Sep
20

Campus Social Media Blackout a Bust

by Feedback

“The (social media) blackout isn’t really that bad.  Anyone with a 3G phone can still view these sites on campus.” – Harrisburg University Student

I think it’s safe to say that we aren’t surprised at the results of Harrisburg University’s social media blackout experiment.  Reports are trickling in that the number of students who actually went cold turkey without any social media for the week averaged between 10% – 15%.  Students were found hiking to a local hotel to log into Facebook through the hotel lobby’s wifi.  And of course, anyone with a 3G phone could access social media sites.

As listed on the Harrisburg’s website, the goal of the social media blackout was:

“To get students, staff and faculty to think about social media when they are not available.”

Many are reporting that this experiment failed.  The most obvious observation is because trying to block social media in this day and age is nearly impossible.  And with only  10% – 15% of the campus “playing by the rules,” is this a true assessment of how the university’s population is affected?  Perhaps the university should have researched the campus first, as Feedback EVP, Dean Browell stated:

If the statement they want to make is that the students should re-evaluate their communication methods and the effect such methods have on their life, it would do great justice to their cause that they understand the lesson before it is taught.

Like we mentioned before, there were a lot of assumptions made without any research or in depth understanding of how/why certain audiences on Harrisburg’s campus communicate.  How was communication and productivity measured beforehand in order to reach a true assessment of this experiment?

Perhaps it was a public relations stunt.  If so, brilliant for getting your name out there!  Even if Jimmy Fallon did say on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,

We all have smartphones, dumb ass.

- Heather (@hmillar13)

Sep
15

Feedback in Healthcare News: SHSMD Report

by Feedback

Feedback was found all over SHSMD 2010 in Chicago, the annual conference for the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development. The firm conducted a three-hour workshop on social media and strategy, participated in a lively panel on emerging media, roundtables and more.

Feedback also made the news:

Healthleaders article, “Stop Waiting for Social Media to Emerge” excerpted here:

Panelist Dean Browell, PhD, executive vice president for Richmond, VA, ad agency Feedback, said it best: “I know some of you are thinking, just let me retire before I have to learn this crap.”

Dean Browell was also listed as one of the top ten you need to get to know at SHSMD by Dan Dunlop, who later chronicled the Emerging Media panel:

Dean Browell of Feedback was on the panel, so I knew it would be good – and even entertaining. Dean is the most grounded Ph.D. I know. And he is incredibly bright. The panel did not disappoint. It was informative and engaging. I thought the audience members asked really good questions and each of the panel members offered valuable insights. My favorite part of the presentation was when Dean said that MySpace is “dead to him.” If it isn’t quite dead, then it is on life support!

You can also see a video interview and highlights from the social media strategy workshop here at the CPM Marketing blog.

Sep
08

Feedback Announces New Client Wins, Year One, And More Team Members

by Feedback

Team embarking on new client work in Europe, Caribbean and a cross-country tour

RICHMOND, VA – When the clock strikes midnight on September 8, Feedback, a social media research and consulting group, will have completed a whirlwind first year that included two dozen new clients in 16 states, tripling the team size at the Richmond offices, acceptance into Worldwide Partners Inc. (the world’s largest owner-operated global agency network), and some of the biggest speaking engagements of the founders’ careers in a variety of industries.

Immediately after the 8th, Feedback embarks on a new year that includes clients in Europe, the Caribbean and South America, their second cross-country tour for a new national client, new office space and new employees.

Feedback is proud to announce a tremendously successful first year as well as the hiring of Jeff Kelley as Senior Experience Strategist, Brad Carr as Technology Specialist, and Brittney Trimmer as Experience Specialist. Kelley comes to Feedback from the public relations world, and previously served four years as a business and technology reporter with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He is also the force behind the Richmond satire web magazine Tobacco Avenue.

“Our first year was not only full of crucial initial milestones, it completed many goals we had set for future years as well,” said Feedback CEO Jeff Thompson. “To take this from a glimmer to operating internationally in twelve months has been a fantastic journey, and we look forward to breaking more records in year two.”

Executive Vice President Dean Browell, who helped found Feedback with a PhD emphasizing generational differences online, added: “Hitting our philosophical goals were as important as hitting our financial ones. We have an incredible team of intelligent, creative people that work hard and play hard with the support of great partners and friends that do the same. Clients love that we love what we do, and that’s what you get when you combine results, expertise and passion.”

