Date: October 23, 2008Author: Sean
Comments: 1 Reply
Had a great conversation with a couple of really smart guys. They shoot video for a living, specifically videoblogs for themselves and some not-small companies, and they do it really well. Part of the discussion focused on the kinds of things they are doing these days with Facebook, widgets, syndicating their stories (videos) to different platforms and how they are connecting with users via authentic forms of outreach.
Can ya tell that I really like these guys?
All of these tactics, depending on the client, their goals and the strategy defined to meet those goals is worth every dime spent. All of the different ways they are working with media and connecting with users would appear in any of my decks. There is only one thing that bothered me about the discussion. These tactics, these methods, only work if the client/company/non profit is actively listening. If you do all the right things… but forget the most important thing, the social media program is leaving Money On The Table.
If you have a blogging platform and don’t have comments turned on, then you are missing an opportunity for your users to say “hi”. You are leaving money on the table.
If you have a YouTube channel but no one bothering to watch the comments, then you are leaving money on the table.
If you spend a fortune on an agency or consultant to help you design and execute a social media strategy, but don’t plan for the resources and effort required to maintain it for the long term, then you are leaving money on the table.
So whats the point of all that work, money, connections, copy, personnel if you are leaving money on the table. Until you can take the time, via comments or trackback or twitter, to say “thanks” to a blogger or forum or twitterbuddy who took the time to mention you, then you aren’t ready to move on to the next step.
Date: October 10, 2008Author: Sean
Comments: 4 Replies
Originally posted in the Project Dogfood Website. You should check it out
So you have decided to go to a conference. Maybe you got an invite in the mail or clicked on a banner. Maybe a blogger you like mentioned a show they were going to, or were speaking at, or even organizing (thanks @ChrisBrogan).
You drop some hard-earned cash (whether yours or your boss’) on a conference pass. You checked out the conference agenda, picking out the sessions and breakouts and BoF and parties you wanted to attend. You might have looked at the attendees list (if available), seeing who else in your industry, or region or field of interest is also attending.
With conferences now being net-casted on UStream, decks SlideShared, presentations LiveBlogged and Twittered and Utterli’d, why are you going? The content, the data, the decks, the presentations are all, for the most part available. Chris Pirillo, who runs Gnomedex, UStreams and the archives all of the sessions at Gnomedex. IT Conversations business model was the sharing of conference content (pay to get it right away or wait a couple weeks to download it).
The point of going to a conference is to meet people, to engage, to share your ideas not just consume someone else’s deck. Up until 14 years ago, there was an information imbalance between those who have the information about a subject or topic and those of us who wanted to know more. Conferences were meant to give people a chance to meet and share in real time and real space. Sure there were research papers, monographs, journals and books, but they were physical-world artifacts – you had to have them or have access to them.
It was gatherings/conferences/symposia that transformed affinity to community.
So here are my tips for How NOT to Get The Most Out Of A Conference:
1. Don’t approach this as YOUR Conference. You paid, you travelled to get there, you showed up, you are in attendance, and if you really dont want to get the most out of it, then good for you. You get out of it what you put into it… so give the bare minimum and get just that in return! Rock On!
2. Don’t spend the time to find out who else is going to your conference. Don’t use Summize to see who else is mentioning or going to the show (even though hashtags are wonky doesnt mean you cant track the #conference tag). Don’t check UpComing.org, the Conference website or the blogs of the speakers list. Don’t ping the people in your personal network who are also going. Dont make a list of people you want to meet at the show (I have a bunch of folks who I only know thru twtter that I want to meet at New Marketing Summit).
3. Don’t plan your conference experience. Spending time reviewing and understanding the agenda and looking at who is speaking and when is a great way to make sure you miss something you might enjoy or worse, NEED for your job/business/love of the game. Not preparing will result in lots of “session envy” when you find out how much more fun those guys in the other room had.
4. Don’t bother checking out the blogs and sites of the speakers… it helps you determine which are the sessions you want to attend and where the “gold” is at a given show, especially when you are at a multi-track conference – and no one wants that.
5. Don’t be a critical member of the audience. Don’t bother to ask yourself “is this a pitch” when looking at a conference agenda (at some shows the presenters are up there because their company is footing the bill for the mixer or coffee bar or SWAG bag). Be afraid to “vote with your feet” and walk out on a lame/boring/abusive session/speaker. God forbid you look impolite to people you wont bother to talk to.
