Posts tagged ‘Online Communities’
Social Media Exhaustion
There are many pundits talking about social media as a “bubble”. Just as we experienced the recent housing bubble or Internet bubble of a decade ago, they argue that social media will reach a point of diminishing returns. While I don’t believe that social media will ever disappear, there is some truth to this argument that we need to take into account.
I remember a mere 5 years ago I was doing seminars on what a blog is, what a podcast is, and how you use these in a business environment. Those seminars consisted of helping people set up their tools and learn how to use them in a meaningful way. Today, everywhere you turn there is a newspaper article, TV news segment, blog, or social network posting with someone’s opinion about social media, how to use it, and where it is going.
I was driving and listening to a sports talk radio show recently and heard “Tweet of the Day” segments and even interviews of athletes on what they Tweet about. Late night comedy hosts have bits about Facebook and Twitter almost every night. Also, since when did it become hip to plaster a “Follow us on Twitter” or “Friend us on Facebook” logo on every possible piece of company literature? When I saw the phrase, “WWJT? What would Jesus Tweet,” I knew it has hit mainstream America.
So what’s next?
I think many people are beginning to experience what I have for about the last year – what I like to call social media exhaustion. It is not that social media are not valuable. They are simply on overload. You reach a point where you feel as if you are the digital version of Henry David Thoreau. You just want to go find a pond somewhere and build yourself a cabin – sans broadband.
Remember when social media used to be the tool we used to escape all the noise of the advertising world? Now social media has BECOME the noise. We have created the very environment we were trying to avoid.
Is social media a bubble ready to burst? Possibly. The more likely scenario is that more of the classically trained marketers, like myself, are going to find ways to use this one-on-one medium to avoid the noise and establish relationships the old fashioned way… by earning them.
If you are tired of the noise, let us know. Bring us your tired, your worn, your huddled masses, and your fed up anti – Mafia Wars/Farmville/”Business Opportunities”/Group Invitations/Cheap Software activists. Come find rest for the social soul and value for your time. Tell me how you avoid social media exhaustion…
How to Arm Customers to Spread the Word
Up to this point, I have emphasized the Navel Model for creating a company worth talking about. It is critical that you do this piece first. As the great military strategist, Sun Tzu, once said, “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Most literature in the marketing realm is about tactics. In social media, people go right to Twitter and Facebook. In advertising they go right to the 30 second spot or the full page print ad. However, in order to have successful tactics, the strategic pieces need to be in place first.
Once you have created an organization worth talking about, the next step is to arm your customers to spread the word. It doesn’t matter what the medium is, the process remains the same. The six steps below work especially well in social media, but also work in public relations, advertising, direct marketing, or any other medium. The six steps below are also not linear but are circular because they are not always done in order. By implementing the steps below, you can better find your target influencers, arm them with tools to spread the word, and amplify their efforts.
- Publish – There is an argument in the social media space about whether content is king or conversation is king. The reality is that both are important for successful word-of-mouth. Content without conversation is advertising – it’s one way. Conversation with content is chatter. It is social media strictly for the social benefit. The first step is to publish great content. With all of the tools available today, there are many mediums you can use – it simply depends on your audience. If they have time to read and revisit often, then right a blog. If they are more inclined to download content and listen at a later date, then a podcast may be the best option. If they learn visually and your content is meant to be demonstrated, then produce a video series, or vidcast. For tools, check out WordPress, Libsyn, and YouTube. If you want to know what to write your content about, always think “educate and advocate.” Provide educational insights, how to’s, or insider information. When advocating, look to the cause you created in your Navel Model.
- Syndicate – Now that you have produced great content, step 2 is to find all the places you can share that content. Obviously, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or other online communities are a natural fit, however, also consider how you can share this content in your advertising, PR, and direct marketing efforts. Link to it within your social communities. Use snippets in advertising. Use it to pitch editors to cover important topics about your company or industry.
- Integrate – The amazing thing about where technology has come from in the recent past is that today, everything talks to each other. That means you can spend less time and get better results from your efforts. By integrating your blog utility with your social communities, every time a new post is created on the blog, it can automatically be posted to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. Every time you Tweet it can update your status in Facebook, both your personal profile and your business pages. The key with integration is to amplify your efforts.
- Converse – Referring back to the argument under “Publish”, once you have great content, the next step is to talk about it. Talk about your content. Talk about others’ content. Talk about a recent lesson you learned in your business. The key is to talk. Dare to be human; to be more than just a brand. The more personal you can be, the more others will grow in affinity for your brand and share it with others.
