Posts tagged ‘Social Networking’
How Has Social Media Changed Your Life?
The other day, I was pontificating (as I often do) about how technology has changed our lives. If you think about it, our lives are completely different than there were a mere 5 years ago, not to mention 20 years ago. I remember the days before e-mail, but I can’t remember what it was like in the workplace without e-mail. I remember that cell phones started taking off right when I got my first traveling sales job, which made my life so much easier. Technology has fundamentally changed how we interact, build relationships, and do business.
Naturally, my thoughts migrated to social media and the underlying question, “how has social media changed our lives?” So, I decided to pose the question to my various networks out there on the social web. The answers varied, but were fascinating and very telling. I thought I would share a few with you:
Sarah Lewis of Findable Blogs, a Boise based blogging expert, said: “Social media helps me both professionally (leads & collaboration) and personally (reduces isolation, even as a new mom).”
Mike Diliberto, Sales Engineer at MindTouch and fellow T-Bird, said: “Social media has increased my cognitive breadth; pre-social media, maintaining connections with hundreds of people would be impossible.”
Norris Krueger, founder of Entrepreneurship Northwest and noted social entrepreneurship expert, said: “Getting less done but.. maybe just maybe… getting better things done!”
Martin Johncox, PR Director for Alexander and Associates, said: “It’s opened up new business opportunities in lean times; connected me with long-lost friends; re-connected me with colleagues.”
George Condit, Account Manager at Seybold Scientific and distinguished curmudgeon, said: “I can ask the world a question and get an answer.”
Donna Geisler, principal at FusionSet, said: “Social media makes me feel overwhelmed with opportunity and underwhelmed with time. Otherwise, it’s great!”
Tia Markland, Publisher of Eagle and Meridian Magazines, said “Increased sales and awareness for business.”
However, I would have to say that one of the most personal answers I received was from Chris Barger, who is the Director of Global Communications Technology for General Motors, who wrote me a fascinating and in-depth answer. Here is a snippet from his response: “Social media turned out to be the Acme Rocket Pack strapped to the back of my career, and made my American Dream a reality.”
I would have to say that I have found my experience to be in line with all of these wonderful answers. Social has made life more meaningful for me. It has helped me create deeper relationships, build my network, and has proven to be an invaluable business tool. However, I would have to say my answer most closely aligns with Chris Barger’s. It is because of social media that I have the career I do today.
How has social media changed your life?
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Web 2.0 Brings the World Together
As many of you know, I am in the Global MBA program through Thunderbird. This program has helped me to look at the world with a new global eye. Recently, I was reflecting on social media and the rise of Web 2.0 tools. I have been reading the book Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide and it sparked a thought. I know of no other technological advancement that has brought the world together like Web 2.0.
If you think about it, in the past we were limited by phone and face-to-face contact to build relationships internationally. The Internet, or Web 1.0, helped us to view online brochures from other people and companies from around the world. However, with blogging, social communities, and wikis, we can build relationships virtually and instantaneously.
There are people with whom I am connected on my LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter profiles who I have never met but who live in various countries around the world. I am fascinated by the depth of knowledge I have access to just in my own personal networks. Many of these people have blogs (that I try and read as often as I can) and when I have a cultural or subject matter question, they are more than accommodating.
Globalization has been painted with both positive and negative strokes. However, it is my belief that the advancements in Web 2.0 have done more to accelerate globalization than any government, organization, or treaty.
In the end, we are all just human beings sharing an existence. As I have had the chance to watch the Olympics with my kids and have them ask me why people from other countries wear or do certain things, I have had a chance to reflect on how small the world really is. I have been fortunate enough to visit several foreign places in my career and am amazed that no matter where I go, people are basically the same.
No matter what your opinion of globalization is, one thing is true: we can all benefit from greater tolerance, understanding, and simply growing closer together as a human race. Lest I begin to sound like the latest Al Gore documentary, my purpose in writing this post is to highlight the greater purpose and benefit of the social networking technologies available today. While social networking helps build collective knowledge and relationships, it also helps us expand beyond borders and beyond cultures.