6. Don’t participate. Don’t feel comfortable enough to ask questions. Be afraid to challenge the masters of the universe on the stage, especially when you disagree or they say something stupid. Make sure you put these folks on a pedestal, even though they are only human. Chris Brogan, Chris Pirillo and Dave McClure all put on some pretty incredible events and always take the time to talk to and appreciate the folks who show up. But you shouldnt approach them. Uh, uh. No way. Most importantly DONT thank or ask questions of the speakers/panelists after their session. They hate that (they dont want to be there either).
7. Don’t mingle. If you can get most of the content elswhere on the web in the comfort of your boxer shorts, why bother going to a show? Especially when 80% of the experience at a conference is the PEOPLE. Don’t spend time in the hallways between sessions. Don’t walk the floor, meeting people, introducing yourself. Don’t make small talk, trade business cards, join BoF discussions. If at all possible, spend as much time at a conference checking your email, answering voicemail messages, polishing your camera lenses and downloading music from iTunes. DO NOT, under any circumstances try to talk to anyone.
If you DONT want to get the most out of your conference experience, then follow the simple tips above. If you WANT to get the most out of the conference, do the exact opposite:
Prepare for the show, read the agenda, pick your sessions, get to know the speakers blogs, ask questions, talk to people, take notes and share them via your own blog and twitter/utterli/etc…
If you really want a black-belt in Conference-Fu, keep an eye out for the wallflowers and shy folks who are keeping to themselves or aren’t going out of their comfort zone- and introduce yourself/say “hi”/introduce them to someone else. Pay it forward.
Take ownership of your conference experience. And plan to have some fun.
Its been something top of mind for me the last couple of weeks. Doing the right thing. Not the easy thing. Not the fast thing. Not the thing thats right now. In a soon-to-come post this will make sense, but for now…
The right thing. The right way. Not “situationally” correct, or “what the handbook says”, but the right thing because it is right.
Chris Brogan drops a little mind bomb this evening during the debate about Ethics and Social Media.
Its a great post, and as usual a required read (he IS in your aggregator, right?).
Here are some of my thoughts regarding doing the right thing, ethics and social media:
If it feels easy you are doing it right
If you think you need might need to take a shower after coming up with a way to connect with users you should probably scratch that idea.
Be transparent. Be honest. Be Human.
If the user isn’t at the center of your strategy, planning, tactics and efforts then you should start over. Its not about budget, or the IWOOT (I Want One Of Those), or the client’s request. Its about the user. Its about doing the right thing by them. Its about partying with them. Its about creating and sharing spaces with them.
Viral isn’t synonymous with honest
If the deck has a slide about “gaming” anything (systems, users, groups, google, facebook, youtube ratings, etc,) its an EPIC FAIL
Are you proud of the work? Is it something you would put on your wall, describe at your kid’s “what does my do?” day at school, tell your buddies about over beers @ the 19th hole? If you aren’t proud of it, if you dont get psyched about it, if you dont get jazzed about how your users are connecting with the work, then why did you bother?
Do you trust the users? Do you value them? Do you tell them why decisions are made? Its ok to moderate comments if you tell the users UPFRONT what the rules on, AND THEN FOLLOW THEM. It’s ok to admit that you/your org/your company is just getting started, feeling this Social thing out, trying to change your mindset. Its ok for a huge company to admit to being a little scared. Heck, the users might actually give you the benefit of the doubt… as long as you dont take them for granted, try to play them, dismiss them.
There are so many ways to get caught. So many other ways to spend those $$$ that dont require you to make the effort, do the work, fight the good fight, have a conversation.
4. Give before you get. As soon as I meet someone new I’m immediately thinking about whether I can help them, not because I want to trade a favor (I may not need anything from them), but because this is how I would like to be treated by them.
Great post from Phill Baumann on experts, the value they may bring and Social Media experts in general. My favorite:
For example, Social Media experts are everywhere. When they’re everywhere, they’re nowhere. In other words, they don’t matter.
So if you want to tout your expertise then you better possess a passion for making other people’s lives better, not yours. And you better do what you love in a way that sets you apart from the experts.
I have been pitched by “Social Media Experts” that don’t blog, that dont twitter, that dont videoblog, that don’t stay on top of the more social trends on the web (my least favorite excuse is the one about the shoemakers children).
