Posts tagged ‘Social Network’
If Social Media Were a Planet…
Many people refer to their geeky friends who spend all of their time in social media land as “living on their own planet.” Well, apparently now there is a map of that planet.
A recent Mashable story showcased how the social media landscape has changed in a short 3 years. Back in 2007, web comic XKCD published the original “Map of Online Communities”. If you visit the Mashable article, you can see the original compared to the latest rendition. Notice how the relative size of communities and online tools have changed between 2007 and the one created for 2010 by marketing firm, Flowtown, below. Twitter didn’t really exist back then, MySpace ruled the world of social communities, and “Farmville” would likely get you some strange looks.
Though many social media “experts” would have you believe that social media marketing means getting thousands of followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook, the landscape is always changing. I have often said that the tools will come and go, but the principles of marketing in a connected world will not. You still have to create something worth talking about, no matter the community in which your customers choose to talk about you.
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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Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…Oh My
I recently wrote an article in Eagle Magazine on social media and the 3 major networks. This covers the basics of social media and the reason behind the phenomenon. I have reprinted the article below. Enjoy:
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn… Oh My: Social networking isn’t limited to coffee shops and cocktail parties anymore
There is an analogy I often use in my seminars to describe how social media has not only shaped the evolution of the Internet, it has changed how we interact as a society. When you go to any coffee shop in town, you will find small tribes of people gathered around tables and comfortable couches, favorite beverage in hand, simply chatting about everything from relationships to what was on TV last night. These bands of socialites have simply moved their discussion from a face to face interaction to what can only be described as the “Virtual Coffee Shop”.
The web has become simply one giant coffee shop, with groups huddled around computer monitors discussing everything from green living to cancer to cars. As these conversation technologies evolve and new tools emerge, the need to discuss important topics in our lives any time of the day or night becomes even more compelling. Social media technologies are just an extension of our daily interactions with those in our lives.
Take Twitter for instance. Three years ago this 10 million strong (and growing) social network was merely a gleam in some programmer’s eye. Today it is the fastest growing social network on the planet. According to Mashable.com, the social web’s source for news, Twitter grew 1382% in year-over-year growth as of February 20091. The media is replete with mentions of Twitter. Jimmy Fallon uses Twitter to solicit questions for guests on his new late night talk show. Shaquille O’neal uses Twitter to interact with fans and give away tickets to games. Major brands are searching the “Twitterverse” to monitor conversations about their brands in order to contribute to the discussion.
What is Twitter you ask? It was built on the notion that anyone could describe what he or she was doing at any moment in 140 characters or less. In practice, it has become a valuable tool for building deeper relationships through much more frequent contact and for aggregating content from many other sources on the web. Twitter can turn you into a mini “rock star” by creating your very own media channel to which anyone can subscribe.
Another network experiencing exponential growth right now is Facebook. A mere 5 years old, Facebook currently has 200 million users and is growing at a pace of approximately 1 million users per week. To put it into perspective, if Facebook were a country, it would be the 6th largest in the word based on population. When my 59 year old mother communicates with me regularly on Facebook, you know it has leapt from the land of geeks and bleeding-heart teens to mainstream.
While Twitter is like being in a busy coffee shop trying to hear your friend over many different conversations going on at once, Facebook takes a more segmented approach to online conversation. First of all, your home page is a news feed that shows only the changes that have been made to the profiles of those in your network. Second of all, you can join groups, become a fan of your favorite business or artist, and even play interactive games with those in your network. It can be both a time waster as well as a valuable business tool. In fact, most people will tell you it has even become one giant high school reunion for them.
Twitter and Facebook serve as that unique intersection between your social and professional lives. They can be valuable business tools or simply a way to stay in touch with family and friends. LinkedIn, however, is all business. In its simplest form, LinkedIn is an interactive resume and Rolodex. In practice, however, it is the online version of the business cocktail party, without the constraints of time or space. You can make introductions, provide a recommendation for those you have worked with in the past, and even ask for help from your network on a pressing question you may have. If you are a professional, own a business, or work in an field you would consider a “career” you should be on LinkedIn.
While the networks may come and go (MySpace is on the decline, for instance) one thing is true. Social media has brought the world together. No longer are we limited by time or space, but we can stay in constant contact with those that matter most to us. If you haven’t yet made the plunge, there is no better time to jump on the social media bandwagon. There is plenty of company.
