July 25th, 2008
This is guest post contributed by a partner in crime, the very lovely Sarah Morgan.
I’m not a "social media marketer" or "social media strategist" or "social" anything - not by title, anyway. I’m a director at a PR agency who cares passionately (some might say "obsessively" - toMAto, toMAHto) about social media and what it’s capable of.
I work in healthcare: all my clients are pharmaceutical companies, biotechs, medical-device companies, etc. There might be more staid industries… but let’s just say that most aren’t hopping up and down to try the latest wild and crazy way to reach out their target audiences.
Partly, it’s their fault. Corporate-casual notwithstanding, some people still wear suits every day, mentally, if you know what I mean. There are a lot of "lifers" comfortable doing things the old way. And, partly, we - all of us who spend our days talking about medicine - we ARE up against a lot. FDA, CDER, DDMAC - there’s an alphabet soup of government agencies regulating every word we even think about using.
The problem, of course, is that while government is slow, social media is fast. So how do we make the most of these fabulous technologies when the regulations we’d need to abide by don’t even exist yet?
Apart from consultants, the tech industry, and some standout social media rock stars, I think most industries are like this. Everyone is grappling with social media. At this point everybody knows it’s cool - but they don’t know what it is, how it can help them, or - what they really need to know - how it can hurt them… and how it CAN’T.
But here’s the thing.
While it’s not trendy to admit, I remember the 90s.
Do you?
90210 on Thursday nights, Gap overalls - and this brand new internet thing. What this double-u-double-u-double-u-dot meant and whether or not you had to say the haitch-tee-tee-pee-colon-backslash-backslash thing first.
What a website was. What it was for. Whether a company needed one. What you’d do with it if you had one. What good it might do for a company and a brand. Whether it was nice to do someday or necessary to do now. And how terrifyingly it would open a company up to the public. Liabilities. Complaints. Negative comments.
I read this morning about the return of romper shorts. 90210 is coming back to TV in the fall. And as much as we like to think we’re breaking ground in the social media world in the last couple of years - and I’d be the first to say that we are - we can’t forget that we’ve been through this before, too.
All those fears are the the same ones we have now. Everybody was scared and confused of Web 1.0 too. Everybody tiptoed up to it and poked at it and held it upside down and tried to figure out how it’d fit with their job description, their worldview.
Ain’t nothing new.
But that’s not a bad thing. What if we can remember how we got people comfortable then? Wouldn’t that help us do our jobs faster this time around? Which people led the charge? Which got it, and which were the ones that had to be dragged in? What efforts made people feel comfortable? Which ones were big, expensive, showy busts?
Thinking back - thinking ahead. Not always mutually exclusive. Social media’s creating fantastically cool new ways to communicate, but you might not have to create fantastically cool new ways to get people into it.
Don’t go for the romper shorts, though.
Sarah Morgan blogs here, twitters here, works at MCSPR, and is not sure what she thinks of the 90210 remake - but as long as the sideburns are shorter, she’ll give it a chance.
Tags: Conservative Industry, pharmaceutical companies, PR agencies in conservative industriesShare This
By Colleen -- 2 comments
July 25th, 2008
Every blogger has their own style of workflow, and they’ve usually tweaked it enough to make it work really well for them. I’m no different.
I’m headed out of town for two weeks on various jaunts, but if I hadn’t told you, you shouldn’t be able to tell. With a few lovely tools at my disposal, I can write offline, schedule a whole whack of posts and walk away, worry free. So, how can you take a break from blogging and still keep the posts flowing?
Oh, one caveat before we start. I’m working on a PC (or, in this case, an EeePC, so all my tools are windows based. You Mac folk will probably want to go talk to someone who actually uses a Mac.)
I use Google Reader for my feedreader, and use the star feature to keep track of anything that I either have an opinion about, something to add, or that I just find interesting.
I’ve probably got about 250 posts stored up to chat about for both of my b5 blogs.
I added Google Gears recently so that I could read my latest 2,000 articles offline within FireFox, so now I’m not only set up with topics, I can write even if I can’t get to a wifi connection.
I’m also using Windows Live Writer, which allows me to draft my posts offline, save drafts and schedule, categorize, tag and add media to my posts easily.
So then, how to do this quickly and easily? Take a look at how long you’re planning on being away for and how many posts you need to write. For me, right now, that means 12 more just for BuzzNetworker.
I’ve got twelve topics in mind already, and preliminary opinions formed on all of them.
