Socialsama

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/

My wife is from Turkey and there is a Turkish saying, usually used in reference to raising children, that goes, “It’s like digging a well with a needle.” Put more directly, it’s a long, slow process. I think this saying applies to building a community out of the wilds of today’s social media world.

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

Well, it’s official.  We have gone out hard launching the product. The dev folks have really stepped up to get us ready and Porter Novelli has been terrific on the PR side.  Thanks to everyone who helped out.  Below are a couple excerpts from the articles that are already out.

Austin startup tracks social media efforts

By Lori Hawkins | Wednesday, January 20, 2010, 03:42 PM

Social media campaigns have become standard marketing fare, but measuring their effectiveness is still next to impossible.

Austin startup Spredfast says it has the answer with its new Web-based software that helps companies manage their social media efforts.

…

Spredfast has managed more than 200 campaigns since September for clients including IBM Corp., Cisco and AOL. University of Texas’ Harry Ransom Center used Spredfast to promote its Edgar Allen Poe exhibit, while Austin restaurant Truluck’s kicked off its social media outreach with the software, adding 659 Facebook fans in four months. Now Truluck’s is using Spredfast to integrate its blog and Flickr photos as well.

“We can measure every piece of content you distribute,” says Ken Cho, Spredfast co-founder. “That lets clients automate the task of collecting metrics, and immediately determine the impact of their message.”

…

And

Spredfast Fashions Social Media Into a Corporate Dashboard

By Liz Gannes Jan. 20, 2010, 5:32pm

Managing your social media presence at times seems like a full-time job, but for some people it actually is one. And professional social media-ites need professional-grade tools to do what they do. A new service called Spredfast, launching tomorrow from Austin, Texas-based Social Agency and already used by IBM, HP, AOL, the Sierra Club, Cisco, Intel, Monster.com and the Salvation Army, is a completely web-based social dashboard with more features than you can shake a stick at.

…

However, the Spredfast product, which costs $50-$100 per month per campaign, offers these key features:

• It is multi-user, with multiple access levels, calendaring and scheduling tools.
• It’s integrated with a whole bunch of services: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr, with support for WordPress, Blogger, Moveable Type, Lotus Live Connections, Drupal and most XML-RPC-enabled blogging platforms. Users can respond to conversations from within the site.
• It offers its own metrics system that helps you compare week to week how your brand or campaign is doing. So, for instance, getting a new fan on Facebook or getting a “like” on a post would earn you a point. Then you can see in a pretty chart how your engagement is trending vs. previous weeks.

Plus, said co-founders Kenneth Cho and Scott McCaskill, upcoming features include: importing conversion stats from Bit.ly links, exporting reports to PDF and email, and an iPhone app.

…

Great stuff – really exciting over here.  If you want to check out Spredfast, just hit the link.

If folks were unaware, we have a product called Spredfast for managing social media.  Well, this week we are officially launching the product.  But not today!  That would be silly given that it is MLK day.  And not tomorrow since that would be the day after a 3 day weekend, which would also be silly.  So later in the week stay tuned.

But I bring this situation up for a few reasons:

1. Gain awareness from my readers about what we are doing (shameless plug)
2. Mention that we are a live case study for product promotion via social media
3. Recognize that, in some sense, we are cheating.  We are getting the help of PR firm Porter Novelli in this launch.

Now the 3rd point is probably not entirely fair to us.  I have never said firms should eschew other forms of PR or marketing and only do social media.  In fact, I firmly believe the opposite.  Firms should certainly use all tools at their disposal that they can afford and that make strategic sense for themselves.  We aren’t running a super bowl ad, for instance, but we are doing PR.

At any rate, we should be able to get some hard numbers on ourselves and some detail on how it went – how our campaign has gone from the beginning, what we did along way, what changed the game, etc.  Which will be an interesting set of blog posts over time…