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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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The Myth of the Social Media Marketer
I have mentioned this in presentations and on Twitter, but I felt it needed a blog post as well. I have been involved in social media for about the last 5 years. I have seen it grow from its infancy to a powerful communications and engagement medium. I have seen companies come and go and I have seen mega-brands created almost overnight. In my 16 years as a marketer, this is, by far, the most exciting and compelling trend to happen in marketing.
However, social media has spawned a not so pleasant side effect: so-called “social media marketers”. What I am referring to are the hordes of techies who figure out how to blog, podcast, or use social networks to build a certain following and then start billing themselves out as “experts”. How many “internet marketing experts” or “social media experts” have you seen boasting about their capabilities in their Twitter profiles or on their blogs? In a very short period of time (5 years) an entire service industry has been spawned by former engineers, unemployed college students, ex-sales people, high-school drop-outs, and housewives who are now marketing “experts”. Yeah, doesn’t make sense to me either.
One so-called expert posted a press release about how so incredibly awesome he was at social media. He has been getting coverage all over the social media networks, except it is as “The Biggest Douche in Social Media.”
If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this one key fact: there is a difference between users of social media and social media marketers. To give you an example, I know how to use Photoshop. Been using it for about 10 years to do little tasks here and there. I even delve into bigger projects occasionally and took a class on it at a local training facility. However, just because I know how to use Photoshop or Illustrator or Quark doesn’t make me a graphic designer. A designer has training and experience in colors, shapes, and the emotions of good design. The software he uses are just the tools.
The same holds true of marketers. Social media can be extremely powerful, but the rules of marketing still hold true. While social media may be replacing advertising as the communication vehicle, you still need to position, differentiate, and build an integrated communication plan. I have found that those who most ridicule the educated and experienced marketers as being “out of touch” with how marketing works today are those without an education and without experience. True, there are many marketers who are not keeping up with the changing nature of communications, by my prediction is that those who succeed long term in social media will be the classic marketers who learn how to adapt to the new realities of how consumers like to be communicated to. The Internet bubble burst because the realities of business had not, in fact, changed, only the delivery vehicle had. The same holds true for social media; the core principles of marketing have not changed, only the engagement vehicle has.
Are there social media marketers? Of course there are, and many of them are extremely effective. However, don’t believe every “expert” who tells you they can get you to the Top of Twitter or can build you a giant following on Facebook and have that equate to increased sales. The principles haven’t changed, only the tools have.
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Are you LinkedIn?
I have been a user of the online business community, LinkedIn, for a couple of years now. Yet it is only recently that I have started to discover the power of a networking site for business users that is truly global.
For one of my clients, I generate business from international clients looking to launch technology products into the US. Now where do you find a group of those guys hanging around? As I mentioned previously, the web has become a collection of “coffee shop” communities. So I thought I would try my own theory out and utilize a powerful tool that I am already using to find this particular coffee shop.
With the recent re-design of LinkedIn, groups became a much more prominent part of the community. In the past, it was almost as if the powers that be at LinkedIn wanted to obscure the groups from view so that nobody would find them. However, with the power of groups, you now have a group of people who self select as those interested in a certain topic (i.e. Mac Users, Friends of Italy, French Consulting Group, you-name-it). Granted, you have the (what I fondly refer to as) “link whores” who are in this prize-less contest to see who dies with the most contacts in LinkedIn. They tend to join every group imaginable and link to anyone and their hamster. However, linking with them can give you good exposure as well.
However, these groups are an excellent way to meet and greet. It gives you an excuse to drop someone a line (i.e. “I saw you were on the Friends of Italy group and was wondering what type of business you have in Italy”).
One of the biggest advantages to using LinkedIn to contact people, however, is the amount of information available to the person you are contacting about you. Before responding to your message, they can look at your work history, your education, your list of recommendations from other users what groups you are involved in, and what your list of hobbies are. They can even see what you look like. I have found it to be a much more effective way of contacting someone than just a standard e-mail.
Heck, I will even browse the local network in Boise and find people in targeted organizations who have backgrounds that interest me and invite them to meet for lunch or coffee (OJ for me). I have never once been turned down.
There is a constant debate raging over who will win out in the end. Will it be Facebook, LinkedIn, OpenSocial, or even some upstart business community. Even Plaxo has made a resurgence. However, I have discovered it is all in how you use these tools to meet your networking needs. LinkeIn is a powerful tool for networking with business people all over the world. I now have business contacts in distant places with which I have begun to build relationships. I also have business contacts right here in my own backyard that I had never met before. If you are not LinkedIn, I would highly recommend it. If nothing else, it is great for your search engine optimization.
H ow have you used LinkedIn to further your business?