Pulling content from Google Reader Offline into WLW for a post is cake. for me, knocking out an opinion on something is not difficult. Hell, forming an opinion on anything for me isn’t difficult, as anyone near me will tell you.
The actual workflow for me is to:
- take a starred topic from Google Reader (off or online)
- Pop open a WLW window
- Title, opine, link, tag and categorize
- Add a picture if I’ve got an appropriate one
- set my publishing date based on the rough editorial calendar I have in my date book (however, for BuzzNetworker, I tend to just know how many posts I need to write for the blog and run from there. There’s more editorial calendar work involved in Drinks After Dark because we have themes and features, that I haven’t determined for BuzzNetworker yet)
- Move onto the next post
Et voila! You’re knocking out posts like a rockstar and can relax on your trip without stressing about your blogs.
Now, yes, I’ll admit, the actual writing takes time as well, but the set up sometimes can be as time consuming as the actual writing. If you can put your workflow into a routine, you’ll be well on your way to rapid fire posting.
Tags: , Blogging, windows tools, workflowShare This
By Colleen -- 0 comments
July 24th, 2008
Oh, to have the traffic Dooce generates. I was reading her the other day and saw she was giving away five Nintendo Wiis along with five Wii Fits. Kind of a cool idea, and very cool for a blogger to have the kind of power to generate enough interest to be able to give away five systems.
I saw the pictures of the Wii Fit party Nintendo threw a Wii Fit party at Heather’s house. It made me wish I’d been there.
Heather is really good about being uber-transparent on her site. She blogged about her agreement with Nintendo and explained that she wasn’t being paid to promote the company, the Wii or the Wii Fit.
Mack Collier from the Viral Garden did the math on Dooce’s giveaway and the ROI for Nintendo. I was stunned. Check out Mack’s math here:
Heather received a staggering 42,232 comments for her post offering the five Nintedo systems to random commentors. Every Wii set costs Nintendo roughly $160.00. That means those five Wiis that Nintendo gave away, cost the company about $800.00. Add in 5 Wii Fits (which retail for around $80), and the likely cost to Nintendo for this promotion (5 Wiis plus 5 Wii Fits), is approximately $1,000.00.
Based on this data, Nintendo makes $90.00 per Wii system it sells. At that rate, Nintendo would have to sell only 11 Wiis from this promotion, to break even.
For reference, that’s 0.025% of the comments. So if 11 out of the 42,232 comments resulted in sales, Nintendo broke even.
If just 1% of the 42,232 comments translated into sales, then the ROI for this promotion is 3,700%.
Eleven. Nintendo would have to sell 11 systems just to break even from a promotion that reached more than 42,000 people. This doesn’t count any of the additional posts that this promotion reached, the number of blogs who linked to Dooce’s post about the Wii, and all of the marketing and social media blogs who are posting about this rather massive success.
Now, granted, Dooce has killer traffic stats to begin with, and marketers are beating down her door. Not every company will have access to the kind of traffic Dooce commands, and not every marketer will be able to woo someone like Dooce, but, scale this back a bit.
Start talking to a blogger who has good traffic, even if it’s not Dooce levels. Your ROI with a well trafficked blog can be pretty damn good as well, even if you need to sell more than eleven units in order to break even.
Share This
By Colleen -- 2 comments
July 24th, 2008
I was just skimming my Google Reader feeds when a post By Nick O’Neill on the Social Times caught my eye.
His headline read “Blogs Turning to Newsletters for Revenue?” and my immediate thought was “What!? Is it 1998 again!?”
Nick writes
An interesting trend has started over the past couple days. This weekend Jason Calacanis announced the he was no longer blogging and was instead switching to a newsletter. Initially he suggested that he was limiting the number of subscribers to 750 but soon enough that number was surpassed and there is no sign that it’s stopping. Then today Caroline McCarthy published that Glam Media would be joining the newsletter market.
Seems to me that we’re going backwards again. Wasn’t there a huge surge of newsletters as revenue streams several years ago?
Nick points to Daily Candy as a successful, revenue generating newsletter, and while that’s totally true, i know for a fact that Daily Candy’s numbers are massive and their loyalty is almost unparalleled. Can Calacanis or McCarthy pull down those kind of numbers and inspire that kind of loyalty? Maybe, but even if he can command those numbers, can he demand that kind of ad revenue? I’m going to bet probably no, so where’s the revenue stream?
Newsletters are infinitely more time consuming to put together and get out the door on a consistent basis than blogging, at least in my opinion.
