Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

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The Rules Of Social Media

Friday, March 13th, 2009

I am the farthest person away from being a Social Media Expert/Maven/Authority/SuperStar/RockStar/InsertClicheTitleHere type of person. I am however, a Social Media User. I use various tools, just like everyone else does. I follow and have interacted with some of the best minds out there, and some of the worst minds out there on this topic.

Rules? We Don’t Need Stinking Rules
One common trend is people trying to define the Rules of Social Media. That’s funny. Do you know why? There are none. What works for you, may not work for me. What works for Skittles (or doesn’t) may or may not work for Milky Way. Get over it. Move on.

My Social Media Rules
What? You just said no rules. I know – be quiet now and listen.

  1. Connect
  2. Communicate
  3. Be Real
  4. Be Transparent

Pretty simple.

Explanation For Those That Need It
Connect to people, customers, clients, friends and family which are, by definition, all human capital. They are PEOPLE, Businesses ARE people. Human Capital = PEOPLE. You can’t use the tools if you don’t connect.

Communicate with the aforementioned list of people. Communicate in a TWO-WAY fashion – you must LISTEN to be a great communicator – even in Social Media.

Be real with the aforementioned list of people. If you are not being real to who you are, who your business is, you are killing your chances of success. Seriously. Of all the Internet tools, social media seems to be best at identifying failures by individuals and businesses merely trying to broadcast, exploit or make a quick buck by NOT being real and genuine.

Be transparent with aforementioned list of people. Transparency ensures success with being real. If something is paid – a blog post, a tweet, a comment – it doesn’t matter what, DISCLOSE that fact up front. If you work for a company and do things on their behalf, DISCLOSE that fact up front….and if said business doesn’t want you to – evaluate WHY they don’t and evaluate if you should still be interacting with them. Gimmicks, trickery, lies, and shadiness DO NOT work with Social Media.

There, rules from the most NON expert on Social Media. Rules that aren’t rules, but principles. Things that if we do right, I PERSONALLY feel success will be within reach on Social Media whether you are an individual, a business or an individual acting on behalf of a business. I would think it would work for Government, Education and Non-Profit as well. In fact, I bet these four “principles” would work no matter who you are representing using Social Media.

What do you think?

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Posted in Blogging, Marketing, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Why I Gave Up: Quantity vs. Quality

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

A while back, I started posting a book each day, with a link back to Amazon for the book. I didn’t do it very long. Why? There really was no value in it for you. Yes, part of it was associate links – just trying to get a bit of monetizing going on. But the other aspect was, I thought it might help the readers I have.

Instead I started getting more posts, but no quality. So I gave up on it. Smart move in my view. I wish to create some form of positive value for those that come along this blog – and that just wasn’t accomplishing it for them. Nor for me.

It’s about quality, not quantity in many realms – this one seems to be one of the most classic applications of that mantra. Blogging, Twitter and truly social media as a whole seems to have two camps: Those focused on quantity and those focused on quality. There are a few who accomplish both…they are the kingpins of social media so to say. They consistently produce thought provoking content, interact with a large number of people and do both at an astonishing rate. Then there are those who create tons of content, but nothing that jumps off the screen if you will and generates readership.

What about you – do you focus on quality or quantity in your content creation, social interaction and general day-to-day activities?

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Posted in Blogging, Casual Blogging, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Red Lights

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

As I was out and about driving this morning, I managed to hit every red stop light on the way. Frustrating? You bet…I was in a hurry.

However, it got me to thinking – there really is nothing wrong with a red light – it’s traffic control. So that got me to thinking about red lights in social media, blogging, programming, web development – you know all the things I am really enjoying in my technology portion of life.

Having a red light in these areas is a time to pause. A time to reflect on what you have learned, what you have shared. Help received, help given. It’s also a time to prepare for the upcoming green light – when you start writing more lines of code with a clearer thought process, write a new blog post after a great reflection or share something great with your community that was shared with you.

Is having a red light in your technology interactions a bad thing? I don’t think so. Is it good when you hit many red lights? Not really. Can you use a few to reorganize your thoughts, processes and gain some clarity about the road in front of you? I bet you can.

What do you think of red lights in your social media interactions, blogging, programming or whatever interactions you have on a daily basis? Good? Bad? Necessary evil?

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A Twitter Rock Concert

Monday, January 26th, 2009

Over on TechCrunch there is an article by Digg founder Kevin Rose. He talks about how to gain followers, and lots of them (at the time of the article he had over 88,000 followers behind only President Obama).

