Ringing the changes

I wrote this piece for Wired Temples, the blog run by Malta Media.  But I guess it fits in here – because it’s pretty much where my work and research interests currently lie.

In December 2007, I wrote a piece about how the Maltese were embracing Facebook, using comments from my online friends as the primer for the article. Fast forward two years and those twelve thousand subscribers have grown more than ten-fold, to around 120,000. Malta is right up there with the top 20 countries in terms of proportionate take up of the leading social media network.

In the past 12 months, what’s been perhaps more significant than the number of local social media users is the way people have started to use the new Web 2.0 tools to go beyond just interacting with friends. There has been an exponential growth in the number of local Facebook groups and pages promoting events, businesses and a raft of social issues and causes. In many instances, it has been a set of new voices rising above the parapet – not just on Facebook, but also on blogs, YouTube and Twitter.

We enter 2010 on the crest of an increasingly mainstream social web. In many countries, the recession has spurred consumers to adopt social technologies to become more market-savvy, improve their overall education and brand themselves better to find new jobs to replace the ones they have lost. Many corporate brands waded into social media marketing as core budgets got slashed, seeking innovation and better return on their investments in new media campaigns.

Results have been mixed, as businesses continue to struggle with two-way, interactive communication media that challenge the traditional one-way broadcasting model. The larger social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn have started to share data, raising concerns about online privacy and data ownership – but also helping consumers social experience spread from site to site, enabling them to access their friends’ opinions, and recommendations in real time. We are living in a new era of disintermediation and user-generated content, where citizen journalists are more trusted and influential than traditional broadcasters. In many US cities, newspapers have folded and people increasingly rely on the ‘read-write web’ for the most basic of information. Real-time data is now searchable by the major search engines. People produce content, connect and share with each other at an increased pace, increasingly relying on mobile devices and getting closer to the smart mobs envisaged by Howard Rheingold.

What does this mean to the way we live our lives on these islands? Particularly to the way we interact with individuals and institutions? How deep are the changes that social media appears to be triggering? Are the local rumblings online about censorship laws, politics, religion, murtali, customer service and bad restaurants the tip of the iceberg, the shape of things to come? Or will the Maltese simply end up using social media in the way Neil Postman postulated about TV all those years ago, to ‘amuse ourselves to death’on Farmville or some other online application? To what extent can social media enable an alternative model of living, working and networking for people in Malta, and contribute towards a change in power structures on the islands?

These questions are at the heart of my research. We unconsciously think of Malta as a ’special case’. We’re islanders, a law unto our own, deeply stubborn, conservative, seemingly entrenched in bi-polar, traditional, enduring power systems. You can attribute this to our size. Or to our success story – we’re survivors with an enviable ‘quality of life’ that continues to attract new tribes. We now have access to new tools that can enable the opinions of those we trust to potentially matter more than those of our traditional intermediaries – print media, TV, radio, the Church, people in traditional positions of power with corresponding real life networks and social capital.

Will the social web lead to an eventual flow of power from a small band of people in Malta to a much larger number of individuals who are web literate? Or will we just subsume what is now alternative into the mainstream or the mundane?

It’s going to be an interesting couple of years.

Reading the tea leaves

One thing you find in the rollercoaster of early research, as you start to plough through the seminal works on your reading list, are strong, entrenched positions.  Particularly in my area of interest – alternative models for social media networks.  And of course, it’s all part of  ’the process’, the 360 degree view you’re encouraged to undertake to raise your awareness of the ‘knowledge’ in your field before you start to focus on, hopefully, one day, adding your own grain of contribution over what has been assembled by others.

And early on, you become aware that the struggle for ‘open’ and ‘free’ in technology and the social web is still very much ongoing and unresolved.   Particularly the debate about content, who owns it, and whether it can be monetised.   From Google starting to limit free news access, to doubts about Google’s own role as the catalyst of openness versus the ‘evil’ Microsofts of this world.  In one corner we have content providers resigned to giving their content away in the hope that freemium model can be wrapped by advertising or paid for by a tiny fraction of readership; and in the other, content-providers trying to find some other way out.  Despite the fact that we have now already had years of benefiting from a ‘free web’ and point to point, uninterrupted communications, that have further exploded with the emergence of the social web.

