All Entries in the "Featured" Category

Getting Your Content Out There – Fast.

Content is considered the “currency” of social media. Content is made by you, your company, you favorite blogger, news outlet and more..

Now, how do you/they make the content easier to find? Read on.

The algorithms that have made Google famous may be replaced in the near future with a new indexing system that will be better for web publishers out there. According to ReadWriteWeb, the system “will enable web publishers of any size to automatically submit new content to Google for indexing within seconds of that content being published.” Sounds good right?

The system is called PubSubHubbub (PuSH), and that article explains it better than I could; you can find more technical information here, and a great explanatory video here.  The kicker is that anyone can use this method of distributing content; it is entirely free code. And people are taking advantage: Wordpress has already adopted it so now, all your new content will get sent within a matter of seconds to those who subscribed to receive it.

Besides being a more efficient for Google to catalog everything, now, it won’t be just your tweets getting out to your readers in real time, but your blog posts as soon as you write them. The Web is moving to real time more and more every day, which is good news for marketers. Looking to break the latest story, lead the dialogue? Then you need your content available in real time. Stephen at Impact Media (which also reported on the PuSH announcement from Google) makes a good case that this sort of cataloguing won’t topple the search algorithims of today, but I think more people are interested in what’s happening right now than Stephen suggests and the faster you get your content into the search engines and their news feeds, the more likely they’ll see it.

Google Buzz, Part Deux

Let’s talk more about Google Buzz.   I mentioned this a few weeks ago giving you my general impressions of the new platform, and it seems the general consensus on the web bounces between “I HATE IT!” (which tends to be the gut reaction whenever a major player releases a new feature) and “let’s give it more time.”

I attribute the two reactions to two things: First, Buzz was automatically integrated with everyone’s Gmail. You had to click “accept” on a pop up menu – before you even got a chance to see what it was like! Second, it’s value is not immediately apparent.

Although Google automatically linked you to all your Gmail accounts, the learning curve to get the most out of it is pretty steep.

 I ‘m still trying to figure out how to integrate Buzz with of my other social media tools because the services it provides are already filled by Twitter and Facebook. In fact, Mashable readers ranked it third behind these two older platforms.

I

t’s not an intuitive program. If you’re looking for some basic guides to using Buzz, check here and here and here , and of course, Google itself. Just the presence of so many “how-to” guides is telling; there are lots of guides for Twitter, but those talk about the nuances of tweeting, not how to adjust settings, or worse, disable it. This is a big challenge for Google.

 Couple that with the multiple concerns about privacy, and no wonder people are upset.

However, Buzz is gaining some traction.

• A significant number of businesses are developing Buzz profiles and getting active. Here are some big businesses I was able to find  using Buzz: Samsung USA, Vizio, Verizon, CNN, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and more. (It took me a while to find where to search for profiles, just use the search bar at the bottom of this page.)
• Wordpress has already implemented a “Buzz This” feature for the blogs it hosts and HuffPost and TechCrunch have added “Buzz This” icons alongside Facebook and Twitter sharing icons
• The Washington Post reported last week that, according to AddThis, sharing via Google Reader has increased by 35% since Buzz launched. Still small potatoes compared to sharing on Facebook and retweeting, but presumably there will be more to come.

The bottom line is that these major organizations are paying attention. So as annoying as it may seem right now, you  probably should too.

Some fresh Social Media Research from the field…

Some data hit the interwebs last week breaking down recent trends in corporate social media use. With the amount of time we spend working with and talking about social media, it’s easy to forget not everyone thinks these tehcniques are valuable and is willing to integrate them into a larger corporate strategy. The good news is, that according to Burson-Marsteller,  most Fortune Global 100 companies are using social media platforms.

It reported Twitter as the most popular, with 65% of the largest 100 international companies having active accounts, compared with 54% on Facebook, 50% on YouTube, and just 33% with corporate blogs. That pattern was reversed in Asia. More businesses there were likely to rely on corporate blogs than Facebook pages or Twitter. The study also showed that only 20% of these companies use a combination of these platforms together.