How have you experienced greater international exposure and understanding through your Web 2.0 efforts?
What do social networking and multi-level marketing have in common?
For those of you unfamiliar with multi-level marketing – think Amway, NuSkin, or Pre-Paid Legal. It is any company that uses a pyramid or multi-tiered structure to sell products or services. Other people refer to them as pyramid schemes, get-rich-quick schemes, or simply “don’t answer the phone, it’s the Smiths with another ‘business opportunity’.” How does this have any relevance to social networking, you say?
Having been involved in several multi-level companies before, I have always found the human dynamic more interesting than anything. People get into them because they think it is easy money, but then spend more time and energy than they would in a real 8 to 5 job. But I digress.
What intrigues me about multi-level marketing are the serial MLMers. These are the people that go from company to company, dragging their ‘downlines’ with them. Whatever the next hottest thing is, there you will find these MLM addicts. With each change, there is some attrition in their network, but they simply recruit and plug people right back in.
Therein lies the similarity. I have noticed that as a new social networking technology appears, the influencers make the jump and drag their ‘downlines’ with them. There is some attrition, but they network and fill in those holes. It follows the traditional Diffusion of Innovations model introduced by Everett Rogers and later popularized by Geoffrey Moore in Crossing the Chasm (also known as the Technology Adoption Lifecycle). The innovators make the jump, followed by the early adopters and then the early majority.
I saw this phenomenon with Twitter. Traditionally, I am an innovator when it comes to Web 2.0 technology. However, Twitter struck me as something with very little usefulness. First of all, I don’t even find myself mildly interesting, let alone do I expect others to. I held out thinking it might just go away. After all, what is the business application in MicroBlogging?
Well, I recently made the plunge. It’s like voting, you don’t have the right to complain about elected officials unless you voted in the last election. I figured the same was true with Twitter – I can’t complain unless I have sampled the wares. What I found was interesting to say the least, but we’ll leave that for another post.
The gist of the matter is that social networking accurately reflects the dynamics of network marketing in the sense that once your group bands together, you follow each other from technology to technology. My recommendation: find a couple of Web 2.0 influencers and follow them around like a little step-brother. Stay in touch with what they’re doing and if you find value in it, take the plunge.
What other correlations do you see between multi-level marketing and social networking?
McKinsey Agrees: Web 2.0 is Not a Marketing Tactic
I have been involved in selling and marketing technology products for many years. Regardless of the technology, there is always one fatal error that too many companies make. They think that implementing new technology will solve problems when, in reality, processes and strategies solve problems – technology just speeds it up. Technology is meant to make processes, strategies, and cultures more efficient, not to take their place.
I have mentioned before in my blog that Web 2.0 technologies are not merely marketing tactics. Like many other technologies, Web 2.0 is simply a collection of tools that are meant to improve transparency and interaction. However, if you maintain a “closed-door” approach where you continue to think you are in control and play the “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” game, Web 2.0 can hurt you more than it can help.
A friend of mine (who will remain anonymous to protect the guilty) forwarded to me a recent study done by McKinsey and Co. of over 2,000 companies worldwide who have implemented Web 2.0 technologies. McKinsey dissected the information between those satisfied and unsatisfied with their Web 2.0 efforts as well as by region of the world. You can read the study here: McKinsey on Web 2.0.
It is a fascinating read and I highly recommend it, however, I would like to point out a couple of the findings. First, those who were the most unhappy with their Web 2.0 results were those who had these tools forced upon them by the IT department. Those most happy with their Web 2.0 results were those who implemented the tools themselves with little to no involvement from IT. In other words, they believed in the philosophy first and then found the tools to help them deliver on their vision. (As a side note, this may also be a result of the fact that IT enjoys over-engineering everything while there are many free or low-cost tools out there for Web 2.0.)
The final factoid I would point out is that those companies who were most satisfied with their Web 2.0 results were those who made the internal organization changes to match the tools. Not only did it create major new roles or functions in the organization, it fundamentally changed the organizational structure. This plugs directly into the Navel Model – make the internal changes first and then find ways to communicate them.
Take a read and let me know what other gems you think are important to point out (besides the fact that McKinsey should take it easy on me for posting this report).
