Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
An intimate guide for the socially inclined
Unless the rock you’re hiding under has been blocking that Wi-fi signal you were pinching, you’ve likely heard of the latest Social Network in the fray – Plurk. And those of you not in the quarry would know its like Twitter’s friendlier sister who’s got a full featured personality. But is Plurk really a player in the big game with the likes of MySpace, Facebook and Twitter? Who are these Plurkers and should you bother with yet another social profile?
To look into just what is going on over there and find out what might make this cool tool or deadpool; we decided to talk to some People Lurkers (Plurkers).
The initial experience
There is certainly a sense that the Twitter Whale has a large role in Plurk’s initial success as is some of the ‘gee whiz’ factor that Plurk brings to the table. There was certainly no lack of Twitter references or people that had emigrated via Tweets as down-time and fluttery birds left the addiction unsatisfied. But that certainly wouldn’t explain why people stayed.
One thing common in my research was the fact that Plurk seems to enable and encourage a friendlier atmosphere and is perceived not to be as business-like as Twitter… Why? That seems to vary on items including;
- The Name
- The Timeline
- Emoticons (smileys)
- Threaded conversations
- Chat room environment (which Old Schoolers seemed to like)
- Conversation diversity
- Relaxed personal environment
This common sentiment was best put by Audrey Seiberling with;
“I see Plurk as more of a social gathering and Twitter as a professional tool.”
But this wasn’t uniquely universal as noted by Mike Wilton, whom is more an information hound than socialite;
“ …a lot of the users that I typically get my information from aren’t using it and the ones who are; aren’t using it in the same way they use Twitter. Plurk has been filled with a lot more banter than information sharing.”
In the end the most endearing aspect seems to be a personal touch that many get from it. Many people related to it much like forums and chat rooms of days gone by. For the Bloggerati out there is a great place to reach out and communicate with the user base on a more informal atmosphere. Twitter is often perceived to be a publishing atmosphere whereas Plurk offers true, cohesive interactions.
Who’s using Plurk?
While I did have limited access to the full numbers and other 3rd party sources vary, it is safe to say that much of the early adopters are definitely the geeky types and more specifically, the web development, blogging and marketing set. One of the better responses once more came from Audrey;
“I truly believe internet marketers are the beta testers for all things “trendy” on the net.” – Audrey Seiberling
We have seen some of the usual suspects like Leo LaPorte and Guy Kawasaki, as well as socialites such as Muhammad Saleem, Maki and Progblogger’s Darren Rowse. I haven’t really seen too many big name evangelists outside of Leo. There has not been corporate adoption such as we’ve witnessed with Twitter… but that could likely change should the buzz continue.
More and more as each week passes the demographics seem to be getting more toward the average web wanderer as its user base swells. Is it enough to make it a legitimate place for leveraging marketing campaigns or research? There seems to be enough inertia at this point to seriously consider it and start building a dialogue – but remember this is a more personal space and tact is likely an important tool in best utilizing the power of Plurk.
Is this business or personal?
Another area that we talked about was how Plurk was being used. While seen almost entirely as a networking tool there was also the same line of thought that it was encouraging less formal conversations. Some Plurkers also noted that they found the informal setting had allowed them to get on the radar with those they considered to be the thought leaders in their industry. Once more the lines of personal and professional seemed to meld.
Some noted aspects being;
- Blog visibility
- Forming industry relationships
- Forming friendships with like minded individuals
- Meeting new friends
- Personal support mechanism
- Access to industry whos-who
Among the respondents, Steven Bradley summed it up well;
“The people I network with are like minded individuals, but we network in a personal and conversational manner.”
One very interesting aspect is that many people gravitated to the site for networking only to find themselves in a more relaxed personal setting. This most certainly not only creates a unique identity for Plurk but also hints at what may give it wider adoption in the long run.
Another interesting side effect is that many people have also found that their other social profiles have also been growing since they started on Plurk (such as; Twitter, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed etc..). So, while not a direct goal of using the service, it has been a tool for furthering other profiles.