I’m still sitting on the fence on this one.  Like most people, I fell in love with the Internet because it freed me from location and real-life networks and enabled me to learn from open content and connect with my various tribes, wherever they were, for the price of my ISP connection.  On the other side, as a content provider with my side-project, Malta Inside Out, I know that quality, hyper-local content does not grow on trees, costs real money and brings value to others.

At times like this, I turn to Kevin Kelly.  Described as an Internet utopian, by the self-proclaimed ‘anti-christ of Silicon Valley, Andrew Keen, Kelly is still gently trying to read the tea leaves.

Social media for the masses

I live on a tiny island.  In Malta, social networks extend to neighbours and friends of friends and migrant communities in the four corners of the globe.  And always, there has been a hunger for technology, learning and shiny electronic devices.  So when social media hit the attention bandwidth, people scrambled to Facebook.  Over 25% of the population now reportedly has an account.

And yet, mention social media in business circles and you’re likely to be met with shrugs and visible signs of suspicion and discomfort.  It’s not entirely surprising.  Like many countries, there are many vested interests in keeping the status quo intact when it comes to marketing budgets:  many of these are still spent on mainstream newspaper print, TV and radio.   PR agencies continue to play it safe and rely on ‘trusted’ networks and influencers and ’sit on the fence’ until someone forces them to do things differently.

And yet:  the new tribes of communicators, bloggers and trouble-makers are starting to quietly mobilise.  Every day sees a new Facebook page, a blog and more fumbling with Twitter.  I don’t know how long it will take – but in a micro, highly-competitive business environment, it is inevitable that decision-makers will wake up to the fact that their customers and prospects’ attention now lies elsewhere; and that they are going to need to engage with them in a totally different way using the ‘new’ tools.

This is the deck of slides I used earlier this week for a talk at Digital Arts Expo, Malta’s largest digital media event.

Rheingold on 21st century literacies

Here’s a July 2009 talk at the Reboot Britain event by the grandfather of virtual communities.  He says that we have to get beyond individual skills to  acquire 21st century literacies, and that these skills plus community are what is driving social media.  This talk focuses on: attention, participation, cooperation; critical consumption (crap detection) and network awareness.  And about the future of education.

It’s compelling to watch.

Back to school

It’s been on my mind for a while.  Like the past 15 years.

One of the things about getting older and moving to a small place, is that you gradually become the peer group.  And that’s when you can do one of two things.  Cruise into your comfort zone.  Or look at the warning signs on the dashboard of your life, and do something new.

A chance reconnection on Twitter has ended up with me registering on the PhD program at the School of Arts and New Media at Scarborough.  The provisional research area is  the ‘free’ model that underpins most social media applications.  But like most people who have gone down this journey before, I know what I’m going in with – I guess I’ll find out more during the research process.

I’d like to continue doing change management work – as a strategist, it’s where I can really make a difference.  And in Malta InsideOut, we’ve got a side project which takes a lot of time and commitment to sustain.

But I’m also going to make time to explore new connections and challenge what I think I know.

Onwards.

Yours socially

A CEO recently told me he had an inkling he needed to get his brands on ‘some of those social media things’ but that he had no idea where to start, or whether social media marketing worked.

In contrast, Andrew Alamango of Etnika fame sold out two nights of Café Brazil jazz last autumn using Facebook as the primary means of marketing the event. Historic house museum Palazzo Falson, which has been on Facebook only a month, says it ‘could not resist the irony of having an ancient house with a strong presence on the most happening social network site’. It appears that those with little or no marketing budget are more inclined to investigate, and invest time in social media channels than potentially more cash-rich businesses.

But social media is nothing new. From internet’s earliest days, we’ve had chat, forums, message boards and virtual worlds. Today, blogs, podcasts, social networks, photo- and video-sharing sites, RSS (really simple syndication) and more, all fall within its scope. We now talk to each other by posting on a Facebook wall, uploading a video on YouTube and ‘Twittering’ about our every move. Even websites’ pre-eminence is being whittled away. Search engines pick up well-tagged blogs rather than website urls. Your homepage is now wherever someone lands when they search for you.