Hmm…..originally I had started a comment over there, but decided to write about my thoughts on it here and link to the article (link above, or here again).

Maybe I am missing the point of the article, but isn’t social media just that “social”? How social can you really get with 88,000 people?

A Twitter Rock Concert

It’s like a rock concert where 25-50 lucky people get a back stage pass to interact with the band personally and the other 87,950 are a mix of catching good sound and visual (front row) to seeing dots bouncing on a stage and a horrible audio mix bouncing off the rafters (nose bleed section!).

What interaction is there at the concert outside the first row or to those who get the occasional high five from the singer, or the few that get the mic held out to them during a chorus? A bunch of yelling and screaming from 87,950 that you cannot discern a single voice from.

How many @replies are missed from crowd like that on Twitter?

Enough that it takes the term social out of the equation I would think.

If we look at basic web usage, any decent web developer, designer and web site owner has always understood that a high number of visitors is always a good thing. However, a lower number of quality visitors is even better. We also know that quality content that is of interest to visitors is what gains more visitors, more shares and more visibility. If you can gain a high number of quality visitors, then that’s the best.

I kind of think Twitter follows that same basic principle….follow quality and produce quality. The numbers will come about on their own to the proper mix if you have done it right.

Social Is About Quality Interaction

Think of it this way – the 87,950 people at our rock concert that have the potential to scream (in this case Tweet) back are trying to gain the attention of one person, attention that is already being gained and utilized by a small few. At what point is one person so overloaded, especially with all the interactions so many already have online and offline, that they just get glazed over and only pay attention to the backstage pass people, and those in their front row? They may create quality for many, may even get a bit of quality from few but the rest is garbled screaming coming from the crowd – ignored.

Another analogy? Sure. Ok. What if say, Dell or Wal-Mart started a Twitter account for the sole purpose of getting as much exposure and as many followers as possible? People would be outraged and would call it for what it was – a disrespect for the medium used and a disrespect for those that either one of the two entities wish to “communicate with”. You can be for sure that the communication “given” would be much more than what either of the two “received”, which makes it very one sided…..and who likes a one sided conversation?

That’s not quality at all in the social web world we have at our hands right now. Remember, there have been numerous rock bands that really weren’t that great that were able to sell out arenas. They aren’t around anymore, are they? I didn’t think so.

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Posted in Blogging, Social Media, Twitter | 2 Comments »

Is It All About Community?

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

In two different articles today on ChannelWeb, there are two completely different stories. Both are about Giants, both are about tech companies. One has made communities the other has alienated communities. Is it all about community? If you believe that the web and Internet are empowering social media, interaction and community at businesses, around businesses and within businesses, then yes, it is just that simple – it’s all about community.

In an article by Rick Whiting over on ChannelWeb it is noted that Microsoft is cutting 5000 jobs over the next 18 months, and that sales grew merely 2% in the year-over-year report, with earnings down 11%. It is not difficult to understand why – Vista was merely not adopted as was hoped, and the XP deadline was extended a time or two to meet demand through OEM and VAR channels. The other thing of note, is Microsoft is involved in media (Zune), Gaming and Enterprise. Enterprise and gaming, according to the article, had better individual increases, but it obviously was not enough to avoid cuts.

Meanwhile, Apple is reported to have had a stellar quarter, in an article by Kevin McLaughlin on ChannelWeb. Apple had iPhone sales up 88% over the past year, Mac sales up 9% and iPod sales up 3%. Earnings were higher than expected and even amidst rumors mentioned in the article of Steve Jobs’ health. There were no mentions of cut-back at Apple.

I think, and this is my opinion until I can maybe run some polls and do research, the biggest difference in the two is centered around community. One look at the two companies and the communities around them is easy to see – Microsoft is notorious for alienation, a fact that anyone in the tech industry know. Closed source, closed doors, closed minds in my view. Apple, on the other hand, embraces communities, embraces customers and feedback and strives to make a better product aimed at what their communities desire and need, rather than what Apple feels like providing to their communities. Imagine this – Microsoft has said Vista is the most secure and reliable Windows yet and still adaptation is slow due to poor track record. Microsoft has said Vista gives users more of what they want….but with the steep cost, poor performance and other features did they really give consumers what they want?

Who has the better community? I think it is easy to tell from recent earnings, recent trends and especially looking at social and new media which one is winning with a better community.

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Posted in General Tech, Off-Topic, Social Media, Uncategorized | Comments Off

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