#SMCQ16 On Measuring Influence

July 2, 2009

Earlier this week, the SMC Editorial Board posed the question “How do you measure influencers and/or influential social media platforms?” having wondered aloud which combination of measurement and know-how equaled influence. As the community response demonstrated, influence is equal parts quantitative and qualitative. From ‘listening platforms’ such as Radian6, eCairn and ScoutLabs which track and calculate conversation volume, page rank, comments and frequency as well as a host of other data garnered from Sales Force and CRM tools, to  good old intuition, influence is subject to the eye of the beholder. Some notes from the online response field:

“I look for the number of followers and the number of participants who add comments. Equally important is the quality of the content and the comments. They should be well-written, intelligent, supported by references to sources, focus on the positive, succinct, and not reflect a strongly biased opinion.” — James O’Connor, Owner, Clutter Control, O’Connor Communications,

“So effective, efficient messages are key.  Regularly is another.  Transparent, non-promotional communications essential.  Self-effacing humor is nice.  But the most important aspect is just to be a part of the conversation and thought stream.  One person with one comment at the exact right moment in time who we never hear from again can be a profound influencer.” —How Do You Measure Influencers,” by Bob Stewart,

@the_sophist: #SMCQ16 The act of measuriing influence, influences. Especially in the state of social consciousness. u can’t measure u can only approximate

Suggested Reading:

“How to Measure Influence Online,” Mashable, by Micah Baldwin, March 2, 2009

“Do You Know Jack About Social Media Measurement,” MetricsMan, June 15, 2009

“Is PageRank the Ultimate Measure of Online Influence?” Nine By Blue, October 8, 2008

“Social Media Metrics Superlist,” Interactive Insights Group,  by Robin Broitman, February 2nd, 2009

The SMC Editorial Board will be reviewing the responses and talking more about measuring influence, this Friday 10am PST on BlogTalk Radio Social Media Club. We welcome your participation.

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#SMCQ16 How do you measure influence?

June 28, 2009

Metrics, popularity, comment counts, network buzz or simple word-of-mouth credibility? There are a huge number of factors that go into determining the influence of a blogger or online platform, but how can you tell who or what truly influences both individual and community behavior. What does true influence even mean?  On this week’s Social Media Question of the Week call, our Editorial board discussed how we rank influence in an ever-more-vocal online environment. When do you listen and when do you tune out a blogger’s opinion or other online source of information? How do you choose and rate your sources? We want to know:

#SMCQ16 How do you measure social media influencers and/or influential online communities?

How to join the Social Media Clubs Question of the Week discussion: Our goal with the Question of the Week initiative is to create a truly collaborative conversation within and around the most up-to-the-minute issues affecting Social Media. Each week, the Social Media Club editorial board looks at trends, topics and news affecting social media during a Blogtalk Radio broadcast. During the call, the editorial board forms the question. This is where YOU come in: we’d love for you to post your thoughts on your blog, via Twitter or by commenting on the Social Media Club site. Please tag your blogs and posts with a hash tag, ‘#’, so we can track the conversation. For example, if you wrote a response to Social Media Club Question of the Week 13, please tag your post ‘#SMCQ13’ and we’ll be able to find it, track back, and link the post to the original post. Your answers will all be included in the weekly Conversation post & Blogtalk Radio broadcast review of the answers we received. We also invite you to call in to the shows to share your viewpoint. Instructions about how to call in will be given on this site by the end of each week. Thanks for joining the club!

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#SMCQ15 On truth-finding

June 25, 2009

This week’s SMCQ15: How do you know who to trust within the social media environment? was especially pertinent given the dramatic impact Social Media had amidst the election and protests in Iran.  The online conversation and direct responses we received pointed out the need for self responsibility and incorporating a journalistic standard for fact checking.

Have thoughts to share on the subject? Please tune into BlogTalkRadio this Friday, June 26 @ 10am PST as the Social Media Club Editorial Board reviews the conversation. We welcome your input.