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.
Web Design vs. Web Development
Since I have run into this issue with several clients and prospects as of late, I thought I would post a blog about it since it is on the forefront of my mind. In fact, I have taken this directly from a presentation I gave to a group looking to build a website.
A lot of organizations start with the idea that what they need is a website. So they start talking to web development shops in the hope that they can find one that will develop the best website for the least amount of money.
In my presentation I used the following analogy:
In general, how many people do you know who ask for a bid from their contractor:
before they draw up the blueprints:
However, most organizations ask for exactly that. Web developers are excellent problem solvers, but they need to solve the right problems. They will also tell you that the worst thing that happens with clients is they develop a really cool website, but the client asks them “where is the content”. The web developer typically expects the client to write their own content, but the client expects – a website.
Here is my formula for launching a website. In the end, just because you build it doesn’t me people will come to it. I broke it up into 7 easy steps:
- Positioning – Who is the website for? Why would the want to go to the website? What are the types of things they are looking for? What makes you different than everyone else out there? All these questions need to be answered before you ever put fingers to keyboard.
- Design – This is the blueprint phase of the process. This is where you typically identify key functionality, click flow, and usability, you build a site map, and you do blocking layouts for key pages. If done right, 60% of building a website should be in this phase.
- Build – This is the step most organizations are looking for when they want someone to do a website for them. However, a true build includes programming, writing content, proofing, testing, and revisions.
- Recruitment – Who are the influencers who will encourage participation? What is the value proposition to the influencers? Where does your audience congregate? Whatever your target audience, it is key to recruit both contributors and buyers.
- Online Promotion – Once your website is live, it is critical to promote it. This includes things like search engine optimization (both paid and organic), blogger relations, social tagging, and social networking. There are many ways to promote your website using web 2.0 tools, but they all require involvement and time.
- Offline Promotion – In the end, a website is just a digital store front. Even if you don’t sell products online, you sell yourself. Therefore, any traditional marketing efforts you use should drive traffic to your website. These could include efforts such as public relations, strategic alliances, events, and advertising.
- Maintenance – This one is often forgotten. However, it needs to be decided up front who will be responsible not only for ongoing site changes (new features, bug fixes, etc.), but who will be responsible for fresh content.
In the end, a website is just a tool that needs to be used properly in order to be effective. Not only that, but web marketing follows the basic rules of general marketing, namely – you have to have an audience that cares and engage that audience in what you are doing.
The Mystery of a Blog – Revealed
Brian Brown over at the Pajama Market Blog did a great job of producing a video that explains the basics of what a blog is. For those of you who wake up at night in a cold sweat with the word “blog” falling weakly from your lips, this is a good overview.
In summary, here are the basics:
- It’s a Web site. This might seem too obvious, but for technophobes it might need to be said.
- Adding articles is like writing an email. It’s as simple as writing a title, writing a message, attaching an image and hitting send.
- Readers can post comments. This interactive element differentiates blogs from many other Web sites.
- Readers can subscribe. They don’t have to check in all the time since they always know when new content goes up.
Thanks to the MarketingProfs eNewsletter for the summary.
Facebook, LinkedIn, OpenSocial, Oh My!
The battle for the de facto business social networking platform continues. It seems the big boys are finally getting into the mosh pit (you know when Microsoft gets involved, there is finally money to be made). Social networking has finally “crossed the chasm” with business users where it is no longer looked as a way for your kids to to waste time “MySpacing” their friends.
LinkedIn was the first to prove that social networking can work for businesspeople. At first it was a glorified online resume and business card swap, but it has evolved into a true networking application, with the ability to see someone else’s network and ask for introductions from people in your own network. It has seen a wide adoption because it is an easy progression for businesspeople to move what they are already doing online. Next, Facebook saw the writing on wall (and was tired of shivering in MySpace’s shadow) and went after the business crowd. It could provide true social networking including the ability to post on someone else’s profile, event registration and management, knowledge sharing, and also the ability to see someone else’s network and ask for introductions. However, Facebook took it a step further and opened their architecture for 3rd party development. LinkedIn even has an application that integrates your contacts into Facebook. Microsoft liked their shift from the college crowd to the business crowd so much that they invested the sizable sum of $240 million in Facebook for a 1.6% stake (enough to put their market value at $15 billion).