So, progress has been made: businesses have tried these tools and sticking with them long term. The remaining challenge, then, is for companies to find a comprehensive and definitive way of defining and measuring success. That’s where Paul Gillin comes in.

Since December, Paul Gillin has been conducting his own study on multi-channel social media strategies. His quick findings are that:

• The metrics companies are using are all over the map
• Few organizations are taking a disciplined approach to measuring ROI
• There is a consensus emerging on what’s important and that companies are starting to focus on the metrics

What the Burson-Marsteller study doesn’t show(as an article on ReadWriteWeb pointed out) is if social media marketing techniques are gaining “significant corporate acceptance”. There are people at these companies using these platforms, but we’re just not sure how integrated their tactics are with the company’s overall strategy.

What interests me is the gap between the industry interest in Twitter and the low number of young users, teens and college students. According to the New York Times, and my own experience with teenagers, they prefer texting to tweeting. Will they see the light when they get older, or will we have forgotten about Twitter 10 years from now? That’s something for another day….

10 Things You Didn’t Know about LinkedIn

Remember when you first heard about LinkedIn and signed up, thinking it would be convenient to have your resume online? And remember how you haven’t spent much time there since?….

You can wring so much more use out of our profile than you think; here are 10 tips to get you started.

1.) This tip could be an entire post on its own, but thinking about reordering your profile to highlight your best attributes.This is like getting getting dressed up for a big event. Horizontal stripes are bad, unless you want to accent width…LinkedIn started offering reording earlier this month, and there’s a handy video guide with tips on the company blog.

2.) You may have synced your blog feed with your LinkedIn profile, but did you know you can add video too? LinkedIn added a video application last spring, and its’ been generating a lot of buzz since, though the concept of video resumes has been around for a while. Reel Social Media has step-by-step instructions (with its own handy video guide). Important to remember: just becaue you can, doesn’t mean you should. Adding video is great for showcasing artistic talent, past speeches or presentations you’re particularly proud of, or could be a unique way to add reccomendations. Five minutes of you answering your own interview questions isn’t a good idea.

3.) LinkedIn also lets you tag your contacts with unique labels. Want to walk up to the speaker you just heard at a conference but can’t remember how you’re connected? Scroll through your tags and jog your memory.

4.) Be active. This sounds like a no brainer, but bear with me: how many of you check the site when you get a notification about some connection making another new connection, scan your profile, then log out? LinkedIn and social media are changing the way people communicate and the way people find jobs – if you’re not a frequent participant in that conversation, then no one knows just how many interesting things you have to say. Don’t get left behind.

5.) Use LinkedIn to drive more traffic to your own website, specifically the qualified traffic that will add content and conversation to your growing community. The gist? Make connections, first by linking yourself to people you know, then by answering the questions of people you don’t. And by joining groups that cater to your niche.

6.) Or start your own group. Lewis Howes, who literally wrote the book on LinkedIn, has a lot to say about this. Groups on LinkedIn are the same as groups on Facebook.  Use them to show your support for something or to meet others who think the same way. Lewis recommends that you should use LinkedIn to not just connect with people you know, but with EVERYONE. It’s the equivalent of walking up to a stranger and introducing yourself.. Just write a well crafted introduction, and don’t worry about tripping and falling on your face as you make your way toward someone to shake hands; remember, all your accomplishments are published for the world to see too.

7.) All of this advice is useful, of course, for someone trying to get a job. The bottom line is that LinkedIn makes it easier than ever to network continuously. Regardless of whether you are employed or not, you should be on LinkedIn as often as you’re on Facebook, creating a strong network that can support you when you need it.

8.) And because social media is sometimes about stoking egos, you can also see who’s viewed your profile.