Little of this has, until now, interested business, particularly local business in Malta. But, when Dell has a senior Vice-President Communities & Conversations, you know that social media is moving up a gear and becoming more mainstream as a business tool. Today, any entity used to mediating and controlling its publics will have to face this paradigm shift and engage in online conversations if it is to stay relevant to its audiences.

But social media for business is not without a learning curve. There are some basics to get right, if you want to join the conversations and gain.

Get closer to your clients

Social media is about understanding customer nature, and nurturing it. Consumers today prefer to read and listen to opinions about products and services from fellow consumers and their peers. If you are going to use social media, don’t interrupt their natural conversations with corporate spin and one-way marketing messages. You need to foster a valued, trusted, authentic voice to get heard in the babble.

Listen to some home truths

On social media, your customers tell it to you straight. Dell discovered from its Twitter presence that people thought its customer support centre was abysmal. It took measures to improve the service based on the customer gripes it picked up on Facebook comments. Better to know than not know.

Market cost-effectively

In a recession, social media becomes more important simply because barriers to entering it are zero. It costs nothing to set up and manage a Facebook page or to Twitter; only your time. You can monitor return on investment though, as social media has readily-available metrics. Start low-key and learn what works.

Engage with purpose

Find people who are passionate about social media within your organisation. Let your social media-savvy employees do their bit on your behalf, but as themselves. Palazzo Falson has two staff members with responsibility for its Facebook page, and, according to the curator, they are doing a great job.

Enter social media conversations wisely

Ryan Air heard disgruntled customers moaning about it on Twitter, and entered the fray publicly on the medium giving all customers a cocky brush off. Within an hour, the Ryan Air ‘Tweets’ had been pulled, probably by a senior executive who thought a junior’s hasty responses ill advised. Social media is about immediacy, but think before you post or tweet.

Don’t socialise everywhere

Your goal should be to fish where your fish are. You don’t have to touch each conversation, but you need to be having one or two, because whether your business realises or not, it’s on social media already. Your name is being bandied about as any Google search will show you.

Lastly…see your customers as your allies, not just as people to sell to. They are your real brand value, so value their online conversations about you and with you.

How to use social media to search for your tribe

I’ve recently took on an engagement to be the founding editor of a monthly technology supplement for the Sunday Times of Malta, the leading newspaper in my country.  The first edition of Technology Sunday is out tomorrow.  I’m passionate about content and all things digital and the Times is a good brand to be associated with.

My immediate challenge was to quickly find people who could a) write well  b) quickly c) with authority d) with insider local knowledge on e) a range of issues – from telecoms to gadgets to social media to the intersection of life and anything deemed digital and f) for no money!

I decided to rely exclusively on social media to search for like-minded people.  I also wanted to find people who were not professional media journalists.  Unconsciously, I was starting to look for members of a new tribe, who wanted to engage and collaborate on a project on the basis of trust and a common objective.

These are some observations I made as I assembled my writing team:

1. Start with Facebook.  If like me you do not have thousands of ‘friends’, it is fairly easy to filter down on the handful of potential writers.  Look at the way they engage online.  It’s fairly easy to sort out who can write and who can’t.
2. Continue with LinkedIn.  You can now home in on specific skills sets.  Look at how active people are in groups; see if they answer questions and help others.  LinkedIn is adding plenty of new features and groups are really getting a lot of traction.
3. Use Twitter’s own advanced features.  This post is very useful if you want a web-based application.  In my case, I used TweetDeck to monitor who was active in my space, and spent some time looking at blogs.  I also tweeted a question, asking if people were interested in joining the quest.  I started to get followers.
4. You could also use some customised applications.  This tool, called the UGC finder, for instance, is targeted at journalists.
5. I leave the obvious till last – use Google.  I guess the fact that this is last is indicative of how search is becoming more specialised, perhaps more human – where word of mouth is as important as an algorithm.   Or a reflection of how we are constantly looking for short-cuts in our time-poor lives.