This persona branding was seen as well suited to this medium to some such as Samir Balwani whom added;
“If you want straight brand recognition, more people seeing your logo and name, then Twitter is the way to go. If you want people to associate your brand with a personality, Plurk is where you have to be. “
Plurk as a Traffic Driver
While most of the people that took part did own a blog, most were hard-pressed to actively promote it nor seen great traffic boons. To qualify this though, it wasn’t far from Twitter activity in that most had limited response from traffic promotion akin to what they experienced on Twitter. Most have been inching towards more active promotion of their content on Plurk in the coming months.
“If a post falls in the forest and no one’s there to read it can it go viral?” - Steven Bradley
Once more pulling the train back into personal attachment station, there was an aversion to appearing spammy and thus greater intimacy with respective follower bases seemed to be the call of the day. While those that had tried driving traffic found a greater latency effect than one might with a platform such as Twitter.
One of the better snippets that was borne from this journey was again from Audrey ‘the Quotable’;
“With Twitters unorganized layout and difficulty in following conversations, I found that many sites and posts I attempted to share were lost in the fray. With Plurk, everytime someone leaves a new response on one of my Plurks, it puts that particular Plurk in front of all of my friends and fans faces again. This helps for people who may have missed the original Plurk to still see it and visit that link.”
One can surmise that such considerations which give rise to greater reach and presence would also work great for lesser known bloggers and obviously encourage viral for more known entities.
Be warned though, there is every reason to believe that this is not a place for the broadcast style of promoter. Merely posting your latest blog post, product or service announcement detracts from the personal interaction and can as easily turn people off. Once one earns respect among followers/friends is likely the best time to start considering overt promotions or data collection.
As with many related sites, networking and forming consumer relations should be the primary goal and driving traffic a mere benefit of those relationships. This is not as much social media is it is a networking platform – understand this well.
Which way did that rabbit go?
One of the more troublesome or unique aspects to Plurk is trying to contain and track the conversations one gets in. Notably, people long for a way to hunt down favourite threads and past interactions. To a certain degree one can do so via cliques; private threads that can easily be accessed. But adoption of this wonky system is slow.
Most people though have not been utilizing them to any degree and most agree some further type of segmentation would be useful. While considered an upgrade to systems such as Twitter some consistent road blocks included;
- Building cliques non-intuitive
- No notification of Private/Clique Plurks
- Resistance to checking Private/Clique Plurks
- Instability of Clique system
One simple example that Samir noted in his lamentation of the fumbling system was;
“ ….some way to alert the user that they have private plurks even if it’s just another link, for example 6 updates | 250 responses | 7 private plurks | 100 private responses – ”
Ultimately while there are situations where grouping followers can be advantageous, it does not solve the problem of being able to track conversations with greater ease. This is certainly one area that is worth looking at for the Plurk development team.
The Crystal Ball
One of the more important areas we covered in our conversations with Plurkers was where they felt Plurk was headed. There were mixed feelings as far as where it might fit in as far as reaching maximum velocity or ultimately being a niche locale. A flash in the pan it most certainly is not; to a person, each felt there was a future for this micro-blogging schizophrenic.
In many ways, as noted, Plurk is not really a Twitter clone nor replacement. It does remain to be seen if people really have time for both in their busy lives. Beyond that there was a sense that some new features are required to really make this a true competitor to Twitter;
- search for friends by Zip Code, Area Code, Interests, etc
- SMS, IM, and API support,
- Browser add-on system
- Ability to bookmark/track Plurk threads
- Groups or rooms that anyone can join (unlike cliques)
Some good news is that the Plurk team has discussed having an API released soon and are cognisant of the potential issues;
“We will release an API, the reason why we don’t do it now is because it’s a challenge to make it scale - > and we don’t want to release something that will be a burden for the general service.” – Amix’s comment on PlurkiVerse
One does have to believe that there is the potential for the service to actually plateau short of wider adoption without some more prominent evangelists to legitimize it or features to deal with some existing roadblocks. While the personal nature of the platform and threaded replies are certainly strong points, people will usually hang out where their friends are – so adoption may be the key to its ultimate place in the social networking space.