Some notes from the online conversation:

“Is Twitter The CNN Of The New Media Generation?,” by Brian Solis, TechCrunch,  June 17, 2009

“Fact checking is a vital part of the news business and is ultimately what separates amateurs from experts. But researching fact from hearsay or even opinion is almost impossible on Twitter for most users. Keen believed that citizen media is corrupting the very institution of news media because most of the individuals publishing information using social tools, he argues in his book, are “grossly misinformed.” While Morris didn’t make the sweeping assertion that Keen expressed, his point is noteworthy and deserves further examination”

“How Not To Be A Social Media Sucker (aka who to trust online),” by Kimberly Turner, Regator, June 25, 2009

“You can guarantee fast or you can guarantee accurate, but you can’t guarantee both. We want things instantly. If a plane landed in the Hudson 30 seconds ago, we want details NOW. Fair enough. But remember, the faster you get your news, the less likely it is to have undergone a fact-checking process. Monthly magazines, for example, often have teams of fact-checkers who verify everything from the spellings of names to the color of a source’s hair if it’s mentioned. This is because monthly publications work several weeks out. There is time for due diligence.”

Iran + Twitter = Trust, But Don’t Verify, by Farel Chideya, The Huffington Post

“So, how do you verify? Well… some people say, just… don’t. It’s a cul-de-sac you can go around again and again. I am not saying don’t follow Twitter (again, that would be useless). I do want to follow Twitter, on #IranElections and all else. What I don’t want to do is give up the idea of verifying information.”

“How Do You Know What Tweets are True? Exactly the Same Way You Source Everything Else” by Sarah Delman, Corporate Memo

“Social media isn’t some separate sphere: it’s similar, in fact, to all other source building. If you don’t know who to trust, online or off, then you’re not doing your job. It’s what reporters do: they figure out who to trust before they need to. You should have built social media sources beforehand in exactly the same way you build offline sources.”

“Twitter and Social Media in Iran,” By Anthony Caruana, Hydrapinion, June 24, 2009

“solely relying on Twitter where particularly poignant or inflammatory Tweets are heavily retweeted doesn’t equate with accuracy.”

Highlights from The Twitter Stream:

@rustytanton There’s nothing in the question to imply that mainstream media or what you hear on the street is superior in any way 

@dwiggins: How different from other sources? Same question. Most folks think answers found on Google correct! Info literacy a core need here.

@znmeb posted twice on the question: I don’t think “social media” are any different regarding trust than any other communication channel”
and, noting need for self responsibility, @znmeb: #SMCQ15 fool me once, shame on you … fool me twice, shame on me :)

@ baurecom: nowadays you can’t really trust anybody. You have to thoroughly check the validity of the source b4 you broadcast it.

Further Reading

Twitter on the Barricades: Six Lessons Learned, by Naomi Cohen, New York Times, June 20, 2009

“Crisis Communications Online: Social Media Usage during a Crisis with Leysia Palen,” by Eric Schwartzman, On the Record, June 4, 2009

“Thumbs To The News: Public Turns To Twitter,” by Wendy Kaufman, NPR, April 20, 2009

“Finding Truth on the Internet,” Wired, by Louise Witt, September 4, 2004

Have thoughts to share on the subject? Please tune into BlogTalkRadio this Friday, June 26 @ 10am PST as the Social Media Club Editorial Board reviews the conversation. We welcome your input.

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#SMCQ15 Who to trust? Verifying social media information

June 21, 2009

Receiving retweeted information that doesn’t have a clear source, mail from hijacked email accounts and coming across yet another poorly fact-checked blog post represent the down side of the instant information age. How does one determine the accuracy of information found online? And how do you verify sources to ensure that you’re getting the truth, be it business, personal or political? During last Friday’s Question of the Week call, the Social Media Club Editorial Board discussed the conundrum of finding the most accurate sources of news amid a vast ocean of information. Now we want to hear from you. We welcome your thoughts on this week’s question:

#SMCQ15  How do you know who to trust within the social media environment?