I dunno, maybe I just don’t yet buy that both Calicanas and McCarty are going to stop blogging all together. I guess I’ll believe it when I see it.
Tags: Caroline McCarthy, Daily Candy, Jason Calacanis, NewslettersShare This
By Colleen -- 2 comments
July 17th, 2008
There’s lots of places online for people to hang out. FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, even MySpace. I know there’s more I haven’t mentioned.
When I saw a friend playing with Signal Patterns, I thought it might be cool to check out, until I realized that although it’s fun, it’s just another social networking site. One more place trying to fight for my, and my friend’s attention. Great.
The first part of the site is a personality test - which is essentially just Myer’s Briggs only prettier! (this is pretty accurate though)
After you get your results, you have an opportunity to connect with your friends who have also completed their quizzes and compare notes. Except, um, we already did that via IM and email. Once I realized I had to go searching for them, I didn’t bother taking the second step. (image source, screenshot by me)
Signal Patterns has another quiz you can take to determine what kind of music you should be listening to, and has you listen to and rate a series of clips. For me, that required more effort than I was prepared to put in. Headphones, reorganizing etc etc.
In the end, it was fun seeing my personality in the pretty colours above, and I might go take the music one at some point, but I’ve already got several places I connect with friends online. I don’t have the energy to devote time to another site.
Tags: Myers Briggs, Networking Sites, Social SignalsShare This
By Colleen -- 2 comments
July 16th, 2008
Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web just posted a missive about whether Start-Ups need Community Managers or not (post). He presents, as Marshall always does, both sides of the coin very well.
Before we get into the Yes or No question, the short version of what a community manager is and does:
A community manager is someone who communicates with a company’s users/customers, development team and executives and other stake holders in order to clarify and amplify the work of all parties. They probably provide customer service, highlight best use-cases of a product, make first contact in some potential business partnerships and increase the public visibility of the company they work for. [source]
Are they necessary? Some, of course are adamant that they’re required staff members for ANY start up, others are equally as adamant that they’re not required for many months or years after the company has a full fledged and powerful community.
Recently – well, ok, yesterday – I told a start up that they were too “young” for a community manager position, and now I’m actually rethinking that point.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with myself on this point, I think a hybrid model is what’s needed for a start up. Someone who can take on the social media strategy and who has the traits of a social media strategist, but who can also handle the traditional public relations required for exciting new services, and who can parlay both that PR and social media knowledge into tending the online community. It’s possible, but it does require a special blend of person, with a specific skillset. There’s a few of us out there, it just takes a little hunting to find us, but boy, when you do, did you ever find a goldmine.
Not only will you have found someone who can work with your community with the empathy and understanding that community requires, you’ll get someone who will understand how to speak to your major stakeholders, your general public and the media covering your space.
So, is this new hybrid a required position for a fledgling start up? I’d have to say yes. Certainly after you’ve hired your tech and development team and before you start looking at traditional roles like PR or Marketing, or even the new traditional roles like social media strategist. Take a good hard look at what your company actually needs first and see if the hybrid model fits your needs.
Tags: Community Management, hybrid, marketing, PR, Read Write WebShare This
By Colleen -- 2 comments
July 15th, 2008
I got an cool box o’swag this week from AideRSS. I totally wasn’t expecting it and so, I thought it would be fun to give my readers something they weren’t expecting either.
Between today (July 15th) and the end of the month (July 31, for those playing along at home) poke around and find your favourite BuzzNetworker post (posted after May 1st) and stumble it. Leave a comment on this post with the link (you’ll find a link to your profile as others see it like this: http://ccoplick.stumbleupon.com/public/) to the stumble et voila!
You can only enter once via stumble upon, but you’ll get an extra entry if you also Tweet your favourite post and come back here and comment with that 
link as well.
I’ve got 5 shirts to give away and the winners will be chosen randomly on August 1st.
Tags: AideRSS, contests, Giveaways, SwagShare This
By Colleen -- 1 comment
July 12th, 2008
Many of the established and well respected blogs within the online marketing community have recently started to make their audiences available to a variety of new voices. I’ve done it here and both Michael Gray and Jeremy Shoemaker have both recently put the call out for guest bloggers.
I’m totally interested and willing to have guest bloggers on Buzznetworker, (see below) but I also take it very seriously. I have high standards – I want to make sure that it fits the tone and topic of my site, and that the content is exclusive – it can only be published here. I’m thrilled if my guest bloggers post and on their own site and link back to their post, but I’m uncomfortable when they start repurposing that content.