Obviously along with this will be the ability or Plurk to scale properly without getting into the crash cycle such as we’ve seen on Twitter. Once more, there are as many differences as similarities between Plurk and Twitter and one can’t truly compare the two
The Verdict? If you’re looking for a new social space with a personal flavour you most certainly should give Plurk a try. If you’re a business or blogger looking to further nurture a following or consumer relations, then be warned this is a place where broadcast style micro-blogging without a more personal touch can easily backfire.
If you’re interested in carrying on this discussion and add some thoughts of your own; be sure to check out the newly created Collective Thoughts on Plurk.
Plurk posts to continue your journey
Plurk VS Twitter – they’re not the same, here’s why - Tamar
Plurk brings micro-forums like Twitter brought micro-blogging - Search Engine Roundtable
Teeg’s wonderful Plurk series; the 10 Minute guide to Plurk ( and Part II & Part III)
Looking for live webcasts? Check out the Plurk Calendar
To those that helped; I want to thank some of the fine folks that took time to answer a few rounds of questions from yours truly as this post wouldn’t exist without you –
Kristen Munson - Social Media Mom
Samir Balwani – Left the Box
Andy Glover - Green Eggs and Spam
Mike Wilton - Musings for a Darkened Room
Audrey Seiberling - Shirley Tipsy
Zak Nicola - Zak’s Blog
Vicky Anglin - Vicky’s Virtual Office
Steven Bradley - Van SEO Design
Also I’d love to thank all the fine folks that took the time to play in the following threads on Plurk;
What to do about this silly Karma score
Have you tried driving traffic via Plurk?
Are you a Plurk convert?
What would you like to see added?
Plurk and qualitative research
What brought you to Plurk and what keeps you there?
Informal age/occupation demographics - here and here
Posted in social media | 9 Comments »
Friday, June 27th, 2008
We all know that Avatars are important. Having an Avatar in a community means that you are planning on taking that particular Community seriously. If you are using a default Avatar in a Social Networking Community not only will they not believe you are there to take their community seriously, but they probably will never take you seriously. Having an Avatar is a way that members of a Social Networking Community can put a face to your name.
I’m a very "Visual" person. Visual people have an easier time remembering an Avatar before they remember your name. For me, I could run into the same person everyday in the supermarket and it could take me several times to remember their name, but I can guarantee you that the day after I meet them for the first time I will remember what they look like. It’s just the way it goes.
A computer is a one-way window into the very large World Wide Web. Other than getting to know us via Social Media conversation our Avatar is the tiny picture view that the community members can see us…. can get to know us. By blocking the visual window with a default avatar we become less personal, lest trustworthy, less open. Who would want to spend any time with someone like that?
But, what happens when your appearance changes? Do you update the window? Do you let the Online world know?
Last week when I cut my long hair off I began to immediately question whether my Avatar needed to be changed.
Was it really necessary? After all, my online friends & Colleagues don’t really HAVE to know.
The thought of changing my Avatar was so scary on so many levels. Other than the work involved, my fears were…
- Would my new Avatar stand out? Would I blend in with others?
- Would the Online World realize who I was? Was TheNanny612 name enough for people to recognize me?
- Would people stop clicking?
- Would people stop voting?
- And, What was it about my Original Avatar that made it stand out in the first place? Not knowing didn’t help my fears any.
My Avatar Made Me Famous
In January of this year ProBlogger wrote a post featuring me and my Avatar…. mentioning me as a "familiar face". How then can I even consider changing my avatar?
Fear!! Fear slows me down so much these days. My biggest fear about the Avatar change….
Would the Conversation Stop??!!
Heck, no!!
As a matter of fact my change of appearance was a huge topic of conversation on Plurk that day, the next day and for a couple more days after that. I heard not one negative thing about my new hairstyle. And, I received tons of support regarding the Avatar change. The conversation was huge. I knew what I needed to do… my Avatar needed to change.
My fears were normal fears. I asked the question on Plurk and not only did I have people understand my fears, but they supported the change. As a matter of fact, not one person said I shouldn’t change it. The reason for this I believe is because the picture was me. It represented the new me, the excited me, the me who was not only ready for change but excited about it.