Please tag your response, posts and tweets #SMCQ15.

How to join the Social Media Clubs Question of the Week discussion: Our goal with the Question of the Week initiative is to create a truly collaborative conversation within and around the most up-to-the-minute issues affecting Social Media. Each week, the Social Media Club editorial board looks at trends, topics and news affecting social media during a Blogtalk Radio broadcast. During the call, the editorial board forms the question. This is where YOU come in: we’d love for you to post your thoughts on your blog, via Twitter or by commenting on the Social Media Club site. Please tag your blogs and posts with a hash tag, ‘#’, so we can track the conversation. For example, if you wrote a response to Social Media Club Question of the Week 13, please tag your post ‘#SMCQ13’ and we’ll be able to find it, track back, and link the post to the original post. Your answers will all be included in the weekly Conversation post & Blogtalk Radio broadcast review of the answers we received. We also invite you to call in to the shows to share your viewpoint. Instructions about how to call in will be given on this site by the end of each week. Thanks for joining the club!

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Social Media Camp #IWNY Wrap-Up

June 9, 2009

Social Media Camp KickoffSocial Media Club’s Social Media Camp was a great success thanks to the over 120 people who participated! Social media Camp was held in the Roger Smith hotel last Thursday, June 4 2009 during Internet Week New York. The camp had over two dozen sessions throughout an eight hour day, with well known social media professionals, small business folks, professionals and corporate communications teams learning from and teaching each other. There has been some great feedback from those who attended and a good amount of sharing from the people at the camp too.

Some of the comments on Twitter

Differing slightly from a typical BarCamp, Social Media Camp not only offered open space for participants to create their day together, but also a “Social Media 101″ series planned out in advance to allow for those who are new to Social Media to learn some of the basics. These sessions were all streamed live and are available as an on demand episode from Livestream, a partner for Social Media Camp. This 5 session series was lead by Howard Greenstein and myself, Chris Heuer.  The links below take you to the blog post about each session, along with the SlideShare presentations used during each session.

  1. What is Social Media Session
  2. Creating a Digital Identity
  3. Social Media Tools, Services and Networks Session 
  4. Using Social Media for Job Searches Session
  5. Marketing Through Social Media Session

social-media-camp-2009-1
Image by deanmeyersnet via Flickr

Dean Meyers did some great visual notes, capturing the concepts and resources from the Social Media 101 Sessions. It was a lot of fun. More importantly, it seems we help many and created more questions in a few, so overall a success, but definitely just the beginning of the conversation and the process of learning how to use social media. The complete schedule for the day from the Open Space sessions is available on the blog.

 

Some of the other topics that were discussed were power of suggestion on Twitter, basics of strategy in social media marketing for businesses, social media tools, measurability, and marketing through social media. One session in particular struck a lot of conversation. Social Media Marketing triggered thoughts upon building relationships with the market, the importance of trust in marketing/branding and how companies are using social media to market their businesses products and services. 

“Companies in general don’t value social media marketing as much as they should. They’re afraid of it; they don’t understand it; and therefore, they just don’t do it. Yet it’s the most cost-efficient way of marketing there is.” - Ayelet Noff, Blonde 2.0.

Many different tools and tactics were taught, then they were put into play. One of the most compelling part of the sessions was the group involvement and peer to peer knowledge exchange. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and were not scared to interact with one another. Among the ideas and information exchanged, relationships were built.

“I just love social media and Web 2.0…. I really want to thank the Social Media Club folks for having such a great event: Howard Greenstein, Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells…. The last session was really interesting. The topic was retweets on Twitter. Dan Zarrella from Hubspot crunched some numbers that gave a bit of insight on how people are behaving on Twitter.” - Regina, Volunteer at SMCamp

Well, we love doing it too, and Howard and Kristie and I are blessed to be able to do this sort of work and so happy to help people.

