Recently, I watched a video of David Armano presenting to a TEDx crowd on reinventing social media. A big part of his message was a reminder that the media we produce is not social, but our interactions around the media are social. It’s the interaction between the author and the audience and between the audience members themselves that is social.

I think recognizing this distinction is a big step forward. In essence, just publishing content is not in itself a social interaction. Granted, that content may be the catalyst for some social interaction, but that is not really enough, in my opinion.

For content providers to be more social, and few extra steps are required:

• At a minimum, be present to discuss the content you put out there
• Even better, start the conversation by asking questions of the audience
• Prime the pump a little by arranging to have other people who has a voice on the subject to weigh in on your content

Have you noticed how a lot of book now come with an interview with the author about their process of writing that particular book, as well as a book club discussion guide. Those same principles apply. What is every presentation you put together was accompanied by a blog post that chronicled the process you went through to get the presentation done? Better yet, what if the presentation was preceded by a series of tweets that gave insightful clues as to key points in the presentation?

But what about the other part of this blog post title? What about being personal?

Listening to David speak, I immediately heard this question in my mind? Is there a difference between being social and being personal?

I think the answer is yes, but I find it very difficult to define clearly. What does it mean to be personal in social media? How does one get personal when communicating electronically? Does it simply have to do with tone of voice? Or is the make-up of the content somehow more personal?

When I look out at some of the social media success stories from companies, there seems to be some commonality. Most of the time, the voice used to communicate in social media was attached to a person (Frank at Comcast, Lionel at Dell). Does a company have to have a one person do all of the social media communicating to achieve personal communications? Zappos offers a counter point in that all employees interact personally. But again, does it have to be a personal account (even if used for business purposes)? Can’t a company communicate with a social media audience as the company and still be personal?

The reality is that most organizations don’t have a dedicated person to do social media outreach, and so they either don’t do it or they have a distributed team of authors who communicate out through a persona. This creates efficiency, but does that come at the cost of personalization? I have no doubt that there is a difference between a conversation where a person is writing from the heart and a person is writing from the marketing heart.

I need your help on this one, folks. I’d like to hear of any examples you know of where a company/organization is doing a good job of communicating with it’s clients/constituents as the entity but still being personal. How are they getting it done?

Thanks for the help,

James

Image credit: http://www.8seconds.net/blog/p/detail/the-future-of-email-marketing

It’s a big loud web out there. As the marketing person for a small company in a corner of the bustling social media space, I have learned firsthand that it is very difficult to be heard. It is partly a numbers game in the sense that there seems to be people talking about social media than there are insects in the world. But it is also a time game because business doesn’t stop just so you can write something original and good.

Being heard is an art form these days, one that I can’t claim to have mastered. One thing I’ve noticed is that people who are often heard practice both forms of the art: create and curate.

To curate is to sift through a lot of content created by other people and pass on the few items that either best say what you wanted to say but you didn’t have time to write or that inspired you so much you had to share.

To create is to produce your own original content. Granted, Vanilla Ice and many others would argue that combining existing content into something new is really creating new content, but for arguments sake, I’ll limit creating to truly original content.

Curators For Life

We all want to be curators in one way or another. Who doesn’t relish the idea of creating that perfect playlist on iTunes? It hasn’t changed since the 1980’s (for me) when I wanted to make the perfect mix tape to impress that girl. The way you collect good content says a lot about you, your sensibilities and your thoughts.

In terms of today’s social media frenzy, those who curate great content the fastest earn a reputation as a source of information. Some people (Guy Kawasaki) have made a life out of it. For most, curating content is a necessity, because no one can produce enough good content fast enough to stay on top. OK, Seth Godin excluded, no one really can.

So, for most, it isn’t a question of “Should I curate?” but rather “How do I curate?”

Man or Machine?

I think most people agree that automated curation is not the answer although, like those 1950s visions of robots that do everything for you, it sure seems like a nice idea. The problem is, automated curation doesn’t accurately enough reflect your personality or sensibility to seem right.

That leaves good old-fashioned curation by hand, which takes time to do. Let’s assume you can spend time to curate some good content by hand, remembering that you probably also want to create some good content of you own, and you also have a job to do, and let’s not forget your life outside of work, and….

Yeah, it can get pretty hard to pull off.

And don’t forget that every other guy out there is trying to do the same thing you are.

Point of Diminishing Returns

There might be a point where it just doesn’t pay to be in the race to be heard. Even if you have devised a plan to be able to do your curating and creating while not getting fired from your job and your family, who’s to say the content you’re putting out there hasn’t already been curated or created by someone else? Do you get any credit for referring the same article that David Armano pointed to? Does it serve anyone’s best interest to receive multiple references to the same content? Sure, like Yelp, multiple positive reviews indicate something good, but then you have to ask yourself, how many positive reviews is enough?