My wonderful online friends love me. They think my avatar should be changed because it reflects me… the me right now. That’s who they want to see when I’m online. My new Avatar… The Window to Me.
So, as I am still in the middle of updating my Avatar on all the Social Networking sites I frequent, I still question whether this new Avatar I am using is the one that I will stick with. I question whether this Avatar will have the same impact that my old one did. It is possible I will change my Avatar a few more time before finding the right one. Time will tell whether this avatar is the right one. Change is scary, but at the same time… it’s exciting too. But, what my avatar is and will always be….. your Window to Me!!
Posted in social media | 21 Comments »
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Photo by Laenulfean
About a week ago I read a ProBlogger post called, "Have Blogs Killed Conventional Websites?". It was a Guest Post by Suzanne Falter-Barns. In this post Suzanne compares conventional websites to blogs as she tries to determine whether conventional websites are a dying breed.
The post brought up a lot of recent anxiety for me. I remember battling with these same thoughts about 18 months ago when I started my first blog. Up until that point all I had were static websites. It didn’t take me long after I started to blog and add in other Social Media activities to realize that I had nothing to fear from Blogs.
My answer to Suzanne’s question about whether Blogs have killed the conventional website is an emphatic, "No." Rather, due to Social Media & blogging, the standard static websites are evolving…. not dying.
I don’t think that Social Media is killing the static Websites at all. In fact, Social Media is giving static Website’s new life.
6 Basic Social Media Activities that can Give a Static Website New Life
- Opens up the Lines of Communication between Customer/Clients & Website Owner. You can do this in many ways. Such as Forums or adding a Blog to your Static Website.
- Let your Customer/Clients know via a Blog about Sales, Promotions, New items, Recalls, etc. Adding a Blog with a RSS feed to your website is a great way to let your customers and readers know about important updates.
- Adding a Blog to your Website can add new content / web pages to your site. This causes more entrances to your Website for Serps and for Viewers.
- Add Social Bookmarking buttons to your static pages and let viewers bookmark them. This can add extra traffic to your website when their social bookmarks are shared with others.
- Using Social Media can let your website compete with other websites/blogs that have larger marketing bank accounts.
- Using Photo sharing for your Product Images can bring traffic in to your website.
The list can keep on going, but my point is still the same. The Static Website is not going anywhere, but the successful ones will add Social Media.
I designed my first static website in 2001 and many, many more followed. It was in 2006 that my anxiety began to get really intense about blogging and other social media. I love security and stability and whatever was happening to the Web at that moment was freaking me out. What is a Blog? What is Social Networking? Why must I change?! But, after that initial temper tantrum I became very determined to not let my Static Websites fall to the waste side. I started researching Blogging & Social Media to see what I could do to adapt my static websites to what the web world was becoming. I wanted to learn what made a blog special compared to a static website…. what made a blog different than what I had already. Why should I feel so threatened by "The Blog".
Through that research and the year or so that followed I realized that the Blog is NOT killing the Conventional Website!! In fact, I feel that
Social Media is causing websites to evolve into so much more. So much more is being offered to the small business website. Blogging keeps the communication open with your customers and potential customers. Other Social Media activities helps get you seen and noticed. Social Media Marketing lets you market your products and services without the extreme cost of other marketing. Also, social media can make sure that your good name isn’t being tarnished. And, if it has been it can be fixed.
Plus, many Static Websites have been around for a very long time. Some search engines consider the website’s age when ranking it in its Search Engine. So, having one of these so called, dying breeds can be a very, very good thing. So, instead of morning its loss celebrate it with adding Social Media to it…. Add a Blog.
Old School Webmasters don’t you dare believe that Blogging & other Social Media is killing the Static Website. Social Media is going to take your Static Website to bigger places… that is if you will let it.
Posted in social media | 14 Comments »
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
As I was waiting with my son in his Doctor’s waiting room I started reading one of the many pamphlets that they had sitting around. I happened to pick up one of the pamphlet’s titled Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I smiled as I read it as I always felt that I was obsessed with Social Media. And, even though I haven’t been diagnosed with OCD I suppose having it might be a possibility. That possibility got me thinking… What if Social Media were a disorder?