I met people in my office or in cafe’s,  and held many an online conversation with writers I had never heard of.   I guess the acid test is tomorrow.  But the process has already paid off, as far as I’m concerned.  I have met some great people, learned how to generate specialist content quickly and cost-effectively and applied social media tools for a specific task.

And perhaps that is where the lesson lies – that if you are very focused on your objectives before you start to apply social media, you can get relatively quick results.  Like most things in life, it helps having a clear strategy before you dive into trying to get something done.  And that applies as much to a business, as to a 24-page technology supplement.

Everybody’s fumbling with Social Media

I’m finalising my slides for a presentation on social media for SMEs next Friday.  As I try and wade through the ’social media’ column on my TweetDeck to pick up the latest conversations on the subject, there seems to be a number of common threads:

1.  Early adopters of social media tools are up in arms on new entrants claiming to be ’social media marketers.’  The consensus seems to be that unless you update a blog regularly (for yourself and others), manage a Facebook group, and twitter regularly (for yourself and others) and (here’s the US hook) have advised some Fortune 100 company on social media marketing, you’re not really cut to be a social media marketer.  (I find this particularly amusing, as I believe social media is essential for SMEs to reach way beyond their physical and economic budgeting / marketing / logistical restrictions to connect with entirely new customer segments).

2.  Then again, large companies also apparently get it wrong.  Watch this.

3.  Evan Williams has waded in on mainstream US TV to explain how Twitter works, and why they did not take Facebook’s money.

4.  There is clearly a sense of comedy in the confusion of what Twitter is all about, seeing it defies the basic business tenet of ROI.  Jon Stewart saw a great opportunity to explain.

5.  In the meantime, more sign of the times:  some hope social media will get them a job.  Others are still in Obama mode and are focusing on how social media can create change.

My advice?

Ignore all advice.  Or take the most simple:  

1. Listen.

2. Set up.

3. Participate.

4. Engage.  

5. Network.  

6. Build Something together.

7. Repeat.

And the sting in the tail?  It’s not totally free, it’s not instant karma and yes.. you may need some help.  Business Week still nailed it.

Getting to grips with Twitter

I signed up to Twitter ages ago.  Like many people, I dipped my toes into the medium, read that Seth Godin did not use it, and ‘politely’ ignored it.

I had a major rethink about social media since we started working in earnest on our new ‘Tribes’ project.  And the penny dropped.  Twitter is really indispensable if you are interested in change, branding, marketing and connecting with like-minded people.  

The only downside I’ve found till now is that the ’signal to noise’ ratio on Twitter is high – once you immerse yourself, it is a) difficult to let go and focus on ‘real’ (paid?) work and b) you have to really sift the  ’valuable’ stuff from the mundane.  There are also ethical issues to navigate – do you follow everyone who follows you?  is the objective to gain a following or just to listen and occasionally engage?  It’s a social medium after all.  My view, till now, is to reciprocate a follow.

Here are some tools, articles and links I used as I got started with Twitter:

1. MANGING TWITTER. You cannot understand how Twitter works without TweetDeck.   Once you sign up to Twitter, download TweetDeck, start searching for a couple of topics you are interested in and just ‘listen’ to conversatons.   Here’s a useful post on how to use TweetDeck to its full potential.  If you are going to have multiple Twitter IDs, then Twhirl is indispensible. 
2. TO FOLLOW & BE FOLLOWED.  Soon, you will decide who you want to follow.  Use Mr. Tweet to help you follow the right people in your areas of interest.  And to start thinking of how you can attract potential followers.
3. USING TWITTER FOR BUSINESS.  There’s a great webinar by Hubspot on how to use Twitter for Marketing & PR.  It’s actually a great primer on how Twitterworks.  Chris Brogan has a good post on how to use Twitter for business.  Copyblogger follows suit.  Guy Kawasaki also wades in with his views on how he has made it to the top 10 of Twitter greats.
4. ENGAGING.  You have to engage.  You have to be human.  You cannot be in sales mode.  You need to be credible.  You need to add value.  @umarketing said the Five Steps of Twitter Success are : Follow, Reply, Retweet, Share, Repeat.  If you still have doubts on who to follow, read this.  Just google your specific area of interest + twitter.  Here’s an example of how lists of ‘most useful digital marketeers to follow on Twitter’ are compiled.
5. USING.  If you have a blog, you can use twitterfeed to automatically feed your post to Twitter.   Put a ‘tweet this’ button at the end of every post.  You can user Twitter to find a job, to find friends, to have a laugh, to resarch, to keep tabs on your customers, competition and markets.  Some people even think you can use it to get things done.  