Other blog posts and photos from the event are below, please share yours in the comments:

Social Media Camp Photos:

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Toby Moores on the Perfect Storm for Change

June 4, 2009

This is a can’t miss interview with some of the best insights on what is happening in the world right now and why this is perhaps one of the most important times to be alive. I met Toby Moores (aka sleepydog ) at Amplified 09 Cambridge in May and knew right away we were kindred spirits. In this interview he shows why, teaching me a thing or two, and you too! Hear more about how the economic crisis, the shift in management focus from efficiency to innovation and the rise of social media as an amplifier are colliding to create a perfect storm of change… This is 7 minutes well spent!

Toby Moores on the Perfect Storm for Change from Social Media Club on Vimeo.

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It takes all of us…

June 3, 2009

 

According to Ghandi, In order to bring about the change we all desire in the world, “we must be the change we want to see.”  Each individual, acting on their own accord can create change, and we can do so one person, one moment at a time, but to create the change we really need, it takes all of us, working together.

Should we wait till everyone is ready? of course not, we need to start now and be persistent in order to create a real crescendo of change that will rise up over time.  But we also need to better understand the conditions necessary and our responsibilities in the greater scheme of things.

As the infamous airline safety line goes, “put on your oxygen mask first before assisting others.”  This is so true and so deep it is hard to really comprehend the nuanced subtlety that lies beneath the surface.  I learned this the hard way, and indeed am still learning it through our work withSocial Media Club.  Far too often I ignore this important advice, sacrificing myself and my time for others and it leaves me without the all important oxygen (and dollars) needed to stay energized, positive and secure.

But what it is really saying is that we are all responsible for taking care of ourselves so that we may then assist others.  IMHO it implies that we are not only responsible for ourselves, but also for one another.  Sometimes by taking care of ourselves, we are taking care of others.  Sometimes we need help ourselves and can’t help others, but this doesnt abdicate the need for being responsible for taking actions that will help ourselves and hopefully others too.

This is perhaps the biggest ideological schism between the Republican and Democratic parties.  Though I think the modern Democratic party is more aware of the fact that this is not an either/or proposition but an AND proposition.  We are responsible for ourselves, and being supportive of others is actually to our own benefit as well.  It is one of the reasons I switched from the Republican party to being an independent some time ago. 

My mother, who had Cerebral Palsy, taught me this when I was young in a positive lift yourself up sort of way and when I was older in the negative, helpless go through life as an alcholoic sort of way.  She was an incredible woman and its hard to write these words without crying, thinking about what a beautiful soul she was and how tragic the end of her life was.  Its really hard to lift yourself up when you FEEL depressed, hurt, ignored, worthless, helpless and/or disadvantaged.  Changing your state of mind is not as easy as changing clothes, or perhaps it is, but it takes a lot of practice and a lot more awareness then most people have in their lives. But it is what is required of us, of all of us.

Striking the right balance between serving people by helping them and not teaching them a learned helplessness is really tough.  There are many wonderful people with great intentions out there helping those who need real help, and I am grateful for it - and indeed as a child, we benefitted from their generosity.  I am writing this from my direct experience as much as my ideological view of the world.  The help provided should be accompanied by a helping hand to lead people in the direction of finding their personal responsibility within the broader community.

In my mind, BarCamp is the pinnacle of the Do It Yourself (DIY) culture (and for us geekier folks, Maker Faire too).  It’s a space where everyone is responsible for creating their own good experience (the law of two feet) and where everyone is responsible for contributing to the good experience of others (all participants are encouraged to contribute as much if not more then they take).  A while back, I had been proposing we create a DIO culture (do it ourselves) which was more of a community focused variant on the theme, which better encapsultates my thinking on this subject.  

Now more then ever I am convinced that it takes all of us, responsible for ourselves, considering the welfare of the community, seeking out long term prosperity over short term profits and moving beyond the grasp of our own egoic minds and our current conditions.  The human spirit is infinite in its potential regardless of its physical constraints and conditions.  Not just on the spiritual level, but on an emotional level, a physical level and even a financial level.