When I work with clients on these types of projects my main goal is to get them to become the experts. They need to believe this is something different. They need to commit. They need to do the work, make the effort, reach out to the users in real authentic ways. If we are trying to be more real and more authentic, why would we let an agency do it for us?
The Social Media Expert should be a catalyst, an evangelist (sorry @DAHOWLETT !), someone who is looking at the landscape, helping their clients understand what this is about, work together to build the program and advising them over time to tune and tweak and enhance their program and how they communicate. I think there may be something inauthentic about hiring an agency to communicate in a real voice to your users/customers/fans. Part of this thing of ours is about becoming more transparent, removing the “press release barrier”, dropping the the corp speak and taking off some of the armor that companies build to “protect” themselves from their users.
Date: September 23, 2008Author: Sean
Comments: 4 Replies
Do you network? Do you go out to conferences and mixers and tweetups and unconferences with the express goal of making new connections, listening to new voices, adding people to your “collection”. Do you actively manage your LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter? When Scoble mentions someone’s interesting tweet do you immediately check it out and then Follow that individual. If Chris Brogan blogs about a startup doing something cool, or if Deb Schultz posts an link that she finds inspiring on her Del.icio.us do you check it out, add that person to your RSS feed/facebook/del.icio.us, Digg? Do you spend a little time after every conference or meeting, take the business cards you received, entered them into outlook, send them an email, see if they are on LinkedIn, add their RSS feed, check out their twitter, look at their youtube channel?
Does your Social Media effort do the same?
Networking in your business life is a great parallel to Social Media Outreach. With Networking, you find people with interesting or similar ideas/thoughts/backgrounds/experience and add those people to your personal network. In the process, you become a member of lots of different communities/tribes/circles. You manage, maintain, grow and tend these connections and relationships because its important, because no one can be an island in business and because we are social animals who can always learn something from someone else.
A Social Media Effort, if it wants to succeed, needs to connect with the users in lots of different communities/tribes/circles. Conversations can’t happen without people. SoMe efforts need to build/maintain and tend these relationships in order to get noticed, stay relevant and keep the conversation going. If users/voices/people are the fuel in the social media “engine”, not working at connecting with them is nuts.
Are you identifying the places and spaces users frequent that fit within these themes? Are you connecting with the thought leaders, active participants and old hands in these communities, sites, forums, comment streams? Are you actively listening to these voices and their blog posts, twitter feeds, Flickr pools and Del.icio.us links? Are you managing your network, er uh, Outreach program to get in touch, stay in touch and contribute to their conversations as well as your own.
Are you paying forward into Social Media’s equivalent of a 401k (relationships) by being an active participant? Or are you waiting and wondering why more users arent joining in?
To Do:
Build an RSS feed of users who you would WANT to follow you AND LISTEN TO IT
Build an RSS feed of the users who ARE following you AND LISTEN TO IT
You are joining multiple communities, think like a NEIGHBOR NOT A MARKETER
Listen to what they are talking about (twitter, blogs, facebook, flickr), what they are passionate about – NOT JUST THE MENTIONS OF YOUR URL OR BRAND NAME
Say Thankyou for their Follows, Comments, mentions, trackbacks, blogposts
Comment on their ideas, as Bob from INSERT MASSIVE COMPANY HERE, not a pseudonym – bait and switch is not a sustainable strategy
Respond to their Tweets, comments, forum posts, flickr pool additions
Encourage them, give support, add value, say something. Or, as Mark from My Tropical Escape likes to put it, “BE HUMAN”
Point out what they are doing at least 50% of the time
Send the link love (attention is a currency)
Let them see there are real people behind your Social Media effort
Long before the cocktail parties, schwag distribution, mixers or tweet-ups or blogger meetups, you need to connect with real people and not only what Valleywag calls The 250. Influencers are important, but there are more regular Joes out there than all the A-listers in the world. You need to develop relationships. You need to build a network, through Outreach, around your social media efforts.
