Category: Social Media

I remember a while ago that David Armano asked a question of his readers. It was about the number of books that they read. If memory serves me correctly, David had been challenged by Roger von Oech to read books more often.

I was thinking on this the other day, especially in light of The Age of Conversation … and while this is not particularly earth shattering, it is an observation worth re-stating.
If you read one book a month, when the average person reads one book a year, this will give you an edge. In five years the average person will have read five books while you would have read 60. Blogs further compress this process … the circles of influence and the power of collaboration and incremental innovation evident in the way that blog-based ideas build, means that PARTICIPATING in social media accelerates, even faster, the process of learning.

This makes blogging not only good for your brain, but also important for your career and your future capacities. Expertise is now at your fingertips … and only a few clicks away.
What are you waiting for?

One of the things that I have come to appreciate through social media is that more is more. I mean this in direct opposition to the notion that "less is more" — where there is a suggestion that quality is a rare feature and that ideas or even commodities gain power through their exclusiveness.

Online conversation is a great example of this. For example, when someone new visits your blog and leaves a messages, what do you do? Do you respond personally via email? Do you comment back through the comments section on your blog? Do you visit THEIR blog (if they have one)? OR … is it too much? Do you not have the time to respond? Or are you at saturation point with your online networking and feel that it is beginning to impinge on your FIRST LIFE?

Many of these questions also apply to the raft of new software and application releases. Do you try Pownce, watch Joost, chat on Twitter and digg your favourite posts? Of course, entry for these rides is FREE — the only thing you need is a jot of time and perhaps an invitation — but this "free" price is becoming par for the course … and we may not be interested in being paid for trialling. The only way out of this conundrum will be to head back the other way … exclusive subscription use. And as I have not done a prediction in ages, here is one now — exclusive subscriptions due to come from Apple for the next must-have social networking site.

Oh, and as more is always more, take a look at the Australian focused news/bookmarking/sharing site called Confer. It is free.

It is everywhere and nowhere. It is being Twittered, blogged and tumbld. It’s Myspace, your space and everywhere in between. Every day a new social network appears (or disappears) … and we drag our addled brains towards each new invention — just to try. We beg and cajole and weasel out exclusive invitations to like it provides us with a valuable form of social-network-currency.

But where does it land us? What happens to all those "accounts", "profiles" or "homes" when we forget to update them? Do they end up in the same place as odd socks? Is there a way to MAINTAIN these sites, profiles and communities? Are they communities at all or just copies of the same communities you interact with elsewhere?

Now I love something new and shiny — perhaps this is the one thing that I share with Paris Hilton — but there comes a point where you need to re-assess. There are only so many hours a day that can be devoted to actively caring for a social network … so where does it end? This is exactly the question that Valeria Maltoni asks. What is it that has value and how do you determine where to invest your time and effort?

A good way of understanding where the value of social networks lie is this chart borrowed from Mike Press by David Armano. If our experience of a social network does not sustain us or provide us with a degree of pleasure or allow us to resolve some need, then we can quickly move from commitment to disengagement. The challenge for these social networks is to constantly work to uncover unrealised need states within and around the community base … and then continue to drive this cycle forward — into a new life context and cycle of commitment.

You know, I thought that I had posted on this before … but perhaps it was a figment of my imagination … Anyway, Greg Verdino has done me a favour by reminding me exactly how clever the folks over at Common Craft really are. In this short segment from the In Plain English series, Lee Le Fever explains the value of social networks — put simply, they make the invisible visible. They allow us to unlock the value potential in the relationships that we already have, exposing non-arms-length relationships that can help us to achieve an OUTCOME — be it finding a house, love or a new job. Simple really!

Many of us struggle with the VOLUME of social media applications, platforms and systems coming on line (or staying in Beta). How do we know which to use/evaluate … and more importantly, how do we determine which ones to COMMIT to? Because, like all social networks, you only get out what you put in.

As an antidote to this challenge, Matt Dickman has begun a "First Look" series … where he steps us all through new social media applications in a neat video format. Matt cleverly combines the technology with marketing savvy, providing an overview of the main features, a little history and a quick review of the technology that is used. So, now, with Matt’s First Look series, you don’t need to worry about the Bougie Man 😉

The first cab off the rank in the series is Pownce which has been doing the rounds over the last few days (invitation only of course).

