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.

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.

First break all the rules

I was first attracted to this book by both the title, and the fact that it was co-written by Marcus Buckingham, a proponent of the ’strengths’ philosophy that I have embraced in the work place.

This is a deck of slides I have compiled for the Alt-MBA group that has spun out of Seth Godin’s Triiibes.

UPDATE:  Slideshare selected this as a featured presentation.  Nice to know it resonated with some.

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.