The same determination and discipline you apply to maintaining your network you need to apply to your company’s outreach program. Because its ALL NETWORKING
Date: September 17, 2008Author: Sean
Comments: 2 Replies
Gnomedex is my FAVORITE conference, and I will keep attending as long as Chris and Ponzi keep throwing this party. This year had the usual eclectic cast of speakers: entrepreneurs, technologists, creatives and media makers. Chris and Ponzi go out of their way to make sure everyone has a great time and this year was no exception. I usually liveblog or shoot video at the event but this year…
My trip to Seattle this year for Gnomedex was interrupted by mild food poisoning, so I missed all of day 1. The Gnomedex team streams each of the sessions/panels/speakers on UStream which then archive the videos. So between the great experience and incredible conversations in the hallways and mixers, you get to relive or share the best of whats onstage.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been watching the videos of what I missed and recently came across Amanda Koster’s presentation on her project, Salaam Garage. An amazing project, Amanda works with NGOs (non-governmental organizations) inside specific countries to develop projects where traveller/media makers can work with the NGOs to tell real, important stories and share them with their communities and favorite digital spaces (Flickr, Facebook, etc.). I guess you might say it would fall under the “documentary tourism” category of adventure travel. Amanda tells the story of her background, how she came up with the idea and how it is going:
What’s next? What do you think marketers on the web need to know more about? What do you think are the services that the new generation of marketing firms have to have, now that traditional marketing isn’t always getting the job done?
In the old days, clients would choose an agency because:
1. they had great creative – “we want the guy who did the Apple commercials”
2. their ability/experience with a market segment – “gosh, they did great work for Pepsi, that experience can be used for our new energy drink”
3. The size of their network, strength of their media planning and buying – “i want the guy who knows the guy who got the placement on that hit ABC show before it was a hit AND can get my daughter tickets to the MTV Upfront party!”
New Media Marketing companies have to keep a number of chainsaws in the air:
1. Context – belief and experience in Social Media and the cred/rep/war stories/and results to go with it – just because you build websites doesnt mean you “get” blogging or twitter or any other parts of the medium. Authority isn’t popularity. Telling stories that sound suspiciously like press releases = EPIC FAIL
2. Strategic Thinking & Integration – need to see the forest from the trees and the big picture for the Brand, product, business and space in both the communication space AND the other things a client is doing. A big part of working with clients is seeing the whole map and selling through the idea that Social Media can work in lots of places outside of just the blog or wiki… having an understanding (not controlling or running, but keeping an eye on the radar and ears open) of the big picture can improve the results/performance/relationships you are building, over time. In the same way that you need to have a high degree of empathy for the users, you also need to keep in touch with the other teams – otherwise social media is a campaign and not an effort (and this is as important for clients as it is for the agencies). Long term I see PR and Marketing coming more closely together BECAUSE of Social Media and its ability to connect more deeply with users.
3. Specialization – Would I hire a New Media Marketing Co. to help me connect with Moms and Mommybloggers and the people in their spheres of attention if they only work with the Digg/Slashdot/Gamer crowd??? Just because you “get” social media in general and for one community doesn’t mean you are effective with every community/tribe/family/affinity group/audience. New Media Marketing companies need to differentiate themselves by investing and embedding themselves in these spaces, commit themselves to being a good neighbor and making their day-to-day as user-centric as the conversations they are having on behalf of their clients. That deep understanding of a community doesn’t happen during a 2-week discovery phase – you need to live it. Small, focused, real and intimate. There is a big difference between being a strategic partner (which any large or small agency wants) and being a production shop (who the hell wants to work in a blog mill?)
4. Transformation – We aren’t replacing anything – we are growing something new. While traditional marketing is becoming less effective, that doesn’t mean it is going away any time soon or a major client will suddenly drop its TV budget for videoblogging or wikis – these people have targets, and numbers and share points to reach in order to get their bonus. Clients will still use agencies and as in the 90s, they will add social media to their overall communications mix the same way they added digital media. SOcial Media efforts, as effectiveness and ROI continue to be proven will become more and more prevalent and get more and more share of budget.
5. Flexibility – basically a keen eye on the landscape and trends and the ability to translate that into value for their clients. IWOOT (I Want One Of Those) is a problem regardless of sector or industry and a large role these New Media Marketing companies must take is that of teacher/sherpa – this is a new, scary world for them, challenging for us and downright boring for digital natives.
Energy (marketing) can’t be destroyed, it just changes form – and we collectively need to make sure our intentions (that this is something different) don’t get co-opted by business as usual.