There is less value in being the 103^rd guy to say that an article is really good.

Consequences of Being a Curator

Assuming you have what it takes to be a good curator, what does it mean for you? Some say that being a consistent pointer to good content before everyone else in the world has discovered it marks you as a good resource for information, and that people will likely return to you again and again.

In this age of measuring influence, is that enough? I happen to be a person who refers to a lot of other content in my tweeting. When I look at my Twitalyzer results, I have a really high generosity score, but I am far from influential according to their measures. As tools like Klout and Twitalyzer become accepted as the source of influencer measurement, am I forced to change my habits in order to garner a higher influencer score? In my case, am I hurting or helping my ability to be heard?

If The Tree Falls…

…keep doing what makes you happy. Seriously! If you like being a curator, keep doing it. You are providing a valuable service for someone. Maybe more people follow Beth Kanter than you, but referring the same piece of content that she does is still useful to the few people who follow you that don’t follow her.

What About Creation?

The truth is you have to do it if you want to be seen as influential according to the general measurements. To really be a voice among voices, you have to have those original thoughts that set you apart.  Does that mean that you should just give up if you aren’t really all that creative?

No, it doesn’t. It just means that you have to recognize how far you’ll get with what you’ve got. Remember, you still have an audience who needs you, because there will always be someone who knows about you who doesn’t know about Chris Brogan. It won’t be as many people that know about him and not you, but still, that one person is counting on you to guide him in how to use social media to grow his business.

Fine, But What Is The Recipe I Should Follow?

Even if you’ve stayed with me this far, you might be asking yourself how much creating you should be doing and how much curating you should be doing to deliver the most value?

I don’t know. The right mix is going to be different for each of us, based on how good we are at creating and curating, and who is listening. To know the answer, you’ll need to listen to your audience for clues, measure how much interaction you’re getting with each type of content you provide, and most importantly, ask them what they want.

My personal conclusion (for today) is one tweet per day that refers to good content written by someone else, one tweet per day that refers to Social Agency’s original content, and one blog post per week. I keep an aye out to see how it seems to be working and make adjustments along the way.

Image Credit: http://dl.lib.brown.edu/curator/

One of the more interesting stories coming out of the 2010 FIFA World Cup (my favorite sporting event) is the story of a small Dutch brewing company, called (confusingly) Bavaria, who pulled a fast on on beer giant Anheuser-Busch. Basically, Bavaria recruited a group of young South African women to go to a match between The Netherlands and Denmark hiding bright orange mini dresses under their coats. At a certain point in the game, the ladies removed their coats, drawing attention to themselves simply by the fact that they were all wearing the same thing. Somehow or other, everyone who saw this was supposed to know that Bavaria was behind the stunt and buy their beer. However, FIFA and Anheuser-Busch were unhappy because of the millions paid to FIFA to secure exclusive beer promotion rights the the soccer tournament. Reuters provides a good summary of the event.

Ambush Marketing

The stunt is classic example of something called “ambush marketing.” The Wall Street Journal provides a very good definition and description of ambush marketing, but basically one brand will garner recognition at an event without paying, while another brand has paid for the rights to sponsor the event. There has been a long tradition of ambush marketing taking place at major sporting events. Abram Sauer provides a good history on www.brandchannel.com, saying, “As would be expected, along with increasing viewership and increasingly prohibitory sponsorship costs, ambush marketing has developed into an art form. FIFA says such tactics “lack decency and creativity.” Indecent? Maybe. Uncreative? Anything but. Highlights in ambush marketing history include:

• 1984 Olympics: Kodak sponsors TV broadcasts of the games as well as the US track team despite Fuji being the official sponsor. Fuji returns the favor in kind during the Seoul 1988 games of which Kodak is the official sponsor.
• At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics Nike sponsors press conferences with the US basketball team despite Reebok being the games’ official sponsor.
• In the greatest ambush marketing feat of all time Nike’s man Michael Jordan, Air Sponsorship himself, accepts the gold medal for basketball and covers up the Reebok logo on his kit.
• 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway: In response to official-sponsor Visa’s claims that American Express is not accepted at the Olympic Village, AmEx creates an ad campaign claiming (correctly) that Americans do not need “visas” to travel to Norway. The 1994 Visa-AmEx affair was a continuation of a scrap featuring the exact same campaigns from the 1992 Winter Olympics.
• 1998 World Cup, France: Nike again.
• 2000 Sydney Olympics: Qantas Airlines’ slogan “The Spirit of Australia” sounds strikingly similar to the games’ slogan “Share the Spirit.” Qantas claims it’s just a coincidence to the sound of official-sponsor Ansett Air helplessly banging its fists on the conference room table.
• 2002 Boston Marathon: Nike strikes again. As adidas-sponsored runners come off the course they are treated to spray-painted ‘swooshes’ honoring the day of the race, but not the race itself.