ABOUT US

Feedback, Inc has proudly differentiated itself with social media strategy formed from a research context, applying ethnographic research in the social space beyond simply Facebook and Twitter. A combination of high-level, research-informed strategies leading into expert implementation to complement and enhance marketing and PR efforts is why clients and agencies from around the world have contacted Feedback since it was formed in September 2009 by Jeff Thompson, Dean Browell and Experience Manager Anna Lucas. Because Feedback often operates behind the scenes, contact Feedback directly for client names we can share.

For more information, visit Feedback on the web at http://www.feedbackagency.com, on Twitter as @feedbackagency, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/feedbackfband by phone at (804) 893-3437.

###

Jun
07

Feedback Touring New Clients, Adding Band Members

by Feedback

Not satisfied with adding a dozen active clients in only their first eight months, social media research and strategy experts Feedback is thrilled to announce an expansion of their award-winning team with the hiring of Heather Millar as a Senior Research Strategist and Thomas McDonald as an Experience Specialist. Millar recently directed communications and organizational management activities for the Virginia Community College System’s (VCCS) workforce division. McDonald recently designed the social media splash for Richmond startup: To The Bottom and Back.

Feedback’s Executive Vice President, Dean Browell remarked, “We are completely beside ourselves that we can attract top talent like Heather and Thomas. It speaks to the speed and quality of our work that we have grown so early in the company’s life. I think our clients and fans can tell that we are having a blast. Let’s keep it going!”

Millar and McDonald join at an exciting time in Feedback’s vibrant early life as a firm. Feedback’s client roster, largely conducted through partnerships with advertising and public relations firms across the country, has been growing at a rapid pace to include some of the nation’s industry-leading agencies including: national and international institutions in technology, transportation, healthcare, higher education, tourism, direct marketing, nonprofits, automotive and more. Because Feedback often operates behind the scenes, contact Feedback directly for client names we can divulge.

Feedback’s work has also been lauded literally out of the gate: Feedback was proud to be a part of the Nation of Go campaign developed by The Martin Agency for BF Goodrich which won a Silver Cannonball award at the recent Richmond Show for Interactive (Social Media/other). Catch Feedback live this week in Manchester, TN and back home in Richmond, VA with the Feedback Mobile Lab, studying event tourism in social media at the Bonnaroo Music Festival.

Feedback was formed in September 2009, combining great ideas, decades in interactive marketing and a PhD focusing on generational and demographic differences in online technologies into an unusually focused team. Founding members include: Jeff Thompson as CEO and President; Executive Vice President Dean Browell, PhD; and Experience Manager Anna Lucas. Feedback is a leading market strategy and social media firm that assists organizations with ethnographic qualitative research, new media and interactive strategy, program implementation and more. For more information, visit Feedback on the web at http://www.feedbackagency.com, on Twitter as @feedbackagency, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/feedbackfb and by phone at (804) 893-3437.

May
28

A Vacation for Picks!

by Feedback

Anna’s Picks of the Week is on a hiatus this week, enjoying a break – and you should too! We’ll raise a glass to ya.

- The Crew

May
12

Keep Up-To-The-Minute With Feedback

by Feedback

In case you aren’t one of the nearly 1,000 people who subscribe to our regular stream of consciousness and news feeds, we wanted to encourage you to visit:

Feedback on Facebook (Facebook.com/FeedbackFB)
Where you’ll find  our active links, commentary, great discussions, photos, video and more on a daily (heck, hourly) basis… just click “Like” and you’re in!

Feedback on Twitter (@feedbackagency)
Twitterers can get their fix on our stream here, linking to great articles, thoughts and more!

And of course here on our blog and on YouTube (user: FeedbackVideos) you can catch Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week every week. We’re thrilled you’re here and hope you enjoy what you see – contact us (804-893-3437) for more!

-Dean (@dbrowell)

May
03

The Internet, Anthropology, Facebook as Training Wheels & More at ROFLcon II

by Feedback

We’ve returned from ROFLcon II (April 30 & May 1, 2010) and are eager to share all we learned with anyone who will listen…

Huge ideas abound and it was an incredibly helpful (and dare we say important) conference to witness. It was only the second time in two years they’d even held this exploration of internet culture, memes, academia and society at MIT. Anna (first-timer) and I (returning for round two) soaked up every minute of the packed two days. There’s so much to share, but we wanted to be sure to get some key themes in writing first:

