liability.
I spoke briefly with NBC 12 regarding this subject, but would like to also add some excerpts from my twitter feed for more thought:

1. @dbrowell I suspect it will be up to the blogger to prove their innocence, and that is what I've never liked @ govn't entities..
   
   
2. Let's also bring in the RT - if you rt, that implies endorsement. How does RT affect product FTC liability? #nbc12
   
   
3. [And how that heck are ya supposed to disclose within 140?!?] #nbc12
   
   
4. #nbc12 And b/c of aggregation- if your blog is posted elsewhere and you didn't disclose in that particular area pulled in, are you liable?
   
   
5. #nbc12 1st they start with the @dooce's and big bloggers, but think: has any govn't agency ended in 30yrs? So after they get the big fish...

(Thanks to Chip Temple of McSweeney, Crump, Childress & Temple for furthering the FTC discussion off line...)

And finally, for all of the non-organic keepers of the gate:
Thanks to Google's SideWiki, you no longer own your web site.
Put that in yer corncob pipe & smoke it. Can't wait to see what spam & pornbots will do with this...

I also thought about health care and twitter this week when I ran across this:

I'm still not seeing health care professionals on social media locally as other industry counterparts (like lawyers in 2008, for example, although a recent article states only 6% of lawyers are on twitter, yet look at the advantages!).  I thought of the benefits Richmond doctors could similarly use this way to engage their community, branding themselves locally, when I spied this feed, pictured above, quoted below, earlier this week:

1. Metrics: After Twitter event, 20 people requested info/consults; 16 were surgery candidates; 14 surgeries performed. That's ROI!
   
   
2. Interesting: a couple of Aurora's nurses are heavily involved in Twitter
   
   
   
3. The Numbers: Before the surgery, Aurora had 900 Twitter followers. Immediately after, they had 2K. Now, they have over 5,300 #smhc
   
   
4. Aurora Health did a live broadcast of a double-knee replacement on Twitter. Helped position hospital as tech & ortho leader #smhc

@riggrl has quite a bit of good social media health care advice, so if you are in a medical / hospital field you might enjoy following her on twitter.  Through her, I also discovered @EdBennett, who has some good social media policy advice and more for a hospital environment.

Richmond Grid had a nice mention of our hard work with Richmond's twestival, benefitting Tricycle Gardens:
@ThatJonesGirl and I are always willing to shout over a rowdy crowd for a good cause... : )

[Up next: More on branding. And ethics.  We tend to find those subjects fascinating. Don't you?]

Thanks for listening!
...If you note any trends or local media items of note, feel free to send 'em on!

I'm Copeland Casati, of Copeland Casati Media,
the original C3 in Richmond creative arts and media since 1999.

You can reach me at copeland@copelandcasati.com, or on twitter, @copelandcasati. If you are a Facebook user, we can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Copeland-Casati-Media-C3/52352550685

Labels: press, social media, social networking, twitter