One of my favorite things about my role at Strategic Blend is keeping up with clients, and seeing what they’re up to, how they’re using their digital properties, and watching them grow!

Some examples of recent innovative uses come from Drivin N Cryin, Karli Whetstone (and her new site theme), and The CO

DNC

Drivin N Cryin is a great example of motivating your community in a time of crisis/tragedy.  In a blog post dated Sept 13th, Drivin N Cryin took to their website with the following message:

Between 3:45am and 6am on Saturday September 11, Drivin N Cryin’s tour trailer containing their stage gear was stolen from the La Quinta Inn at x-169 on I-75 in Macon, GA. The black Quicksilver Racing 5×10 trailer held the band’s guitars, amplifiers, drums, merchandise and stage production gear. A complete list can be viewed here: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=5912085821&topic=15178#topic_top and photos can be seen here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=235150&id=5912085821. 3 items have since been recovered at a pawn shop in Atlanta, GA. The person responsible for pawning these 3 items has been identified as Atlanta resident Reginald Ellis. More information on Ellis can be found here:http://www.drivinncryin.com/thief/.

Drivin N Cryin would like to thank their friends, fans, the Georgia music community and the Atlanta/Macon media for the outpouring of support and assistance. For 25 years, you guys have been the best fans. We are truly grateful.

Not only is this horrible for a touring band, but especially for a band that’s been on the road for 20+ years.  Taking a look at some of that gear will make any music fan tear  up.

Using social media (and not to mention craigslist, hilarious!) to showcase the gear stolen, adding a page to the site to help catch the theif (that rotten bastard).  The general response has been overwhelming.  Bringing an entire musical community together in the search for their stuff, and, more importantly, getting the word out that they’d been robbed, someone was pawning their shit, and THIS IS THAT DUDE.

A great use of WordPress, a great use of facebook, and a good strategy in a time of panic.  DNC, may all your stuff be found, may it all be in one piece, and may they put Reginald Donta Ellis in a cell UNDER the jail, and never let him loose.

Karli Whetstone

Karli’s career has been steadily progressing, and she decided to give the site a new look!  What I feel is a more grown up / sophisticated look and feel.

In addition she’s also begun blogging.  And unlike this blogger…. she’s diligent.   Rarely missing a day to update you on what’s going on in her world.  It’s very “daily diary” in nature, and is currently the most popular section of her site.  Between that and a persistent twitter feed, her fans know what she’s up to every day… and that will pay off in spades!

A loyal, devout, and connected following is a very powerful thing!

The CO

The CO are one of my favorite artists we’ve worked with.  They just GET IT!  They have integrated every portion of their digitally owned properties into a really robust site.

Troy’s Blog is filled with some great video updates, quick quips and stories… and most importantly, his passion for giving back to the world around him.

Collin’s Blog has great introspection, and images.

Not to mention the great video blog on the general band blog page

Much like Karli’s site, you really get a sense of who these guys are, and what they’re up to!

So here’s to you guys…. I hope to continue learning from you, growing with you, and helping find success with you.

Well, now someone has taken the time to dig into the revised facebook terms of use, and, without being long winded here, they own your shit.

They own the name you load, they can use your likeness for whatever they see fit.. your account is actually THEIR account.

I’ll say it again, have a place you’re hosting your information, whether it be on YOUR site, or on back up drives.

Strategic Blend uses the cloud as much or more than any other company, but we don’t rely on it as a sole location for our files, everything is also stored locally on hard drives (and typically backed up again from there).

OWN YOUR CONTENT…. there I said it…. or just read the old blog entry.

Facebook changing their Terms of Service didn’t change the game, in fact, it didn’t change anything.  It just brought the flawed system to light.

This ability is AMAZING! It’s something that as I child I could have only dreamed of. Imagine, you’re 12 and your best friend moves to a town across the country. When I was young, you wrote a couple of letters, and eventually you forgot about those friends (more or less). But now a friend moves away, and yet I can still feel like I’m a part of their day to day life. This completely changes the social dynamic of our world… but there are a few downsides.

First, how are we supposed to keep track of all of these portals? Drew Barrymore says it best in an upcoming film:

“I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, and so I called him at home, and he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.”

It’s true, there’s too much to check, too many places to try and keep up with friends, check messages, and status’, and microfeeds… so what’s the answer? Aggrigators? A “Dashboard” as proposed by Marc Canter, or perhaps an additional hour (or day) to the week? (we could call it NetDay, placed somewhere between Tuesday and Friday).

Hopefully something will eventually ease the anxiety and exhaustion of just trying to “keep up”.

But perhaps more troubling than all of the places to check… is what happens when one of your portals suddenly DISAPPEARS, closes their doors (along with it, your content). For those who haven’t read the EULA (End User License Agreement) to most Social Networks, you’ll find that once you release your content (photos, videos, documents, etc) THEY own it. If they disappear, along goes your online identity!

There are some seeing this as a problem and proposing a solution.  But at the end of the day the only true backup is to OWN YOUR OWN CONTENT!

Don’t back up your entire collection of photos on facebook and delete them from your camera. Don’t assume your YouTube channel is a safehouse for the videos of your children. Own it!

This is true for individuals, companies and artists on proprietary platforms (even custom designed content management systems), if you don’t have hosting, and you don’t own the url, it’s not NECESSARILY yours.

note:  Even if you own the content on a 3rd party CMS, you may not ever be able to make a seamless transfer to another platform.

Bottom line Individuals, Companies, and Artists should OWN THEIR CONTENT.. OWN THEIR SITE… AND CREATE THEIR OWN PORTAL… it’s the only safeguard against losing it all when the inevitable attrition of these sites begins.

Companies / Artists, I’ve got a WONDERFUL solution for you.  At the end of it all the platform, content, hosting, site… all of it is yours!

Individuals, if you’re willing to spend $30 a year, you can devise your own solution.

Don’t leave it all up to the social networks.  Own it.  Don’t lose it!