Darren Rowse, from ProBlogger has defined some great key criteria that any guest blogger should take into account before you submit a post.
1. Research the Blog
2. On Being Yourself
3. Look for Gaps in the blog
4. Sell Yourself
5. Be Reliable
6. Add Value
The sixth point here comes from Marketing Pilgrim and I think it’s a very good and relevant point. If you’re not adding value almost every time you post, whether that post is on your site or someone else’s, you’re just adding to the noise.
Guest blogging really is bringing a new voice and a new perspective to an established site, and it’s important to keep that in mind when you’re offering up a post for someone else’s site.
All this said, I am now officially throwing the doors open. I’m looking for guest posts. The only criteria I have is that the post is on topic of the site (Something social media related – case studies, advanced social media thoughts, opinion pieces…) and that you don’t republish the content anywhere else. Please make sure you link up your posts and provide any images you want to go along with the post, complete with appropriate attribution.
Comment and let me know if I should be looking out for a post from you, and I’ll make sure I watch my inbox. I’m really looking forward to seeing what my readers come up with!!
Tags: guest posting, How To, requestShare This
By Colleen -- 1 comment
July 12th, 2008
Last.fm, a service that almost all of the people I know either use, or have used in the past to find new music. And now they’re facing a cranky international rights group.
Merlin, an international rights group representing about 12,000 members of the independent music community has issued a notice to their membership cautioning them not to accept Last.fm’s program to pay unsigned and independent artists royalties for each time their song is streamed.
Merlin wants to strike a deal with Last.fm directly that will cover all its members, and if members strike out on their own and take Last.fm’s royalty deal, that basically destroys Merlin’s negotiating position. Last.fm says about 70,000 indie labels have joined the royalty program, collectively uploading more than 450,000 tracks since January.
Merlin claims that Last.fm allows users to stream "numerous" tracks of music on demand that are not properly licensed and wants any licensing agreement to retroactively compensate its past infringement.
I suppose we’ll see what will happen. There seem to be enough indie acts looking for exposure (the next Colbie Caillat?) that Last.fm isn’t going to have much of a problem.
(image source, Colbie Caillat)
Tags: Collbie Caillat, Last.fm, Merlin, music sites, royalitiesShare This
By Colleen -- 0 comments
July 11th, 2008
Everyone and their dog, or at least the ones who have an interest in and are active in social media, claims to be a social media strategist. I’ve touched on this in the past, but something that Tamar posted recently got me thinking about it again.
Tamar asked several of the more influential people in the social media sphere what they thought the characteristics of a good social media strategist were. Chris Brogan, said “I think the term “social media marketer” might just be a temporary thing, because it’s like saying “email marketer.” I believe the people who use social media tools as a part of their marketing strategy should understand the following:
- relationships over shotguns. — marketing in online communities is a slower, more matching-based approach, where you think hard about whether the person you’re connecting with is the idea recipient of the information you have to share. It takes more time, but sticks much better.
- party hats not bullhorns. - social software and the communities it empowers are for contributing, not pushing. Share something at the party; don’t just barge in to give your messages.
- it’s not always about you. - sometimes, other people’s products are better. In this world we’re developing, we say that outright. We don’t obfuscate or dance around. We just say it when we think someone’s done it better.
People using these tools have to “be human” well, and by that, I mean realizing that all life isn’t based on marketing directives. Instead, it’s about contributing, bringing something to the picnic, and doing what Radian6 Marcel LeBrun calls “listening at the point of need.” That means, knowing when to promote your idea, product, or service.”
First off, Chris is totally right on this. Hit the nail on the head. He’s one of the guys I look to when I’m looking for information.
Second, I want to add to this slightly and say that just because you know how to do something doesn’t mean you should. For example, I just put a 
proposal together for a local business, and when I was brainstorming the tactics, I had added podcasting to the list. After sitting down and really thinking about the brand I was sending the proposal to and what the goals of their social media strategy was, I realized podcasting really wasn’t right for them. It’s a very minor example, but an example nonetheless.
Just because someone knows how to use social media tactics doesn’t make them social media strategists. Strategy comes from a larger, more considered place.
Before you hire the next guy that comes along and tells you he’s a brilliant social media strategist, take into consideration the things that Chris said above and ask some pointed questions about the strategic ability of the people pitching you to do your social media strategy.
( podcasting image: John Biehler used under a Creative Commons License)
Tags: Chris-Brogan, marketing, podcasting, social media strategist, Tamar WeinbergShare This
By Colleen -- 1 comment
Recent Comments