9) You may have seen that you can upgrade your LinkedIn account, for a small fee… I just signed up for a premium account last week. We’ll see. (There is some good commentary here)

10.) LinkedIn is a great place to figure out WHO you are, WHAT you want out of your career, and HOW you can get there. Howes continues to list a few good questions to ask yourself when you are setting up a profile.

Your thoughts? How do you like to use Linkedin?

The Buzz on Google Buzz

Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few days, Google just entered the Social Media World- here are some quick initial thoughts. (and if you haven’t heard about Google Buzz, it’s ok, because being under a rock isn’t always a bad thing)

What is Google Buzz?
Combine Gmail and the status updates you find in Facebook. Throw in a photo and link sharing, and you have a real-time update of what your friends (who need gmail accounts of course) are doing.  There is obviously much more functionality here, but those are the basics for now, we’ll cover the nitty gritty in a later post.

The Pros
- Relatively easy customer interface that sits alongside your gmail inbox. For heavy users of gmail.com, this is a good thing. If you push your gmail to your phone or Outlook/Mac’s Mail, well you might not use it that much.
- No limits. Unlike Twitter, you aren’t limited to 140 characters. Who knows, people may begin to start blogging via Google Buzz?
- Mobile. Seamless integration with your mobile device with geo-location as well. So you can see what people are saying and where they are saying it.  Fairly similar to FourSquare and those who use Twitter with geo-location turned on.
-Content aggregation. Not surprisingly, Buzz allows you to integrate with other products, so when you add photos to Picasa, share something on Google Reader, watch something on YouTube or blog about something, your friends on Buzz, will get “buzzed”. Note that you can’t sync with Facebook…

The Cons
- The Buzz “stream” isn’t chronological. For those of us used to Twitter and Facebook, updates are chronological, but not exactly in Buzz. Google adds the latest comment on anything to the top of the Buzz stream. So, if one of your friends posted some great pictures on Buzz 10 minutes ago, But  if you have 13 people (and complete strangers mind you) commenting on someone else’s buzz, then your friend’s post gets slowly moved to the bottom. Google- pay attention here!
- Giving people so much room to say something and share  something may really clutter things up. That’s what makes Twitter so good….
- What makes a Google Buzz “friend”?  You may now get followed by other people using gmail/buzz. Does that mean you should follow them back? Twitter users probably will, but facebook-only users (vast majority of people) probably won’t. They’re comfortable with their Facebook friends because they share a common friendship around something. The only thing that connects fellow buzz users is a gmail account..

General Thoughts

-Nice early entry by Google. I think Google is still in the “test and learn” phase.
- Don’t jump on the bandwagon quite yet- Google will (should) probably tweak things in the next few months to make the user interface better. The lack of a chronological stream is quite confusing
-I think success of buzz will be directly related to not how many people use it, but simply how people use it. If people start adding all of their content to buzz, it will be a lot of content for the everyday user to digest- like drinking from a firehose.
-Don’t expect integration with Facebook- ever. I can’t imagine Facebook every letting them “in”. Remember that Facebook has 400 million users, and Google only has 176 million gmail users.

Video Description of Buzz
Still want to learn more? Here’s a quick video for you.

Does Dirt from Fenway=A year subscription to the WSJ?

I recently redeemed some leftover frequent flier miles for a year long print subscription to the Wall Street Journal. This cost me about 2,800 points. So, some immediate reactions and a suggestion to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

This is a GREAT deal.  The Newsstand price would have a value of at least a couple hundred dollars. If you were to go online today and order a year-long print subscription to the WSJ, it would cost you $110.

So, for  2,800 airline miles you are getting a year full of great WSJ content ($110) for a value of about .04 per mile. Let’s compare that to some other things you can get for roughly the same amount of miles…

A $25 GAP gift card from American Express’s Membership Rewards= 2500 points or  .01 per mile
A $17 bottle of Oreck Pet Stain Remover = 2400 points or .007 cents per mile
Dirt from Fenway Park (home of the Boston Red Sox) =  2400 points or .007 cents per mile

Now, we can have fun answering the following questions…

• Isn’t DIRT from Fenway Park worth more than a bottle of Pet Cleaner? (Yankees/Red Sox fans will have fun with this one)
• A 4 year subscription to the WSJ is worth 100 bucks at the Gap.
• And my personal favorite , some dirt from Fenway Park is less valuable than a year long subscription to the WSJ..

