I am consulting and freelancing on social media projects this summer, finding success. I’m not in a position, financially, to launch a company like ChatterBlast, a Philadelphia social media marketing company. I have a confession. I like to win, and don’t like to accept anything less. In 2007 I was riding the crest of the brand-new world of social media, with my company, ClickStream Marketing, running campaigns on Digg, Reddit, NetScape, StumbleUpon, and Delicious. We were on the bleeding edge, and with it came tremendous gain– or loss in the form of riding too far out on a sharp edge.
“Social news” websites ready to die before ChatterBlast opens doors
ChatterBlast started offering strategy for the social Web in 2009, two years after I put ClickStream Marketing under for lack of funding after a growth spurt that was fast and furious. The Philadelphia agency saw what companies like FaceBook, Twitter, and LindedIn were doing and had the smarts to realize growth of social media in Philadelphia was ready to pop. At the birth of Web 2.0, a term that was very common last decade, FaceBook and to a greater extent, Twitter, were not the towering giants they are today. When ChatterBlast entered the social space, it was becoming clear what worked and what didn’t. Remember Netscape circa 2007? They were one of the 50 most trustworthy and authoritative websites. They decided to bet the ranch on one branch of social networking popular at the time, “social news.” Companies specializing in client social media strategy in 2009 saw the social bookmarking and voting model would not catch on. Digg was the other darling of social in 2007, and today few people even know about Digg.com.
Hats off to Chatterblast for jumping into the game when the timing was right. And to my former employees, those of you recommending caution in a nascent social networking world by sticking to our design and development work: you got it right!