And, the inside of the Pamphlet would read….
What is Social Media?
Social Media is the interaction of people on the Web. Unlike traditional media such as newspapers, TV, magazines, Books, Cds, and radios where there is no interaction between others… Social Media is human conversations via Internet Communities.
What are the Symptoms?
The use of, but not limited to, one or more of the following:
- Blogging
- Instant Messaging
- Participating in Forums & Message Boards
- Photo Sharing & Video Sharing
- Podcasts
- Social Networking
- Commenting on Blogs
What Causes Social Media Disorder?
The Need for:
- More Traffic
- Incoming Links
- Visability as an Expert in your Field
- Moving up in the Search Engines
- Interaction between Business Owners and Potential Customers
- Branding your Products Name / Business Name
- Passing the word around about your product or Service.
How is Social Media Diagnosed?
An Increase in one or more of the following:
- Traffic increase illustrated on Website’s Stat Counter (Visitors, Pages, Time Spent)
- Your Website being Mentioned Online
- Incoming Links / Trackbacks
- Increase in RSS Feed Subscribers
- Improvement in SERPS
- Sales Increased
- Comments Increased
Treatment
Once you have caught Social Media it is a Chronic Disorder. There is no way to rid it from your system. Unfortunately, there is no cure for Social Media. Fighting Social Media is extremely painful. The best treatment is to learn as much as you can about Social Media, so you can accept it and learn to live with it.
Posted in social media | 18 Comments »
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Anyone who knows me knows that I love Social Media. Love, Love, Love, Obsessed, Love Social Media. I’ve been very serious about Social Media and the amount of time I’ve spent doing it daily for the past 6+ months. It didn’t take me long to realize that Social Media has a lot of similarities to High School.
Popular Crowds
Every High School has their popular crowds and Social Media is no exception. Getting into the Popular Crowd can be tough, but we all have heard of the Perks of once we get accepted into it.
Clubs
We all remember Drama Club, Ski Club, Chess Club, Math Club, Wrestling Club, blah, blah, blah. Social Media has Clubs too…. Digg, Reddit, Sphinn, StumbleUpon. Some clubs are more popular than others. We might like all of them, but we don’t have the time to participate in all of them. So, we pick our favorite Clubs and participate in those Clubs the most.
The Bad Boys
Oh boy, did my School have some Bad Boys!! I’m positive all High Schools do. These were the guys who were rebels. They would push the limits. I was always fascinated with the bad boys. Sure, they made me nervous, but there was something about them that made me want to get to know them better. Social Media has the Bad Boys as well. These are bloggers that write whatever is on their mind at the time. They are not out to hurt anybody, but you can feel their emotions in every single one of their controversial posts.
Rule Breakers and Goodie-Goodies
I wish I could say that when I was in High School I was popular, but I can’t…. I was a total Goodie-Goodie. Mostly out of fear of my mother, but whatever. I was a total Nerd!! The Rule Breakers were those kids who, well, broke the rules. They smoked in the bathroom, they were always in detention, and most often they were skipping classes. Well, in Social Media we have the Rule Breakers and Goodie-Goodies too. But, in Social Media we call them Black Hats and White Hats. Social Media wouldn’t be the same without them.
Parties
High School Parties…. the closest I was ever to one was seeing them in movies. I told you…. I was a total Nerd. But, I heard High School Parties rule!! Ok, I went to High School in the 80’s. Do they still say, "Rule"? In Social Media there are Conferences. There is a Major Party going on right now, PubCon, and I’m totally missing it. Can’t blame this one on my mother, but I am totally going to get to one of these Parties, Mom!!
Peer Pressure
I don’t think I have to explain to any of you that there is a ton of Peer Pressure that teens face in High School. We have all been there. I vividly remember the amount of pressure that I was faced while I attended High School and for that reason, among others, I don’t think I would ever want to go back to High School again. Social Media has there own Peer Pressure as well. The pressure surrounding the Social Media community is a bit different, but the pressure feels the same. The Emails, Instant Messages and Shouts to Vote-up, Thumbs-up, and Submit posts are insane.