We just need to be willing to give up our dreams of our life path being an easy one and embrace the fact that we will have to overcome obstacles, most especially our own internal demons.  For if we all make a commitment to doing the work necessary on ourselves first and then our communities, we can certainly create the change we seek in the world. But, it takes all of us to change the world, we have to do this together.

As Chevy Chase said long ago, “be the ball“…

 

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SMCQ12 How are companies using social media to empower their workforce

May 31, 2009

Last week, the SMC Editorial board focused on how to best provide education toward preparing for the workplace of the future. This week, we realized, much of that future workplace is happening NOW. And many companies, comprised of employees representing several different generations of the education system, are slow to embrace (or are simply having a hard time getting their arms around) social media tools. At the same time some companies are stymied by fear of the new, weariness about getting too much information or concern that the use of social media at work will cut into productivity, others can’t imagine a desktop without several browser tabs opened displaying common social media URLs.  Is there a sweet spot for using social media at work?  If so, we’d love for you to share your tips. Which leads to our Social Media Question of the week #12:

#SMCQ12 Find examples of how organizations are empowering their workforce with [using] social media?

Please tag your posts, Tweets & comments #SMCQ12. On Friday, the board will reconvene to review your responses.

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Noded! The Way We Work

May 28, 2009

This is an interview with Jaan Orvet from Noded about his book and the model behind their Noded business network. Rather than working in hierarchically driven organizations or in a distributed team, Jaan and his colleagues each work as nodes within a trusted network. Each are free to bring work in, turn work down or do what they want. In looking at preparing students for the modern workforce this week with our Social Media Club Question of the Week, I thought it important to take a look at this modern way of working. #SMCQ11

This model is very similar to what I have been doing with AdHocnium, except they have no central entity at the heart of the organization. This is small pieces, barely joined (except by trust) as opposed to our approach of pieces loosely joined. (small semantical difference, but important).

Please check them out, and check out the book if you are interested in working the Noded lifestyle too! Social Media Club members can buy the e-book for only $15.

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How Can We Use Social Media To Foster Voter Education?

May 24, 2009

Educating yourself on the various initiatives hitting our ballots today can be a daunting task as you try and  cut through the emotion and muddied language around each issue. The standard voting guides do a decent job trying to share the pros/cons of each initiative, but more times than not, I find myself asking people around me - in my online and offline network - what their opinions are, to help bring more light to what that initiative actually means TO ME and to those I care about most.

It begs the question - what else we can do with the technology of today to capture those conversations and help inform others asking the same questions?

Join California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, on Wednesday, May 27th at 7pm in San Francisco, CA for a brainstorming session where we dig into this topic in an effort to find new ways of engaging and informing voters using Social Media.

Contribute your thoughts ahead of time on socialvoter.org (use the form on the right sidebar to contribute), or you can tweet/blog your thoughts using the #socialvoter tag.

There is no fee to attend but they would like you to register so they know you are coming. Simply click ‘Attending‘ on the Facebook event. We plan to live stream the event for those who cannot participate in person. We will also be capturing some of the conversation on our SMC San Francisco Twitter account if you would like to follow along that way.

Agenda

  • 45 minutes - Feed the Wall and Feed the Participants. Get some nosh and write ideas on sticky notes on the wall
  • 5 minutes - Introduction with Debra Bowen
  • 60 minutes - Open moderated discussion
  • 10 minutes - Debra Bowen response
  • 30 minutes - Debra Bowen and group - how can we citizens help make these ideas real?

I am happy Social Media Club can play an active role in government 2.0 discussions. Earlier this month, our San Antonio chapter was asked to participate in covering the mayoral race using the Social Media tools at hand. There are several programs in the works, locally and nationally, where we will be extending this dialogue - so stay tuned!

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SMCQ11: How do we educate the younger generation to prepare for the modern workforce?