And where does the law stand in such cases of ambush marketing? Usually somewhere out of view.”

Wikipedia offers an even more current list, including the stunt by our Dutch friends.

Social Marketing or Simply Cheating?

Ambush Marketing strikes me as a beast that could be very similar to some social marketing practices. After all, social marketing often:

• Utilizes more public and and open events
• Leverages unofficial spokespeople
• Operates as less than official, at least at the beginning
• Has an element of the rogue to it

Consider the flash mob, which Wikipedia notes is considered to be something that is only really organized via social media, as version of ambush marketing light. Watch this video of a flash mob organized around a T-Mobile campaign.

Isn’t this really the same thing? Granted, no one else was paying for the rights to get people dancing in the Liverpool station, but that feels like the only difference to me.

As companies and organizations build more unofficial brand ambassadors via personal engagement, and drive the passion those people have for the brand or the mission to new heights, and as we are all more connected via social tools and mobile devices, who is to say that a tweet-up of iPhone lovers at an Android conference is or isn’t ambush marketing? Am I breaking the law by wearing my Dr. Pepper t-shirt to a restaurant that only serves Coke products? Can I wear my Adidas shoes into a Puma store?

No Answers

I don’t claim to have the answers. I’d like to hear your opinions and your ambush marketing stories. I do think that the world should prepare for more activity of this kind and the ownership and promotion of brands and missions moves out of the control of the marketing department in into the hands of passionate people.

Photo credit to TimS

More at the link – check it out!

I was thinking about this today because, at times, I get exasperated that I can’t grow my Spredfast (in case you didn’t know, the social media management system we built) community at a faster pace. I always have to remind myself that gradual is not a bad word. Like raising good children, you can’t do it overnight. You have to be patient, recognize the teaching moments as they present themselves, and take advantage of them when they do arrive.

Quality instead of Quantity

Sure, I’d like to have a million people “like” my Spredfast Facebook Page and have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, but then I remember that I’d rather have 1,000 super advocates for Spredfast than 500,000 people who don’t ever talk about my product, engage with the content I produce, or give me frequent and meaningful feedback.

There are strategies to gain fans and followers fast, but I question the long term benefits of those strategies. I believe that a connection made in a personal, one on one way will have greater, more enduring benefits. I believe that someone who seeks me out to learn about Spredfast will benefit more then the person who follows me just because I followed them.

Signal instead of Noise

A lot of people struggle with the amount of information coming their way. Companies are no different, because behind the logo just a group of humans. Starting with a smaller feedback channel allows us to really take it in, make the necessary improvements to grow, and as we earn a larger feedback channel we are also better able to accept it and do something with it.

Now, I’m in the business of building tools that make it easier to take a larger feedback channel and make sense of it with fewer resources. But like the chicken and the egg, I have to be able to receive the feedback about how to make the tools better.

Cherish instead of Acknowledge

By growing slowly and surely, I have an advantage. I am able to really get to know the clients I do have. Now, nobody is perfect all of the time. Do I know every Spredfast client as well as I would like? No, but I’ll bet I know them better than Apple knows Social Agency, even though we are loyal customers.

I believe I have a shot of getting to know my clients really well. I can spend more time talking with them and getting to know their business and their needs. If I can instill that desire in every now employee Social Agency brings on, then we can scale that ability to cherish, and avoid simply acknowledging our clients.

Embrace the Long Road

So, I’ve convinced myself to keep digging with my needle. For Social Agency and Spredfast, the well gets a little deeper each day. If you’re facing the same feelings each day, feelings of wanting to suddenly find yourself under a giant pyramid of fans/followers, just remember that to build meaningful relationships, you have to be there in person, making quality connections based on real understanding and empathy.

In the full spirit of this post, I’d like feedback from those really interested in a dialogue:

• How are Social Agency and Spredfast doing in developing a relationship with you?
• Where can we improve?
• What are we doing well?
• What are your experiences in building a community?
• How have you succeeded/struggled with scaling?

Fair warning, if you answer these questions, we’re probably going to get to know each other.

Hope to talk to you soon,

James

P.S. Image is from AntonioVI

Amazing to me that Facebook keeps getting away with this.  Do they ever stop?

Check out the link for the entire post.