- Help - This is the concept upon which social media was built – people helping people. The Golden Rule is as applicable in social media as anywhere else. The more that you help others, the more benefit you receive in return. This is where you solidify your customer evangelists. It can be something as simple as re-Tweeting their Tweets or something more complex, like writing a blog post about them. You can answer questions on LinkedIn (and syndicate by linking to your content) or you can comment on another person’s blog. These are all forms of help.
- Monitor – Lastly, one of the most powerful aspects of social media is that it is infinitely searchable. I can monitor conversations going on almost anywhere in the social web and (politely) engage in the conversation. I can measure how much chatter there is online about a particular brand. I can even automate monitoring so that I am instantly notified when a conversation is taking place. The ability to monitor online conversations is one of the most important aspects of the social web and the reason it is one of the fastest growing marketing mediums today.
With the six steps above, you create great content, share it in as many places as you can, make your technologies talk to each other, engage with others, be helpful, and monitor conversations in order to start the cycle all over again. If you have done your previous work, such as creating a position, cause, culture, and message, you’ll know what to share and converse about. While you may go through the Navel Model only once in a while, the above steps will be a daily to do list.
With the six steps above, you can adequately arm your customers to quickly spread your message for you. Which do you do already and which could you improve upon?
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Why Should I Use Twitter?
I get this question a lot, so in an effort to answer the question once and for all, I thought I would write a blog post about it. To start out, I have to admit, I had the same question. I made fun of Twitter for a year before I started using it. Like I always say, I don’t even find myself mildly interesting let alone believe anyone else will. I am going to echo something that you often hear when people refer to Twitter – “you don’t understand it until you try it.”
First of all, I don’t like the way Twitter explains itself. They say it is a network of people answering the question, “What are you doing right now?” However, the people who only do that have few followers since nobody wants to read “I am eating a sandwich” 10 times a day.
The best description for Twitter is that it is THE aggregation tool. It is one of the best tools available for short snippets of content along with links to rest of the content. It is a phenomenal tool for blog promotion. It is a great tool for finding and sharing great content with others. I read all of my news and blogs on Twitter. It is the portal to all great content.
From a marketing perspective, Twitter is like having your own TV or radio station. You have a group of people raising their hand saying they want to receive your content. It is the ultimate in permission marketing. People can choose to follow or unfollow based on much they like your content.
But don’t take my word for it. I threw the question out on Twitter and Facebook and asked, “Why do you use Twitter?” Here are some of the answers:
Norris Kreuger said: “3 reasons: #1: Missed too much that’s not posted elsewhere, #2: Another way to connect with out of town folks, #3 Need a new addiction”
Brandy said: “I’ve got to have SOME outlet for these random thoughts! It iniates conversations between friends that may not normally happen.”
Richard Paul said: “To expand my circle of influence, connect with people interested in my subject matter, and create new friendships.”
Sharon Fisher said, “1. To get and give pointers to information. 2. To keep up with my friends, news, and people in Idaho.”
Tobin Rogers said: “It’s so quick to connect with people within your industry for networking. You can see what other local professionals are working on. It’s just another great tool.”
Jen Harris said: “Because those are the people I REALLY want to be around.”
Tony Courtwright said: “Simple and real-time communication with industry experts.”
Mark Brummett said: “I follow celebs. (none of my friends have it) But I like knowing what people are up to in real time.”
Dave Bourff said: “‘Cause I can.”
Edward Dunn said: “Socializing, networking, sharing business ideas, learning new ideas, letting everyone know what I had for lunch. Cuz who wouldn’t want to know that?!:-)”
Christopher Barger said: “Because audiences are there.”
No matter what your reason for using it, there is value in Twitter for many different purposes. The only thing I can say is try it. I’ll be your first follower.
How do you use Twitter?
Update: I just saw a great presentation on Twitter by one of its founders, Evan Williams, at the TED Conference. Twitter evolved from what they had initially thought it was going to be and this 8 minute talk does a great job of giving you the history of the evolution. Watch the video here.
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Top 25 Social Networks
Recently, Compete.com posted new statistics on the Top 25 Social Networks ranked by monthly visits. While many social networks like to tout their number of users, monthly visits is a true measurement of usage. In other words, which social networks are getting used? The numbers are below:
(Credit Compete.com)
As you can see from the numbers, Facebook has taken over the top spot from MySpace and previously little known Twitter has climbed to the third spot after the two behemoths. In fact, if you read the original blog post on Compete.com, you will see a few other graphs that show MySpace’s numbers falling while Facebook and Twitter continue meteoric rises.