May 24, 2009

Not so long ago, Social Media didn’t register as a factor in the professional world. Fast forward to today, and social media has become a valid sector of the communications industry. Marketing, business and how we interact across and within our various personal and professional communities have undergone a huge overhaul, but whether education is keeping up is subject to debate. The Social Media Club editorial board convened last week to mull the current educational landscape for social media. How would you go about developing a curriculum to teach social media business and communications practices? And given that the field is so recent, who is qualified to teach and mentor students? Do you have any ideas on how to educate our youth? We gladly welcome your thoughts, creativity and considerations on this weeks question:

#SMCQ11 How do we educate the younger generation to be ready for the modern workforce?

Please tag your comments, posts and Tweets on the matter as #SMCQ11 and stay tuned for a report later in the week.

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A tale of two brands

May 12, 2009

Here’s an example of how two different brands are using and not using social media.

Tale One

A few weeks ago, some good friends of ours stayed several nights at the Peery Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. They parked their car with the hotel’s valet service and found out the next night that their car was stolen from the valet lot.

From that unfortunate circumstance a series of poor customer service decisions forever turned our friends off to the Peery Hotel. And because of their experience, and what has been written about it (my blog post is only one example), now hundreds of people have a poor impression of how the Peery Hotel treated this unsuspecting car theft couple.

And still, weeks after the incident, after several emails and plenty of talk online about it, the hotel has yet to respond to any criticism or offer any kind of assistance to our friends.

Tale Two

After a blog post by Chris Brogan about Socialcast I decided to give it a test drive.

Someone from Socialcast responded to my tweet about trying their service within an hour or so, offering to help answer any questions and asking me to let them know what I think. I really like what I see, by the way.

Socialcast gets social media.

Of course, I’m comparing an historic hotel in downtown Salt Lake City to a new social media service company. Let’s hope the social media company gets social media.

But there remains a powerful opportunity for older, more established brands to utilize social media tools to at least monitor what’s being said online. If they don’t, they may find themselves in the middle of a reputation crisis among those who use social media (i.e., Amazon, Motrin, Domino’s) without even knowing the discussion is occurring.

What’s your take? Do you have examples of companies who have ignored social media to their peril? How about examples of companies that get it?

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SMCQ7 Answers: Brand Control? Hah!

April 30, 2009

Last week, Social Media Club asked readers SMCQ7 In the era of social media, what do you do to control your brand?”

The answer: You don’t.

This revelation can be a blow to the best laid of plans. To whit, notice the current push by the pork industry to rebrand the swine flu epidemic. Talk about a nightmare for an industry. But whatever your product, service, or situation, a surrender of complete control in no ways means you don’t have the ability to influence and craft messages that are most accurate to what you offer.  The good news is, Social Media is perfect for this task:

“It’s not so much about brand control as it is about brand management and appropriate representation,” wrote Pete Codella who also offered some tips for going forward in his “PR & Social Media” blog post: “…once you’ve had your come to Jesus moment — realizing you’re not really in control of your brand — what do you do about it? You become a master at using new social media tools to publish your own content which then competes in the marketplace of ideas for mindshare. The more creative, authentic and entertaining your content, the greater your chances of popularity.”

Justan Kownaki concurred: “No one controls their brand, but social media allows you better manage your brand’s perception in real time. More importantly, it helps you understand what others are saying about you (and why), so you can identify any disconnect between what YOU think your brand stands for and what OTHERS think your brand stands for.”

@mattceni: You can control your product, your service  Then your customers will carry your message

Of course, social media will reveal other truths as Joellyn Detjen reminded us:

@JoellynDetjen: Social media rewards integrity, exposes moral faults. Control of brand is then a result of a company’s inner values.

The sum? Give up control, welcome creativity, and collaboration …and be prepared to revise!

On Friday, the SMC Editorial Board will reconvene on BlogTalk Radio 8am PST to talk further about the results. Tune in, & give us a call. We’d love to hear your opinion.