It can be intense. I’ve reached my 200 friends limit on StumbleUpon and I started to clean house. You couldn’t imagine the emails I received asking why I am no longer a friend with whoever? Are you kidding me? I only got rid of people that hadn’t produced activity in a long time or that I no longer had anything in common with. UGH!! Peer friggin Pressure!!
Gossip
Ahhh, High School Gossip… The who’s dating who, who skipped school to meet their boyfriend, who cheated on who!! Standard Gossip from all High Schools. Well, Social Media has their own gossip….. Facebook, baby!! Gotta love it!! In one day’s time on Facebook I can find out who body slammed who, who got dry humped, where someone is right now and what they are doing, and who drunk dialed who. I can get my fill of gossip and not even feel guilty for it. Well, maybe a little…. after all, I probably could be doing something much more productive. But, it’s called social networking for a reason, right?
Just as with High School we are all trying to find our spot that we fit into with Social Media. It’s a ton of fun, a bit stressful at times, the pressure can be intense, but I wouldn’t change it for the World.
Posted in social media | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
…or more importantly, the way most people seem to be going about it, including me at times.
Social Media is currently being touted as the answer to life, the universe, and everything online, but there is a lot more to it than just hitching a ride.
Lets take a look at some of the things you need to think about before you even contemplate a social media marketing strategy.
- Undefined Goals vs Specific Goals
I would regard the following as fairly undefined goals:-
- I want more customers for my business
- I want to launch this new product with a boom!
- I want more people to read my blog
- I need more links to rank higher
With social media marketing, whilst many items are difficult to determine, if you start out without specific goals, you may well be wasting resources.
Here are some ideas for more specific goals:-
- My business is mainly local, thus I need to target regional specific venues, or vertical venues that might broaden my reach locally.
- My product has a niche focus thus I will target venues frequented by media within my niche aimed at bringing in 20 media mentions in the first wave of my viral marketing campaign.
- I want Danny Sullivan, Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Robert Scoble to subscribe to my blog - obviously I need to target people in my niche - specific linkerati and influencers.
Aim for targets within your reach, thus if you don’t have a strong enough hook, don’t try to land a big fish.
- Random Activity vs Planned Method of Attack
Whilst it is possible to become a bridge between online social circles and to target multiple niches simultaneously, it is certainly a lot more time consuming to do successfully.
Defining a single core audience and becoming a thought leader in that single marketplace is ultimately a better long-term strategy than trying to become “all things to all men”.
- Random Stats vs Accountable Statistical Measures
This one is a hard one to pin down - lots of aspects of social media are extremely difficult to track accurately, especially things like RSS Subscriptions or votes on social voting buttons.
Try monitoring things like open rate in your feed stats, compared to number of comments and the number of links your receive on your blog. Surprisingly they do not always correlate.
One of my most read posts in my RSS Feed on Andybeard.eu has but 2 comments - it is actually quite recent. Conversely my discussions relating to Google’s PageRank updates in October are poor performers in my RSS stats, but bring in a lot of links and traffic.
- Random Content vs Planned Content Strategy
Plan your content strategy around your previously defined goals, not what is happening in the blogosphere. Look on discussions and events happening outside of your niches as opportunities if they are related to your goals, or can be leveraged.
- Random Encounters vs Optimized Role Management
This is more on the corporate front. When you enter social media marketing channels, there will be a need for 2-way conversation - with customers and clients, members of the press and bloggers, raving fans and detractors in the public eye.
A decision needs to be made on how you will react to different instances, preferably in advance with multiple options and a “plan B”. People do go on holiday, and things will not always go as you plan.
- Random Pathways vs Defined Traffic Funnel
Again an enigma - traffic will be coming in from multiple sources and often they will have different preferences in how they can be treated whilst visiting your website.
If you have ever done PPC advertising with multiple landing pages, think of how that can be applied to Social Media Marketing by offering a different landing page to traffic from different sources.