Supplement these social networking applications with other business-focused tools (such as Jigsaw – a giant wiki for business cards, and ZoomInfo – a businessperson specific search engine) and web 2.0 technologies have now proven their value to the business world.
Enter Google, the new king of the heap in the technology world (sorry Microsoft). Not to be undone, Google recently launched their own social networking platform called OpenSocial. Instead of going to a social networking website, Google annihilated traditional boundaries once again and created a platform that allows the entire Internet to be social. According to Joe Kraus, Google Director of Product Management, “This is about making the Web more social, how do you have your friends go along with you to any site on the Web?”.
Rather than having a profile on every social networking site, this would allow you to have one profile that follows you to every website. What an incredible concept, not only for users but for the companies themselves. Rather than having to create their own online community, they can piggy back off of the Google OpenSocial platform. This equates not only to huge cost savings, but instant access to an existing leviathan of a social network. As usual, Google is revolutionizing everything. Even LinkedIn is signed up as an initial developer to this platform.
Wherever business social networking ends up, one thing is clear. Those who are not utilizing social networking in their own business are quickly being left behind. I discover new Web 2.0 tools every day that help me broaden my network. What are your favorites?
Blogging is Not a Marketing Tactic
There has been a lot of publicity given to new media technologies like blogging, podcasting, wikis, etc. These technologies have been wholeheartedly embraced by the marketing world as additional avenues for spreading a carefully crafted message.
The reality is that blogging is not a marketing tactic in the sense that marketers are accustomed to (i.e. controlled message with a controlled delivery). Some marketers have gone as far as starting a “blog” that looks like nothing more than a press release or brochure. Take the “blog” on CBH Homes‘ website. I would be hard pressed to find a more carefully thought out message than in a White House press briefing. The biggest red flag is the inability to leave a comment. To steal from the political lexicon, I would call this a BINO (Blog In Name Only).
What marketers need to come to understand is the 3-fold mission of new media:
- Education
- Transparency
- Conversation
I would throw Entertainment in there as a fourth one if we were talk consumer to consumer, but we are talking either business to consumer or business to business. In either case, entertainment has been way over done and is largely irrelevant in driving a brand.
First, new media is the new form of education.Stephen Covey has said before that by reading more books, you are able to get inside some of the greatest minds in history. I would say the same is true today, only that the medium has changed from books to blogs. I have heard the criticism that this form of social networking is all based on opinion and hearsay, however, the same could be said of every book ever written (and I have read some very well researched blogs). More than anything blogging and podcasting have given marketers a “value-added marketing” medium to be able to provide value in exchange for time and attention. That value, more than not, is often in the form of education.
Second, in a commodity world like ours, everything begins blends together so that the only thing left to compete on is price. Take the real estate world for an example. I can buy the same house from any of the thousands of real estate agents locally for the same price. The only true differentiation is relationships in that world. By using new media, I can more easily build a relationship with my readers by allowing them inside my head to see how I think and how I approach problems. When I consult with professionals on blogging, the first thing I tell them is “don’t think, just write.” The best blogs are stream of consciousness. They are simply getting what is in my head down on paper (digitally, of course). Transparency drives familiarity which drives relationships and, no matter what business you are in, you can always use more relationships.
Lastly, carrying the relationship theme through, new media is ideal for conversations. Real, raw, conspicuous conversations. The negative comments are as valuable as the positive ones. It gives you the chance to show the world how you handle pressure. It also allows you to hone your own ideas.
I have heard the criticism that blogging and new media are a lot of hype, that they are not truly effective for marketing. I would agree and disagree. Are they another medium for your 30 second spot? No. Are they an avenue for building a relationship with someone and providing value to your target market? Absolutely. If you try to pitch without first earning the right, you will get “run”. The blogoshpere has a very high BS radar. If you truly want to see a benefit for your business from blogging, educate, be transparent, and start conversations.