  • The entire conference started out with Ethan Zuckerman’s (The Berkman Center for Internet and Society) brilliant “From Weird to Wide” primer on important philosophical questions about culture, the internet and memes. This included not only a bright debut of Kenyan’s first meme explosion, but also an important discussion of a significant point: Be an anthropologist, not a bouncer. In other words, embrace rather than exclude. It would set the tone for some interesting underpinnings for the rest of the conference
  • Apparently the rest of The Internet agrees that YouTube comments are the most ridiculous in the universe
  • Another giant point writ large: Know your history. There were many great moments in a variety of panels that included memes and networks old and new, but the overall one can’t be hyped enough: know where we’ve been. For example, the open community of Usenet, with its challenges, imperfections, sub-communities, stalwart user trust and very existence pre-AOL set the stage for one of the toughest but singularly important lessons of the entire conference…
  • “AOL” and “Training Wheels.” The Tweets heard round the world. As the very last panel at ROFLcon II tried to wrap its arms around the topic of “Mainstreaming the Web,” Ben Huh and Moot (from LOLcats and 4chan fame, respectively) deftly created a distinct separation between the open sub-communities that operate online (some anonymously) and those that allow for a mainstream audience to operate in a larger but closed system. With over 950 attendees, ROFLcon included employees from ominous internet giants such as Google and Mozilla, but as this panel pointed out, not a soul from Facebook (or none that would admit it). This lead to the single most Re-Tweeted line from the conference, uttered by Ben:

“Facebook has become like AOL, it’s like training wheels for the internet. It’s a safe place, except for your privacy.”

And thus what was once considered a fringe medium was correctly pegged as having moved into a mainstream culture controlled by a single corporation. We’ve been here before. With 400 million users, with meaningful proportions of diverse generations, races and cultures, Facebook is not unlike the closed system of AOL. This doesn’t make it right or wrong, but it does make it everywhere and closed – and drastically different from much of the sub-cultures brewing away contently in the rest of the web.

For Feedback one overriding point was clear: the social web hardly, barely begins and ends at the doors of Facebook and Twitter. Certainly a critical mass at those two giants means we must implement there to reach a large population of consumer. But even more importantly we must dive deep, see fewer obstacles and research even smarter and harder beyond these barriers into the sub-cultures that exist in the interest, cultural and geographic communities. There are enough self-proclaimed social media gods to take care of staring at Facebook and Twitter only. But it’s not unlike marveling only at a capital city and not noticing the swarms of people outside, down the roads, in other states, in other countries… The future of the net and community is not only also out there, it may indeed only be out there. Think I’m just being overly dramatic? Ask AOL.

More to come on some of our favorite moments by myself and Anna (@alucas9). We certainly had fun too and some photos are up on our Facebook Page right now. In the meantime be sure to check out her interview with Christian Lander of “Stuff White People Like” fame.

-Dean (@dbrowell)

Mar
19

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week – From Times Square (03/19/10)

by Feedback

Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest and coolest social media tools? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. (& if the answer is yes, leave a comment with your favorites). I have searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way. & this week I’m doing my picks from Times Square in NYC!

@Anywhere:

At SXSW Twitter announced the @anywhere platform, but did not give us any insight into their advertising model. @anywhere is an app that will allow people to access Twitter information on any site on the Internet.

Facebook Search:

This week Facebook announced an update to their search capabilities that uses the search bar to incorporate more relevant results based on your networks connections.

Location Battle:

SXSW interactive was all about the location apps, specifically Gowalla and Foursquare. Both were used a ton at SXSW but it was Gowalla that beat out the competition in the SXSW web awards winning for the mobile category.

March Madness Apps:

March Madness top 24 started on Thursday so for all you sports fans, I have some app recommendations for you so you don’t miss the scores. If you’re in a tournament there are apps such as ESPN Tournament Challenge where you can check your standing, there’s also tons of free apps to keep up with the scores such as NCAA’s March Madness On Demand Lite App.

Facebook # 1:

Reports came out this week from HitWise that Facebook beat out Google as the most visited site for the week ending March 13th. This is the first time Facebook has beat our Google, becoming the most visited and most popular U.S. website

-Anna (@alucas9)

Mar
09

Radio Free Feedback

by Feedback

Radio Free Feedback is Born!

Radio Free Feedback is our musical experiment, featuring musician friends, up-and-comers we can help highlight, observed acts of musical lunacy and more. We will occasionally feature musicians in our offices as well as out on the road, sometimes themed and sometimes just jamming. If you’re interested in being featured or hanging out, contact us through the info at the bottom of the page or click here.

Radio Free Feedback 1: Featuring Dave Tinney!

Thanks to everyone who tuned in live and in-person! The recorded show is in full below, check out and fan our Facebook Page for video clips, photos and more:

-Dean (@dbrowell) on behalf of the Feedback crew, old and new