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SMCQ6 It’s All About Relationship

April 23, 2009

Despite Ashton, despite Oprah, and despite the countless other Twitter & social site users vying to increase their followers or otherwise inflate their friend numbers, the quality of that connection is the reason for many peoples participation in social media. At least going by views expressed by our SMCQ6 respondents. While TechCrunch pondered whether Twitter should simply remove its counts, SMC readers answered our Question of the Week #6: Is social media a popularity contest or is social media about genuine relationships? on the genuine side of the equation with a resounding wave of relationship-driven answers The common opinion? Past a certain number of followers, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to maintain a real connection — the platform shifts to broadcast mode rather than conversation.

Highlights from the discussion:

“I think the game-changing reality of social media is that genuine and authentic will be the victorious tortoise over the hare of popularity. Doing the right thing by your customers (and making it right when you don’t–even more important since nobody’s perfect) is no longer a “nice-to-have” for success–it is a defining prerequisite.” — Jay Cosnett

“Making relationships still involves an investment of time, effort, knowledge-sharing, reaching out, etc.” —Erika  Kerekes

@gloriabell: SM is about relationships & conversations - celebrity is fleeting - Relationships influence & last

debmarkham: U want to be popular to make $. You want to forge relationships to find like minds, emotional support & make $ too

iMWConnect: #SMCQ6 intent is the real driver. SocMedia w/ right intentions leads 2 genuine rels = good fruit. Popularity is fleeting = rotting fruit.
Will these sentiments affect the many contests to a million followers (or five million as Jeff Pulver blogged this week regarding the next number for which to vie) that are defining a new form of competition?
Those who mulled the other side of the equation are already thinking about it:

“I think that most of us in Social Media actually reach a point of negative returns. The more “valuable” our message, the more followers we get, in theory. Yet, the more followers we get, the less likely that we can maintain relationships with our audience. It’s inevitable that we end up going to a broadcast model.’ — Shain Mate

apups25: @socialmediaclub it’s about FAST information about anything you want, including people

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SMCQ: Accuracy in Blogging

April 16, 2009

@davegray: we’are all #journalists now & we’re all accountable 4 understanding media & using it responsibly.

I’m happy to report SMC readers have standards! Responding with a resounding wave of ‘yeses,’ in answer to our question of the week regarding the responsibility of bloggers to get their facts right, online media participants proved their commitment both to quality information as well as deep thinking about the nature of influence and the oft-malleable definition of ‘integrity.’ Do check the original post for a lively comment thread. Below is a summary of some of our favorite responses throughout the blogosphere.

SMC Board Member and former print journalist Kimberly Regator wrote a compelling post on the top at her Regator Blog.

“Regardless of your topic or where you fall on the highbrow/lowbrow scale, I believe that someone creating a publication for public consumption—and that includes blogs—should make decisions with their readers’ best interests in mind. That is the key,” she writes, comparing her former fact-checking process at magazines and how this process applies to the  blogosphere, she offers up some invaluable tips on writing it right.

Likewise, Kenneth at The Letter Two concurred with Kimberly about taking cues from journalists…but threw in a word of caution:

“Bloggers should have journalistic integrity and offer up some sound truth with supporting evidence to back up. …. Regardless of whether they have evidence, research, or other data to back up their claims and no matter what the content is, if you read what they write, take it with a grain of salt. It doesn’t matter what the topic or who it is. You are your own person and bloggers should just give you different perspectives.”

And a bit more from the Twitterverse:

@johnrhopkins: Bloggers and anyone who portrays themselves as providing the facts do have a responsibility to get them right. TheOnion gets a pass

randalltodd: @robvallejos Yes. Bloggers should be responsible to the facts. Those that are not fact-based should be dumped in the compost bin.

@amorris_wfed: Re: To be trusted & taken seriously, have facts straight b4 posting. Social media is a new broadcast tool, like TV/radio
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@jpgardner: ANYBODY needs to be responsible w/ the facts if they want to be taken seriously. You can be honest & still be provocative 
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