And, ask ourselves the following questions….

How do we value the offline (print only) edition of the Wall Street Journal? And for that matter, the value of any other newspaper/publication struggling with their business model now?

And my favorite question
The Mags for Miles program currently only allows print subscriptions to the WSJ and select magazines. With the WSJ and now the NYT soon charging for online content, why isn’t an online subscription available? It’s a terrific opportunity to engage a new audience and use us some of those leftover points…

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers

About a year ago, Aaron Strout, a friend (and one of the best in the social media space) did a terrific series of interviews of some social media luminaries called “45 in 45″. Aaron interviewed the movers and shakers of the industry and came up with some terrific insights.

I’d like to take Aaron’s “experiment” one step further.

Some of us have wondered to ourselves…

• “What makes a good Social Marketer?”
• “Is it something in their DNA?”
• “Do they HAVE to have an iPhone?”
• “How do they get so much done in one day?”

In short, what habits do they have? What makes them who they are and who they want to be?

Well, I don’t have the answers, THEY do. And when I say “THEY”, I mean some of the best and brightest minds in Social Media. I’ve asked them to give us their honest answers to the following questions.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
6. Habit you want to kick in 2009
7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010

So over the next month or so, we’ll get some answers. Perhaps there is a shared trait or habit worth picking up?

Here is an abbreviated list of  a few of the people participating, (We’re still hearing from people). If you’d like to see someone added to this list, please let me know.

NOTE- for those who want to follow along in the Twitter conversation, and be updated when we post new entries use the #sm7habits hashtag

Aaron Strout, CMO, Powered (interview on 1/28/10)
Phil Johnson,  CEO of PJA Advertising
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs
Melanie Notkin, CEO, SavvyAuntie (interview on 2/1/10)
Jim Storer, Principal at The Community Roundtable
Jeremiah Owyang, Partner, Altimeter Group
Justin Levy, General Manager, New Marketing Labs
Kate Brodock, President, The Other Side Group (interview on 1/29/10)
Laura Fitton, Founder, One Forty
Doug Haslam, Blogger, Social Media/PR Consultant
Bill Johnston, Chief Community Officer, Forum One Networks
Tim Walker, Editor and Blogger for Hoovers (interview on 2/3/10)
John Jantsch, DuctTape Marketing
Christine Perkett, Perkett PR (interview on 2/4/10)
Mike Volpe, VP, Marketing, Hubspot
Greg Matthews, Health Revolutionary at Humana
Colin Browning
Paula Berg, (former Social Media Manager at Southwest Airlines) Now Digital Media Lead at Linhart PR
Jim Long, Videographer, NBC News, Principal at Verge New Media (interview on 2/8/10)
Adam Cohen, Partner at Rosetta
Todd Defren, Principal, Shift Communications (interview on 2/1/10)
Rachel Happe, Principal at The Community Roundtable
Libby Delana, Partner, Mechanica (interview on 2/11/10)
Steve Garfield, SteveGarfield.com, author of Get Seen (interview on 2/8/10)
Paul Gillin, Speaker, writer, and Social Media Consultant (interview on 2/12/10
Adam Zand, PR and Social Media Consultant
Carissa Caramanis O’Brien, President, Red Box Communications

NOTE: We’ll be updating this list regularly as new names come in

Measuring Social Media…

Two weeks ago I listened to webinar hosted by Mike Lewis of Awareness on Social Media ROI. The speaker? Katie Paine of KD Paine and Partners. For those of you new to Social Media measurement- look no further. Katie knows social media, and the answer to the most important question asked from the CMO “What’s my ROI”?! and “How do I Measure Social Media?”