- Traffic vs Targeted Traffic
Ultimately you are looking for people visiting your site who have some value, though that doesn’t necessarily mean direct financial value. A popular stumbler or digg user who likes your content but would not be looking to buy from you would be a good example, or possibly potential link partners in a similar niche.
Even people visiting your site who ultimately just click away on some advertising are valuable, not just with PayPerClick advertising but things like site sponsorships. Bringing value to your site sponsors is also important in brand recognition and traffic.
- Topical Linking vs Strategic Linking
- Link to a regular reader in your niche who doesn’t get much traffic
- Link to someone in your niche who has never read your blog
- Promote someone’s niche ranking list to get included
- Included someone in your niche ranking list to get traffic
- Link to like minded dofollow blogs because you get a link from their trackbacks
Think out of the box with your linking
Use tools such as Technorati, Google Blogsearch, Techmeme & Megite to your advantage - use them strategically.
- Reporter vs News Epicentre
If there is a large conversation about a topic related to your niche, do you want to be a spoke on the wheel or the hub of conversation?
Whilst it might not initially be possible to become a source for explosive stories, it is possible to become an acknowledge filter of the conversation.
Services such as Techmeme and Megite allow you to identify hubs of conversation, and also to identify other bloggers who are also hubs of the conversation. Hubs of conversation are more likely to write followup articles on the same subject, and in general are link friendly, thus if you offer insight along with links to other sources of information, the chances of being brought into the conversation increase.
Techmeme is itself a hub, but has the disadvantage of not offering commentary, and does get criticism for not covering niche bloggers as well as a human.
- Self Orientated vs Customer Orientated
Social media is just that… social - if your motive for getting involved is purely for personal gain, you are wasting your time.
Social media site users are smart, and opinionated. If they feel they are being manipulated or gamed, they are going to call you out on it, and there can be negative ramifications.
The best way to demonstrate to future subscribers and hopefully customers why they should be reading your content, or doing business with you is to interact with them.
In some lines of work you must be prepared to “move the free line” thus you will be giving far more of yourself than you might initially receive in return.
I will be addressing each of these topics in much greater detail in future posts, but I would love to ask you which aspect of your social media marketing strategy you find most difficult to pin down?
Posted in social media | 59 Comments »
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
When I became a Webmaster in 2001 the Web was so different than it is today. Becoming successful was much easier. I started making money fairly quickly. My rules were pretty simple as a Webmaster back then.
- Create a beautiful site,
- keep up with SEO and tweak my site often,
- create fresh content.
But, what wasn’t included in my rules for success back then was personal relationship. And, for me, that is what I found was the biggest change between the original World Wide Web and Web 2.0. Yes, the above is still true. Having a beautiful website that is constantly being optimized and fresh content added often is still extremely important, but it is not enough anymore. Personal Interaction with readers and other Webmasters and Bloggers in your Business Niche is a must.
Times have changed. If I had continued down that Anti-Social path I would have lost everything I had worked so hard to create. With the evolution of the World Wide Web into Web 2.0 came Social Media. Social Media is the way we converse with others over the internet. And, all Webmasters should be adding Social Media to their Business Plan immediately.
Here are some of the ways a Webmaster who is stuck in Web 1.0 can start using Social Media.
Social Media brings back human Relationship to a standard Website. In order to be successful you need to add personal relationship to your business equation. Without adding Social Media I promise you that you will not see the true ability of your site.
Ruud Hein wrote an amazing post, “It’s
the participation economy, stupid!” In his post he points out that attention requires participation. Hein writes,
“If you’re not participating, you willingly give up mindshare and fail to influence.”
There is no room for Anti-Social on the Web today. So, if you are not a “people person” then you need to look inside yourself and figure out if this truly is what you want to do. If it is, move past it. The fact of the matter is that anyone can have a Website or be a Blogger. But, not every Webmaster or Blogger can be a Success.
There is only one Equation for success on the Web today. And, that equation includes Social Media. If you want Online Success there is no room for AntiSocial!!
Posted in social media | 19 Comments »