There are plenty of articles and resources on how to become ’successful.’  And plenty of advice on what to say, how to present yourself.  I guess we are still at a stage where a lot of people are trying to work out how to extract maximum value out of Twitter.  

The best advice is the most obvious, from Kevin Rose, about not getting sucked into a numbers game.  Don’t work on getting more followers – work on being more useful.

And as for Seth Godin not using Twitter:  he doesn’t need to.  There are already enough people on Twitter tweeting about him, his brilliant book ‘Tribes’, and helping him build his personal brand and make invaluable connections.

Can you outsource your corporate blog?

A corporate blog is PR isn’t it?  And few companies have a problem outsourcing PR.  So why would they have a problem getting a blog written on their behalf?  After all, outsiders write sales and marketing collateral, press releases, company newsletters and a whole lot more.

But there’s a big difference in how blogs are viewed and how PR is socially accepted.   Blogs are supposed to be personal. Remember, they evolved from ‘web logs’ or web diaries.  And you can’t get more personal than that.  Which is why corporate-style speak in a blog doesn’t go down well.  

We like to know the people we’re engaging with online.   We have no problem with company blogs, so long as they are written by people not the corporate PR machine.  The corporate blog is an oxymoron.  It should be called an employee’s blog, the CIO’s personal blog and so on.  The blog has to add value, not sell or hype.  It could be for instance by techies to techies, about giving perspectives on the firm’s sector, or simply on life behind the scenes at firm x.  It can be a composite blog of several staff, or a sole voice.  Dell, for example, has key bloggers like Lionel@dell (Lionel Menchaca) who is billed as the chief blogger.  He is a personality blogger in his own right and also Dell’s main man on Twitter.  

So if we know we’re following a blog, penned quite clearly by identifiable staff, how would we feel if we found out that the blog was written not in house but by anonymous PR hires?  Well, we’d no doubt feel cheated because the spirit of the web – honesty, freedom and sharing – would have been usurped by harsh corporate realities of control, cash and time.  

But the argument for and against hiring others to pen your blog isn’t quite that clear cut.  There are several camps here: those who believe only blogs reviewing products or giving technical advice can be outsourced as there’s nothing intrinsically personal about their content; and there are those who believe more or less any blog can be outsourced, so long, and here’s the caveat, that the writer is as passionate and clearly informed as the supposed author; a heartbeat away from the client in other words.    

I have written for all sorts of companies and individuals over the past 20 years. Speeches probably come the closest to blog writing as a speechmaker always needs personal asides and anecdotes.  So I believe it is possible to ghostwrite blogs for clients if you have empathy, can draw their ideas out, know their voice, know their business and know what the blog medium demands.   

The blog is the corporate client at home; off guard, relaxed and chatty.  So long as the ghost writer understands this space and doesn’t get it muddled up with PR, sales, marketing and other forms of corporate speak, there’s every reason the blog will do just fine.  There’s nothing wrong in writing for people who just don’t have the time or the turn of phrase.  The pro-blogger can add value by letting clients get on with what they’re good at rather than wasting time starring at a blank screen waiting for inspiration.  

But is the blog deceitful if it’s ghost written?    That depends on the professionalism of the hired blogger more than the reality of the blog being ghostwritten.  A rose can smell as sweet by any other name.  So long as the ghostwriter knows how to describe the rose in the first place, the outsourced blog has its place.