All Entries Tagged With: "facebook"

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….

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.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers- Tim Walker

Ok, Interview #5 of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” series. Tim Walker is obviously a social media guy, but when he’s not engaging with others online, he’s a frequent contributor to Big Papelbon, a blog about Boston sports teams and some passionate sports fans.

About Tim
Tim helps Hoover’s, which has been doing business online since 1994, develop its use of social media tools and its presence on popular social media platforms.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I’ll list two: First, I’ve been a writer my whole life. I edited my high school newspaper, I’ve freelanced hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and I wrote my own blog for years before I started blogging or tweeting for Hoover’s. The short of it: I already had a ton of experience in communicating in print before I started doing it on behalf of the company.

Second, I genuinely like people, and by extension I love talking with people. My dad was a pastor, and I grew up with a mindset that any stranger is potentially a friend you just haven’t met yet. I think that mindset helps me as I constantly meet new people (online via Twitter, in person at events, etc.) who might find value in what Hoover’s does.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
Check my communication channels — especially e-mail and Twitter — to see what’s come in overnight.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
A confession: I’m not nearly as effective as I’d like to be. (Note that I try to follow Peter Drucker’s wisdom about pursuing *effectiveness* ahead of *efficiency*.) That said, I’ve developed some good habits to prevent cognitive overload in my day. Two worth mentioning in particular:
A. I keep my inboxes light.
B. When I’m at my best, I do a good job of tackling just one thing at a time (no multitasking!), and I do them in an order that makes sense based on my top priorities.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
“Management” by Peter Drucker.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
A. The stat spreadsheet on my laptop — by which I track blog posts, inbox load, and other key drivers that affect my mindset and performance.
B. Healthy snacks and a bag of workout clothes. (Okay, the bag is on the floor *under* the desk.)
C. A robust suite of Twitter tools, including Tweetdeck, CoTweet, Seesmic, TwitterBerry, and TweepSearch.

6. Habit you want to kick in 2009
At long last I will shed the stack of papers and files that I carry around like Linus’s blanket.

7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010
More writing. For as much as I write, it’s still not enough. Throughout my career, it’s always been true: the more I write, the more success I have. (To that end, if anybody needs a byline written . . . )

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

Can a TV Station be Social?

Here in Boston, a television station just went social- real social. They already had a good fan base on Facebook, some followers on Twitter and were actively promoting their “socialness” online.  But where it really shines through is in their newly redesigned website.

WHDH, whether you like it or not, is going to make you understand social by simply visiting their website. Check out the quick (2 minute video) below.

What I really like is that the entire team has bought into the concept. Their weather team hops online and blogs on a regular basis and really brings their news to life. Weather can be boring- for them it’s not. WHDH brings a bit of personality and context to the news they deliver and share online, which in this day and age, is a good thing…

Social Media Safety

Yesterday, Facebook announced the creation of a Social Media Advisory Board.

As a father and social media evangelist and practitioner, reading that post this morning made me think of the following things.

- It’s about time! Friend and fellow social media evangelist Betsy McKinnon Dupre and I have been talking about this for months. Is there a trusted resource out there for both parents and children to turn to when you have questions? Well, sort of. Facebook looks like it will lead us down this path, but how objective can it be? Thoughts?

- Another friend (and savvy social media gal herself) Libby Delana had similar ideas. What if this was approached from two angles? Teach the parents and caregivers one curriculum, and the kids another one. The kids program would teach the following:

• How social media can empower, give you a voice to talk, speak, get your emotions out
• How social media can help build your personal brand- heck, used effectively and creatively, it might get you into the college of your choice
• How authoring a blog can teach you how to write and communicate effectively. (Social Media isn’t just about tweets and updates- it’s about relationships and content)
• And, of course, Social Media Safety…..

- This topic literally has no end. As technology evolves, internet safety may be called social media safety, or mobile safety or something else. Imagine what your 13 year-old daughter will be able to do with her mobile phone just 10 years from now.

- Could/Would this be a new curriculum in schools five years from now?

- Maybe my wife was right, I should add this to Dialogue’s list of services?….  :-)

Twitter to buy Google?…

I met someone at a large software company the other day, and he asked a great (and pot-stirring) question- “So, Tyson, when is Twitter going to buy Google?”

Now wait a second here, Twitter couldn’t possibly buy Google… I haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but my guess is that it probably won’t happen.

But he gave a great example of the value of Twitter. Earlier in the day, he asked his twitter followers for some advice on how to add a watermark on a document.

He received a response in about 10 seconds, from a friend he trusted, and he got the information he needed right away.

Sure, he could have googled his question, but who wants to wade through pages of answers? Why not get your answers from a trusted follower?

Think about that for a moment….and keep thinking about that example as it relates to facebook, linkedin, ning or whatever community or social network you belong to.

If you’ve found the best plumber, real-estate agent, or interior designer, why not tell your friends about it? And if you are looking for something , why not tap your network first? Do you trust what Google search results have come up with?

Thoughts? Comments, let’s hear them.