Here is a quick taste of some of the nuggets of information she shared with the audience.

First, her definition of ROI isn’t what you think it is. It’s not “Return on Investment” but it is the following:
“ROI is an economic term, not necessarily and actionable measure of success”

“There is no audience you target, there are multiple constituencies”

For the metric-driven marketer, consider asking yourself a subjective question when embarking on a social media campaign. For example, “If you are celebrating complete, 100% success a year from now, what is different?”

Should you blog or tweet? “Don’t ask yourself, ask your customers!”

And finally, one of my favorites. The definition of time, success and reach has changed. “The answer isn’t how many you have reached, but how those people you have reached have responded.“

And those are just the soundbites- I strongly recommend you take a few minutes (ok, 50 minutes) to listen to the webinar.

The New York Times Sets Up a Digital Toll Booth

The New York Times recently announced their decision to start charging for content in 2011. Here is a quick primer on what this means for them and for you.

For You = You’ll still be able to access content
This new model allows the casual reader to access the occasional article- the question is, “how much is occasional”? We’ll find out in 2011. The Times may set the meter at 4 articles, 8 articles, or 20 articles a month. So, if you just go online every Sunday to read Thomas Friedman, Dave Anderson, or one of your favorite columnists, you probably won’t have to worry much.

For the Times
It’s a great decision for them. After years of thinking this through, the Times has finally put a line in the sand. (They’ve been hemming and hawing for a while) Here’s why it makes sense.

The Times is one of the few, probably only, publishers that can do this. Excellent content IS their entire business. There’s a reason you can get a printed copy of the New York Times virtually anywhere in the world.

Numbers
The NYT has 17 million monthly readers a month, and 800,000 paid print subscribers a year. Even if they get a fraction of those 17 million readers, they are in good shape

Access
Search! The most important reason for going with a metered system here is that you’ll still be able to find and access the Times’ content using Google/Bing/Yahoo. Using any other model, the Times content won’t be “findable”

Pricing Flexibility
Advertisers will still get their money’s worth. If you are a casual Times reader, you’ll still be exposed to advertisements. If and when the Times needs to change their pricing based on how much you read, it won’t affect their relationship with key advertisers.

So, in effect, the Times has set up a virtual toll booth for the consumer. So, while driving down the content highway, how far do you want to drive, and much are you willing to pay the New York Times?

NOTE: Some Additional Perspective about  the NYTimes from the NY Times is here
For an outsiders view on how they should really do it, click here
For an unbiased view from the Associated Press, this is a great read

Why You Won’t Need Cable TV…

Last week, how much time did you spend on the computer? How much time in front of the television? How does that compare to five years ago?

It’s my hunch that in the next five years, your internet bill will go up, and your cable television bill will go down.

More and more people are being entertained online, and the following statistics from  comScore paint a pretty interesting picture from November 2009.

• 84.8% of the total US internet audience viewed online video.
• The average online video viewer watched 12.2 hours of video.
• 128.1 million viewers watched more than 12 billion videos on YouTube.com (94.3 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 4.0 minutes.

As online video continues to grow, you are going to spend less time in front of that television.  Why be beholden to cable/networking programming? Do it on YOUR schedule. Just head online your for news, weather, and sports highlights or head to hulu.com or netflix.com to stream some video.

It’s not just me thinking about it, the New York Times wrote a compelling argument last month in favor of “cable freedom”.

Think about it, why did Pepsi back out of its 23 year advertising relationship with the Super Bowl in favor of a year long CRM campaign.?

If you’re a sports fan, don’t worry, the networks are catching up to viewing games online. NBC’s Sunday night Football can be viewed in HD on your laptop (and you get SIX different camera angles) and just wait until the Olympics show up online…

So, before you go out and get that new flat screen TV, maybe wait a year or two. The next generation flat screen tv will just plug into the internet, not cable tv….