This article has been re-posted from www.dustin2to.com.

This past weekend I visited my brother Daren in Ottawa. This was the last time I’ll see him before my trip to Africa later in September. We have wanted to do the Great Canadian Bungee jump for a while now and this was the only weekend that worked for us both. (more…)

Early this week saw famous coffee and donut shop Dunkin’ Donuts hit hard in the social media space as spammers took the brands Facebook page for an X-rated, wild ride flooding it with adult links and images, which just kept popping up.

The incident raises the obvious “who’s in charge?” questions, however perhaps more importantly: Do brands still think they can do this alone? Speed, competence and continuity are all important skills when it comes to staying on top of the content posted to your brand’s social spaces - and if you can’t offer all three on your own, you clearly need help. (more…)

When Apple announced that it would not be adopting Adobe Flash into any of its products - ever, companies everywhere had to make a choice to have a website that worked with flash, HTML5 or both.

Both Google, and more recently Yahoo released HTML5-optimized versions of their sites. ICUC Moderation Services went for both, because we want our clients to be able to access us from anywhere, but what should other companies keep in mind when optimizing for mobile?

Eighty per cent of businesses across a range of industries said they plan to or already have developed mobile websites in the next year, according to a new survey by Adobe Systems. (more…)

We all love our social media tools; Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. They allow us to communicate, network, listen and learn from a diverse and far-reaching, global community. However, we all have our pet peeves when it comes to manners and that includes the social media sphere.

Here are a list of the top five social media pet peeves and how to avoid being seen as a chaotic annoyance in the face of your peers. (more…)

BrandWeek recently published an article regarding the use of social media by marketers of alcoholic beverage brands. With so many alcoholic brands stepping into the space, and so few restrictions and regulations what is absolutely clear is the drastic need for moderation - not just monitoring.

The article referenced an upcoming report being put out by the FTC expected in early 2011, regarding the number of times minors get passed age restrictions on such sites. “Facebook has some age barriers that are easily gotten around,” said Michele Simon, research and policy director of the Marin Institute. The institute is calling for the removal of all promotional content posted on Facebook by such alcoholic companies. (more…)

This past Wednesday ICUC Moderation Services sponsored and attended our third – and best yet - BlogWell event on this year’s tour. Past tour stops ICUC has sponsored and I have personally attended included Cincinnati and Seattle, both good events but this event was different – it was great. I suspect its close proximity to Chicago and the McDonald’s Campus location of this event drew a more senior level crowd then I have come to expect from BlogWell events, and this was a positive for ICUC and other sponsors such as Radian6 and Marketwire. (more…)

This month’s Inside Scoop we’re talking to Kenneth Lander from ICUC Moderation Services news moderation division. Ken was born and raised in the Atlanta area in a little town called Monroe, Georgia. He attended Emory University and spent a few years working for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus as a marketing and PR rep around the U.S.

After returning to the University of Georgia, School of Law, Ken practiced law in Monroe for 14 years as a trial lawyer and was a self-proclaimed workaholic. Deciding to take his first vacation in seven years, Ken, his wife Yamileth and their seven children headed to Costa Rica, and after buying a coffee farm in the mountains - they never looked back. (more…)

ICUC and I have a few things in common. We’re both young – sort of, we’re both human powered, and we both call Winnipeg, Manitoba, home. I spent a week and a half of July in Manitoba seeing friends and family, and meeting with co-workers at our annual meeting.

The annual meeting covered topics such as marketing, finance, and sales with overviews of the last six months and forecasts and projections for what’s on the horizon for the remainder of 2010 and beyond. Like any company, it’s important we know where we are, where we were, and where we need to be. I think this is especially true for our company that works in a space evolving at the speed of conversation. (more…)

When you work for a moderation services company you get to understand that there are certain rules of engagement - and not in the silly Hollywood sitcom kind of way. Community managers are tasked with a specific set of skills to engage directly with consumers across social networks.

These same rules can be applied to your own company’s social engagement. Social media managers or an outsourced social media moderation and/or monitoring team should be performing key tasks on a daily basis to keep your community running smoothly. (more…)

Quickly approaching August, the beginning of the month marks the third in a series of sponsorship events for ICUC Moderation Services. August 11, 2010 will see CEO, Keith Bilous and business development manager, Dustin Plett in Chicago to the next BlogWell event. (more…)