What’s even more fascinating is that, according to the CNET News blog, these numbers only represent web browser traffic in the U.S. According to writer Caroline McCarthy, “That means that you won’t be pulling in any international numbers, where most of Facebook’s users are now, or data from widgets or third-party applications, which are how many avid Twitter users access the service. That means that it’s likely that Twitter’s reach is bigger than the numbers indicate.”
How does this apply to you? I have often told people in conversation that I am an early adpoter when it comes to social media, which means I am not the innovator who jumps on every new technology in its infant stages but wait for a certain mass before it has business value. I follow many innovators (such as my friend Tac Anderson or Joseph Jaffe) in order to keep my finger on the pulse of what is the latest and greatest, but look for networks or technologies that can really add value for clients. If you want to know whether a social networks would add value to your business, the 25 networks above are a safe bet.
That being said, I have always held true to the notion that focus is better than mass. If there is a small social community out there that is extremely targeted to your core audience, then you need to be an active participant. Sometimes, these social communities are housed within existing networks, such as the 25 above, and sometimes they are separate. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the web is a collection of coffee shops with people around a table chatting. You need to find the coffee shop that best fits your audience and get involved.
As an old economics professor of mine used to say, “there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics”. While one thing that blogs are great for is spewing the latest statistics to prove a point, one thing is true. With numbers even close to these, businesses can no longer argue with the value of social media in facilitating and participating in conversations.
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A Collection of Coffee Shops
I have given several seminars on this topic, but I wanted to share it on this blog so that everyone can understand the power of online marketing as it exists today. I often receive requests to speak on web 2.0 or new media. It is often the same question, “can you teach us how to use web 2.0 to get the word out about us?”
To answer this question, I need to step back and do a quick overview of how the web has evolved and why they use the term web 2.0 (vs. web 1.0). To begin with, in the initial heyday of the Internet, it was all about getting a web site. If you had your own web page on the world wide web, you were a star. The process was difficult and the result was a collection of online brochures. Companies like Tripod and Geocities came along and simplified the process of putting up your own web page, but it was still static.
Then came a revolution in how people used the web. They began to congregate on the web. They began to use nascent tools to create communities around specific topics, whether it was a blog, podcast, wiki, message board, or full fledged social network. You can read the Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0 here.
Today, the best analogy I have come up with for the way the web works today is this:
Walk into any coffee shop in America these days and you will find a collection of small communities in full gossip mode. They could be talking about relationships, personal trials, or business transactions. However, they are all engrossed in what is going on immediately around them.
The web works the same way today. Think of the web as a giant collection of coffee shops (or one giant coffee shop if it is easier to picture). There are groups of people all over the world meeting and gossiping about everything from cancer to cars. The web has gone beyond a collection of static brochures to become a gathering place. Unlike a coffee shop, where the conversation wanders from topic to topic, most online communities are built around a very specific topic.
For example, one of the most well read blogs on the Internet is one by Leroy Sievers a journalist for the last 25 years and current cancer patient. His emotional posts receive no fewer than 45 comments per blog, with some receiving upwards of 170. There are communities created around a love of cars, such as CarDomain.com, with close to 2 million registered users. Even tree huggers have their own coffee shops at places like TreeHugger.com or Care2 Make a Difference, which has over 8 million registered users. Looking to build your biceps? Boise-based company BodyBuilding.com has one of the web’s largest online communities for advice on that perfect calf workout. There are even online coffee shops, like Pronetos, for Professors and academics to get together and dish about their research.
The key benefits to tapping into these online communities is that they are a targeted group gathered around a central theme, they are passionate, and they are influencers. This group is a collection of thought leaders in their field.
What is tricky about using these communities to market, however, is that they have a high BS radar and a long memory for those that try to shamelessly promote themselves in the middle of the conversation. It would be much the same way if you walked into the middle of a group huddled together in a coffee shop and pronounced loudly, “Have you tried my brand of wiper blade? It will change your life!” I guarantee you that the same looks you would receive from that group would be the same ones you would receive from behind the monitors of the online elite.
You have to get involved and become engaged. While it is an incredible opportunity to have this group of influencers gathered together in one place, you have to become a part of the group in order to succeed. It is not quick and you can’t just pay someone to run a few ads for you. You have to genuinely be a part of the conversation.