Who says politicians don’t have a sense of humour?

Given that we have an election coming up this year, I was interested to see whether the Australian political parties have started to dig into social media tools. Sure enough, I found quite a few Twitter IDs… and whoever is setting these up seems to be having a bit of fun.

I particularly like Kevin Rudd’s profile whose bio states "Soon to be PM". In his follower list is Condi, The President, John Howard and Robert Mugabe.

However, I don’t know whether I want to join any of these as a "follower" — especially because they receive an email saying "Gavin wants to be your friend". Don’t know if I am willing to commit that far (ha ha). Enjoy!

North Queensland is deeply embedded in the Australian consciousness. It is a wide open, hot part of the country, where you can drive hundreds of kilometres between towns, a sea of sugar cane stretching away on each side of the road. I can remember as a child driving these long hot roads on the way to a summer holiday destination. I can remember being amazed at the train lines that run parallel to the roads, how they were so close, how we would along beside them, with the burning cane far off in the distance scarring the blue skies.

The population in the cane cutting areas are small, and when it comes to harvest time, new workers are required. This cane cutting season, the growers around Mackay are trying something different to attract haul out drivers from an international pool of workers. They are turning to YouTube. The YouTube video takes the theme from the Tourism Australia campaign "Where the Bloody Hell Are You" (which by the way, I disliked) … I think this one does more to tell the story of Australia.

When I first heard about Geert Desager’s experiment I wondered whether it would work. I liked the idea and I liked the title and I liked the passion behind the project, but I felt like I was still grasping for the through line … for a story that I could sink my teeth into. I suppose it didn’t help that the work was being done for Microsoft, raising my eyebrows and activating a strong in-built scepticism.

As a piece of technology marketing, this is a nice change of pace (plenty of lessons for other technology mass marketers). The story is framed as a breakup in the relationship between advertiser and consumer … and by exposing the way that we, as marketers, aggregate, segment and analyse data, it is easy to see where the disconnects between brand and consumers lie. It also provides, by comparison, a clear reason as to why "social" marketing has has such a positive adoption across the consumer landscape.

Social marketing brings brands and consumers together in a relationship in a way that harkens back to the local-shop ethos. And as markets and marketing has evolved, the one-to-one relationships that once were possible have proven to be unsustainable. Geert’s movie brings the nature of this relationship back into focus — showing that where there once was love there is now only suspicion, impatience and scant regard. So will this effort bring back the love for Microsoft? Perhaps not straight away … but at least we are talking …

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

I remember when David Armano first started talking about the circles of influence and how that spread and developed quickly into follow-on posts, presentations and so on. It was a fascinating demonstration of HOW influence actually does work. But equally interesting was the manner in which the comments came back from David’s original post and how those, in turn, influenced the evolution of his thinking.

Karl Long had left a comment explaining that the problem he had with ripples was that they disappeared. The fact that I am writing this now shows that blog ripples can last quite some time. I remember thinking at the time that there must be a more chaotic element at work and that the best of plans could easily be disrupted.

Enter Scott Monty. He has a great post on "accidental influentials" where he discusses new research by Duncan Watkins at Columbia University (check out the links to the audio — episode 29). This research is interesting because it does, in part, challenge the way that Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Points occur. Rather than social networks being activated by influential individuals, the research suggests that the activation can start anywhere and with anyone. Such a random/chaotic potential certainly appeals to me.

For brands and marketers working in social media, this has interesting implications. While the influencers will have an impact on the VELOCITY with which an idea/communication will spread, the idea does not have to be seeded or start with a particular person. So rather than seeking out the influencers, we should focus our times on ENABLING execution — providing the tools and content in an easy-to-use format that puts the brand back in the hands of consumers. In this instance, I would go so far as to suggest that Digg and its ilk are also influencers.

So then, coming back to David’s ripple diagram … influencers become more like acceleration touch points. If the message/idea is a stone skimming across the surface of the blogosphere, then it doesn’t matter where the stone comes from … but how fast it moves across the network depends on the influencers.