Date: September 10, 2008Author: Sean
Comments: 2 Replies
25 years from now someone in my niece’s graduating class might be the VP pick for the highest office in the land (POTUS). What will that “vetting” process look like? Sure there will be the usual background check stuff, FBI calling their college roommates, PHD advisor, pastor, etc., but what happens in a world where we are declaring our intention and attention (status) all-day, every day. What happens when one of these digital natives, who have been facebooking and myspacing, and flickring and youtube-ing their daily thoughts, ideas, location, and media every day for the next 25 years runs for office?
Past Is Prologue
-William Shakespeare
I had a conversation with my buddy Craig the other day and we discussed how these platforms and models were changing how users interact and part of the discussion touched specifically on:
Right now, every kid under the age of 18 in the US has grown up with potential access to the internet either at home, school, rec center, mom’s office, etc.
For the most part these kids are creating online identities in a ton of places, some are throwaway (to get access to a concert video), and others are permanent (tell my niece she has to quit MySpace and you will end up in a fight).
These kids are getting their own computers (cell phones), self-organizing digitally
They are making their own media (audio, photo, video, text) daily
They are connecting with their friends on these platforms and using them to stay in touch, bully each other, make new friends, etc.
Potentially, this generation will never lose touch with anyone they grew up with – EVER. They graduate from High School Facebook to College Facebook to Work/Life Facebook (or whatever the social platform/graph/grid/mesh evolves to). My niece will be able to keep in touch with, ignore and more importantly, have status on every single kid she is going to high school and college today. I can’t remember every single kid I went to grade school with, but I could probably find a bunch of them on Facebook if I looked hard enough.
Networking? Sure – having the world’s largest, distributed address book in history will make keeping and making connections more interesting.But what happens when you have persistent status of people you know, what they are doing, where they are /were/will be? What happens over time to this data, when it becomes the past tense (was doing, was at, was with)?
Doc Searls has said in a previous VRM meeting that he wants to see a day when the customer can have their own TOS (terms of service) that gives them the right to “nuke my info off your system if I want to quit your proprietary aspect of data”. Outside of the NUKE option (which I think we need), what about an expiration date on my status/intention/attention/media? 15 years from now, does Johnny really want his new girlfriend to see his “Growing Up Gotti” haircut from back in the day? Are those funnel photos from the Preakness really going to be appropriate when your kid decides to “see what mom was like when she was my age”?
Carrying off on this point is a really great and creepy PSA out about kids and the things they are posting to the web:
It changes the game because WE ARE ALL MAINTAINING THE STATUS over our attention/intention/action as well as that of others. There are no reporters, I dont have a secretary, no one is “going to the archives” to find out what I did last week – they just need to follow my twitter feed (which is hooked up to my friendfeed and facebook and wordpress blog) to see what I was doing. Its all in the cache/cloud/reverse chronological order. All someone needs to do is connect the dots (which is getting easier every day).
Your ideas, photos, comments, videos are out there, in the cloud/cache, forever. A persistent, ongoing record, distributed amongst different platforms and social graphs for the world to see. Add in face and voice recognition and that protest rally you went to in college, because that hippy chick you were dating at the time wanted you to go, might become a problem 20 years from now when you run for office, or a job, or meet a not-so-hippy chick. You didnt shoot the video, you didnt know you were on camera, yet it is part of your history. Lots of folks are getting gigs BECAUSE of their participation on these platforms. There are already stories in the “news” (and I do use the term loosely) about how kids are getting turned down for jobs because of things on their myspace page, beauty pageant contestants are losing their crowns because there are embarrassing photos of them on the web, kids are videotaping crimes to get on YouTube.
I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record
– The Violent Femmes Kiss Off
Things to think about:
Will our past actions prevent us from trying for a job (even Vice President) because we know what closets our skeletons are in (“I told the candidate I could not accept the VP nod because I want to spend more time with my family, and because there are some raunchy pictures of me at my roommates’s bachelor party 17 years ago”)?
Will individuals guard their expressions more closely and be more conscious of their attention/intention/status?
What happens when we run into a “blank slate” who doesnt have a facebook history or is tagged in flickr sets? Will we give them the job/trust/reputation? Will they be a social media pariah?
Will I be able to find a “cleaner” to get rid of all traces of Spring Break 2012 in Cancun before my bride-to-be finds them?
Will there be a “Identity Bankruptcy Court” that will order these graphs and platforms to nuke all traces of someone?
